Work Life Balance

As some of you might no, I have been recently hunting for jobs. From the many opportunities that arose from that search one was with a BIG consulting firm. As one would imagine, my parents were excited and they wanted me to take the job...after all it was a huge name and also paid well, what more could i be asking for??!!

Surprisingly I wasnt overly excited about working there. I couldnt put my finger on it, I just wasn't a 100% comfortable with selling my soul to the corporate world so to speak. I said no and the oppertunity soon slipped away.

I saw this video last night, and now more than ever I am sure what i did was the right thing. Watch Nigel Marsh explain how important work life balance is to be left in the hands of your employer.

Misfit Mutatoes

In 1997, Apple came out with this commercial tittled "Crazy ones". It essentially featured black and white footage of  histories greats like Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan etc and had this commentary in the background 

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Uli Westphal, a german photographer is trying to find the misfits in the plant world. And  pictured below is a snapshot of his work.

 Mutatoes: A collection of non-standard fruits, roots and vegetables serves to document and archive these last survivors of biological variety. 

The complete absence of botanical anomalies in our supermarkets has caused us to regard the consistency of produce presented there as natural. Produce has become a highly designed, monotonous product. We have forgotten, and in many cases never experienced, the way fruits, roots, and vegetables can actually look (and taste). The Mutato-Project by Uli Westphal serves to document, preserve and promote these last remainders of agricultural diversity.

Happiness = Creativity

For those of you who don't know, I just graduated with a Master's degree in Technology and Innovation Management from the University of Queensland. Now, as exciting as it is to be a graduate...it is also the beginning of a period where one has to find/create a job for oneself.

In the few weeks that have passed since my awesome graduation ceremony ( In my head it compred to the Oscar Awards), I have been talking to people and trying to figure out what I should really be doing with my life. This was because i potentially had 3 different fields I could be working in, and I wanted to choose the right one, for the right reasons.

Now, my game plan was to talk to people who looked happy in their jobs and figure out how they reached the decision of - " this is what i really want to do with my life" !! From the little bit of talking that I did, i met a girl who finished her PhD in neuroscience and is now gone to persue nursing ( coz that's what she really wants to do), a young man who dropped being an executive at Woolworths to be a lecturer at Uni ( coz that's he really wanted to do) and a 50 year old man who was happy driving trucks because he was happy to do just that.

It seemed that happiness was a large factor in their decisions. All of them echoed that they were more creative and ready to do as much work as possible BECAUSE they loved every minute of what they was doing.

And then, I chanced upon this video:

What is being creative? from Kristian Ulrich Larsen on Vimeo.


Once you get over how cool the phone is from the video, the things they say in the end, answers all my questions about what i should pursue in order to be the most creative person i can be.

It says:
-Creativity is happiness
-Creativity is trying new things and then failing
- It is about not following the beaten path
-And most importantly it is about taking the risk and following your heart.

So here is to taking that risk and pursuing a career on a path that is "not-often-taken"

Everything we see is a remix

It has been a while since i posted on this space and i apologise for the hiatus. With the great biblical floods/cyclone, i haven't had the time to explore the wild wild web for interesting tidbits. 


But now that life has slowly gone back to normal and I have all the time in the world i give you this video...which is very very interesting:



Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.


It forces me to question, are innovations we see today a remix of different things?? For example Velcro - the idea was inspired in 1941 when a swiss engineer looked under a microscope to find out why burr seeds stuck so well to the fur of his dog.

 Have you noticed how jet engines have a point in the middle to improve airflow?

Ramjet Engine

I’ve been told that the idea for controllinng engine turbulence at high speed came from an ingenious solution from the Peregrine Falcon, which can dive at speeds of around 300 kph. If you look carefully at its nose you will see little baffles that streamline the air intake at high speeds.

So i guess the real question is how creative are we really?? Or is creativity essentially the ability to remix influences into something new yet familiar??