To know what you think, be alone with your thoughts

I'm still digesting this wonderful lecture to West Point plebes from essayist William Deresiewicz, who quotes from Heart of Darkness to make a point about the important and neglected value of solitude. If you want others to follow you, be alone with your thoughts.

What can solitude have to do with leadership? Solitude means being alone, and leadership necessitates the presence of others—the people you’re leading. When we think about leadership in American history we are likely to think of Washington, at the head of an army, or Lincoln, at the head of a nation, or King, at the head of a movement—people with multitudes behind them, looking to them for direction. And when we think of solitude, we are apt to think of Thoreau, a man alone in the woods, keeping a journal and communing with nature in silence.

When you're done with that, read this.

Wayne

In "Many Worlds," you'll read this

In this five-part BBC series on the pursuit of a "theory of everything," a number of new concepts are introduced that attempt to bridge the gap between what we know of the vanishingly small and paradoxical nature of the quantum world, and what we know of the cosmic-sized structures of the universe, which are ruled by Newton's deterministic laws.

At IdeaFestival 2011, Suketu Bhavsar, professor of astrophysics at Cal Poly Pomona, will talk about the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics.

"Many worlds" resolves the paradoxes of quantum mechanics by suggesting that the single material outcomes that you or I observe from the interaction of matter at tiniest scales is but one outcome of many that occur in an infinite number of branching, alternate futures.

Think of it this way. If you have read this far without watching this video, somewhere a version of you will click the video play button, another will reach for that second cup of coffee and yet another will think, I really should get to the IdeaFestival this year.

Buy your all-access pass to hear Dr. Bhavsar, or I'll have to explain the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Nobody in any universe wants that.

Wayne

Richard Branson should endorse the IdeaFestival

Having just used Steve Jobs to make a point below about promoting creativity in business, I ran across this piece from Richard Branson, another iconic and successful entrepreneur, who describes how his successful organization targets new opportunity by putting "a priority on... remaining open to new ideas." Give it a read, but first check out this paragraph:

Our choices were not random or merely reactive, but guided by our decision to take an entrepreneurial approach to expansion. Instead of pushing our teams to do ever more intensive analysis to pick our next venture – which can slow the whole business down – I set a priority on our remaining open to new ideas. It is one of the reasons that I always urge people to pursue their own interests outside work and to take regular vacations. Exercising your creativity in other settings isn’t just relaxing; you’ll stay informed about developments in other fields and connect with a wider circle of people than you might encounter at work. Keeping your thinking fresh and original makes good business sense!

Staying "informed about developments in other fields" to "keep your thinking fresh and original" because "it makes good business sense?" OK, so Richard Branson didn't endorse the IdeaFestival. But Sir Richard, please! Don't be a tease.

We're ready when you are.

Check out this video of one those ventures shot from the window of a Virgin America flight.

Wayne

Cutting the crap

If the key to wisdom is "knowing what to overlook," as the philosopher William James said, the corollary in professional work, particularly creative professional work, is knowing that most of your work sucks.

Photographer A.J. Kessler:

If your goal is to produce outstanding work, in any field, recognize that most of what you produce is going to suck.  To get from 'suck' to 'awesome' takes a huge amount of effort and skill.  If you’re a landscape/wedding/street/bird/extreme-sports photographer, you’re chances of producing great work in any one of these areas is pretty slim, and the odds of producing great work in all five is almost nil. If you’re a software company that’s trying to cram in every last feature possible, maybe you would be better served by making a few key features outstanding.

Having grown from a fading also-ran in its own industry to the world's second most valuable company, Apple has executed an incredible turnaround on the strength of one category-busting device after another. Yet when he came back to the company, Steve Jobs pared the product line from 350 to just 10.

Not everyone is a Jobs when it comes to an eye for industrial design. And in any case, chances are that that person isn't the CEO. But here's the problem. While one will encounter very few that will argue against the value of creativity, Adam Hartung at Forbes cites studies drawn from business that show a gap between knowing and doing in the business world.

While 1,500 CEOs say that creativity is the single most important quality for success today – and studies bear out the greater success of creative, innovative leaders – the study found that when it came to hiring and promoting practices businesses consistently marked down the creative managers and bypassed them, selecting less creative types!

So forget the accomplishments and recent history for a moment. Could Steve Jobs find a job today?

In the photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee above, Steve Wozniak displays a first generation iPhone at the 2007 IdeaFestival. The phone was not hurt in the wrestling match that ensued.

Wayne

Kiss and tell

What are our lips telling us?

Recently back from TED Global in Scotland, Sheril Kirshenbaum, biologist, science journalist and author of the "Science of Kissing: What our lips are telling us," will participate in IdeaFestival 2011.

Sheril recently described why she was interested in the IdeaFestival in her aptly named blog, "Convergence," at Wired, saying it brought together "science, the arts, business, design, technology, education, medicine and more." Check out and then come back.

The lowest priced all-access passes are now on sale for a limited time only.

Wayne