We talk a lot in the arts about being “accessible” — which tends to mean open and available to many different people. The assumption (and often the experience) is that a lot of artistic work is difficult to approach and challenging to engage, whether in the content itself, or in the places and practices we […]
Archives for 2017
More productive, less destructive
One of my favorite moments in any planning or strategy meeting is when someone looks suddenly resolute, and says something like: “You know what the problem is? The problem is that we don’t have a system to [do or decide or develop the thing we’re talking about].”
The Conflation Index
When faced with stress or dramatic change in our environment, we humans have a tendency to conflate things in our thinking — to bundle two or more separate ideas or issues or observations into one. It’s a coping response when the universe around us gets more complex or shifts faster than we can process.
What to stand for
I haven’t been able to assemble many words since November, so I’m grateful for those who have. On the one hand, thoughtful rhetoric and reasoned language seem increasingly discounted and disdained as core values. On the other, talk seems empty when focused and persistent action is so clearly required.
