In order to live a creative life, it is important to have a felt sense of our interdependence with the world around us. As living organisms we depend upon other living organisms to fuel our own metabolic functions and, by extension, our creativity. In this video from Chipotle restaurants, a chain that began in my […]
The Prolific Creativity of the Lightning in a Bottle Festival
Next week, my wife, daughter, and I will be heading down to enjoy and participate in the Lightning in a Bottle Festival, a remarkable spin off of the great mother of all festivals, Burning Man. There, I will be leading a workshop called, “Five Essentials of Designing and Building Sacred Space,” a workshop that I’ve […]
Creativity, Burning Man, and the Evolution of Consciousness
Here is a short video directed by Ian MacKenzie http://ianmack.com looking at the significance of Burning Man and the evolution of consciousness. You can also catch glimpses of the unyielding and prolific creativity for which the festival is famous. The Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada began in the 1980s on Baker Beach […]
Wisdom and Creativity in Business: I’m Enjoying Being the Speaker Liaison at the Wisdom 2.0 Business Conference
Wisdom and Creativity in Business: I’m Enjoying Being the Speaker Liaison at the Wisdom 2.0 Business Conference Today I have the honor of being the Speaker Liaison at the first Wisdom 2.0 Business conference at the historic Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco. The Wisdom 2.0 Tech Conference is well known in the region as […]
Co-Designing and Creativity: Developers and Users Team Up to Create Better Products
When it comes to creativity and innovation, inferior products are those that fail to meet the aesthetic and functional needs of the user. On the other hand, superior products have a deep understanding of the user’s need built right into the product. In this article Catalina Naranjo-Bock explores how research teams are interacting and inviting their […]
Creativity and Nonduality: The Self and the Built Environment
Here is another abstract that my co-host of the Conscious Design Build talks, Hristiyan Atanasov, and I submitted to the 2012 Science and Nonduality Conference: It has been estimated that the construction and operation of buildings consumes over a third of the world’s energy consumption and 40% of all the mined resources. Furthermore, the built […]
Creativity and the Golden Rule
The Golden Rule, which states “do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” is a powerful statement and a good guideline for how to treat others in the world. But when it comes to creativity, its message is subtly limiting, for it asks us to focus on how we would like to […]
Creativity and the Luminous Aesthetic of Photographer, Jonathan Mandel
For quite some time, I had been in need of some head shots. Since I work both as an architectural designer and as a creativity expert, I did not want something that was run of the mill. I wanted something that conveyed the dynamic, interdependent, deeply mysterious nature of creativity that I attempt to illicit […]
Creativity and Relationship: The Dynamic Creative Journey of John Lennon & Paul McCartney
One of the core components of creativity is interdependence, a felt sense of connection with the places we inhabit, the activities we engage in, and in this case, our relationships with others. Here is an excerpt from an interview on NPR’s To the Best of Our Knowledge of Joshua Wolf Shenk on Lennon and McCartney […]
What does it look like to have a truly creative and innovative economy?
China has had incredible economic growth in recent years. But is growth in industry and manufacturing a sign of creativity and innovation? According to Richard Florida, author of “Why China lags in Innovation and Creativity”, the answer is an emphatic “no.” All you highly productive folks out there take note: there is a big difference […]