Headline: Playing video games makes you more creative, according to Michigan State University. Where’s my controller? http://t.co/jcjkHzVU
"You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious…"
You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea” then of course they can go off and make it happen.
And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.
Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.
”- Steve Jobs: The parable of the stones - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech (via ninakix)
"The pessimist complains about the wind; The optimist expects it to change; The realist adjusts the sails." William A. Ward
On the way back, stopped in Foyles. Buying books online has eroded my in-store self control. If it wasn’t for the Amazon app…
Caving, high ropes, poems and tears. Some truly moving moments, real challenges met and surpassed. Those teachers can write… (when nudged)
Spent the past two days helping 20 primary school teachers to write at an outdoor activity residential centre in Witham.
Anyone know of any performance workshops for authors that I can pass on recommendations for? Holler.
Reading Blue Coats year 9 slam yesterday – some fantastic poems came through. Many thanks to the judges for staying sharp throughout!
An hour or two to recover from three days of 5am starts and long days, before I head off to run a weekend residential in Wickham Bishops…
Saw On Site at the @barbicancentre last night. If you can, you must. Inspiring work: urban, site-specific narrative. http://t.co/ENpYXjAx
Wonder how long it will take me to memorise all of the poems in the book?
First lesson of the day down. Reading and Q&A on poems from ‘Breaking Silence’ with year 11. Nice observations…
Blog post drafted and posted, 5 minutes before class begins. Now, where’s that workshop plan? http://t.co/HU0dLyN3
…one less application to master. In the spirit of Bruce Lee’s "a punch is just a punch" quote, a list is just a list. http://t.co/HU0dLyN3
"In short, the path to mastery is to integrate what you learn so that it becomes as much a part of…"
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Shutterfinger: A Punch Is Just a Punch
This resonates particularly this morning, when I’m thinking about GTD and productivity systems - I’ve been flirting with Omnifocus for a few days, which isn’t enough to do it justice I know, but I’m already back to lists and project definitions in plain text files with a nod to Notational Velocity on the iMac, Writeroom on the iPad and PlainText on the iPhone - three different windows for the same set of data, via Dropbox - with a little support from iCal Reminders for date and/or location related tasks. While Omnifocus has a lot to offer, the infamous learning curve is no joke, and I feel that I’d have to dedicate some serious time to get the best out of it. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem (define:geek) but when it comes to getting things done, the system I use to get things done shouldn’t have to be an onerous project in itself. In the end, a list is just a list. But of course, the idea extends to mastery in the widest sense, be it mastery of productivity, photography or poetry…
That’s no slight to Omnifocus, by the way. Plain text just makes more sense to me right now.
