The Leadership Challenge

1. Model the way
2. Inspire a shared vision
3. Challenge the process
4. Enable others to act
5. Encourage the heart

By Kouses & Posner

Hey there Delilah

Hey there Delilah
What's it like in New York City?
I'm a thousand miles away
But girl, tonight you look so pretty
Yes you do
Times Square can't shine as bright as you
I swear it's true

Hey there Delilah
Don't you worry about the distance
I'm right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
Close your eyes
Listen to my voice, it's my disguise
I'm by your side

Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
What you do to me

Hey there Delilah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me, girl
Someday I'll pay the bills with this guitar
We'll have it good
We'll have the life we knew we would
My word is good

Hey there Delilah
I've got so much left to say
If every simple song I wrote to you
Would take your breath away
I'd write it all
Even more in love with me you'd fall
We'd have it all

Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me

A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
and we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way
Delilah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you're to blame

Hey there Delilah
You be good and don't you miss me
Two more years and you'll be done with school
And I'll be making history like I do
You'll know it's all because of you
We can do whatever we want to
Hey there Delilah here's to you
This one's for you

Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
Oh it's what you do to me
What you do to me.

~Plain White T's

"Failing and Falling"

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was old enough to know better. But anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back through the hot stony field after swimming, the sea light behind her and the huge sky on the other side of that. Listened to her while we ate lunch. How can they say the marriage failed? Like the people who came back from Provence (when it was Provence) and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Jack Gilbert

please see my lovelies

antiflutter meets ditikotecha

(no images on this post: designyatra2008)

There were a great many dutch designers this year at design yatra, both good and bad. Their design is fresh and witty, although the lack of cultural variety was felt towards the end of the three days.

*****Paula Scher, Pentagram
Her philosophy is simple, and it stole the show; especially since the audience was filled with a number of heart-e designers.
Specializing in type, Paula seemed like the Madonna of design - as diverse, versatile, creative, and uninhibited. Although they work with mostly small and medium size companies, Paula also spoke about the Citigroup identity, where the logo was designed at the initial meeting, but it took 1.5 years for the group to sign off on it.

You'll need browse through their website to get the full feel of their work, especially look out for the type.

<>Richard Bullock, 180 Amsterdam
I don't think this guy spoke.

**Paul Belford, This is Real Art
The most strange name for a company, their work is pretty interesting. Paul mainly touched upon the perspectives of design and advertising and advertising and design through two interesting videos
(for veena) Paul Rand
(for for) Helmut Krone (video unavailable, but it was really nice)

***Eric Scott, Saffron
Not dwelling too much into the Indian Connection with the name Saffron, Eric is an unassuming man with great presentation skills.

****Tirso Frances, Dietwee
He was a cutee. I couldn't find an English version of their website, so we'll just have to make do with this one. Look out for the annual reports.

****Kenya Hara, Nippon Design Cetner
The only speaker to hold 20 sheets and read from it presenting this amazing work, my heart really went out to Kenya-san. He presented on not things that are there, but things that happen: haptic, senseware, emptiness. Inspirational work.

*****Erik Kessels, KesselsKramer
I loved his humor, especially with the Hans Brinker hotel campaign.
- http://www.adverbox.com/hans-brinker-budget-hotel-2/
- http://www.adverbox.com/hans-brinker-budget-hotel-3/

I didn't find their website, but I highly recommend their 2 Kilo book
They also have an interesting series of books called "In almost every picture."
They pick up abandoned photographs from flea markets (the owners are usually dead) and tell a story of sweet lives -- http://www.kesselskramerpublishing.com/ -- Go to Catalouge.

****Nicolas Roope, Poke
See the neverending website for Orange
See Warholizer

(See Also Simpsonize me)

*****Tyler Brule, Monoocle and Winkreative
The first speaker at the event, I liked him.
His work speaks for himself. Explore all.

****Patrick Burgoyne, Creative Review
The last speaker of the event, he spoke about the main theme, "Convergence":
convergence of language (e.g., http://nickasbury.com/corpoetics.html), convergence of style (logolounge.com). He also spoke about the fluidity of design and the relationship between author and audience, brand and consumer.
(Also see God's Eye View)

****Jeroen Van Erp, Fabrique
Again couldn't find an English website, but I liked their work too.
He spoke mainly about thinking and doing, and how in design there are endless opportunities and endless possibilities. The sweetest story he told was about this complicated remote (much like all the remotes we use). So his dad is getting a bit old, and a bit blind, and kept getting confused with all the different options on the modern day remote control. What his mom did was scotch tape out all the buttons except for the main numbers, channel up and down, volume, and power. The point being with so much focus on usability, simplicity should be a big part of it.
(See Stephan Sagmeister, Raymond Lowey, Marc Newson, Wat Was Waar)

Among the Indian designers, we had:
*Ashish & Ashwini, Elephant Design
Terrible presentation, too terrible to look at the work. They repeated the word "convergence" 300 times in the presentation, and didn't showcase their work enough as make it an HR initiative to recruit talent.

**Preeti Vyas, Vyas Giannetti Creative
Ok. Not too inspiring. She did say she was a middle child (note to pass on to Rebecca)

***Harsh Purohit, Cognito
He spoke about "sustainability". Overall made the point by showing some nice videos (like George Carlin's Saving the Planet), but his start lacked context

(I really recommend the above designers visit presentationzen.com to understand the impact of design in presentation as well.)

*****Rajesh Dahiya, CoDesign
Inspiring work and presentation. True and solid guy. Parag even gave him a standing ovation.

Observations, quotes, notes, and to-do's

• Most gripping presentations were those with a story, and a personal beginning
• There is no convention in design, no guidelines, no rules (just space, colour, and type)
• Learn more about Japanese design
• New is not doing something new that everyone is doing, but in creating or inventing something new
• Try and collect all the doodles drawn during designyatra (or tell kyoorius
• Take a series of ear lobes
• Take a series of people peeing (face shots)
• Open a chain of hotels across India, called "Budget"
• 4 Ps of sustainability: profit, protest, policy, preservation
• The planet is fine, the people are fucked
• Teach India article usage (veena?)
• Integrate story telling into work
• Google should give up on Picassa
• Scientists are designers too
• Get into Science Education in a big way within the next five years
• Design: makes strategy tangible, makes stories visible, creates meaning, creates interactions, evokes emotion
  
• Designers are: futurists, concept thinkers, philosophers, entrepreneurs, business creators, networkers

"Hell"

The second-hardest thing I have to do is not be longing's slave.

Hell is that. Hell is that, others, having a job, and not having a job. Hell is thinking continually of those who were truly great.

Hell is the moment you realize that you were ignorant of the fact, when it was true, that you were not yet ruined by desire.

The kind of music I want to continue hearing after I am dead is the kind that makes me think I will be capable of hearing it then.

There is music in Hell. Wind of desolation! It blows past the egg-eyed statues. The canopic jars are full of secrets.

The wind blows through me. I open my mouth to speak.

I recite the list of people I have copulated with. It does not take long. I say the names of my imaginary children. I call out four-syllable words beginning with B. This is how I stay alive.

Beelzebub. Brachiosaur. Bubble-headed. I don't know how I stay alive. What I do know is that there is a light, far above us, that goes out when we die,

and that in Hell there is a gray tulip that grows without any sun. It reminds me of everything I failed at,

and I water it carefully. It is all I have to remind me of you.

Sarah Manguso

Raphael Alejandro D'Souza (name subject to change)

there on september eight
with six point one seven pounds of weight
a little red, a little brown
all smiles, and no frown
came raphael alejandro d'souza
the new boy in town

(congratulations ash&len)

"Gravity"

Today I am fragile
pale
twitching
insane and full of purpose.

I'm thinking of my lover:
my soft hips pressing his coarse belly,
my tongue on a salmon nipple,
his hand buried in my thick orange hair
the telephone ringing.

I'm thinking we tend our illnesses
as if they are our children:
fevered
screaming
demanding attention and twenty dollar bills,
hours we could have spent making love with the television on.

Faith is a series of calculations
made by an idiot savant.
I'm in love.
I'm alone
in this city of painted boxes
stacked like alphabet blocks
spelling nothing.

There are things I know:
trees don't sing
birds don't sprout leaves
roses bloom because that's what roses do,
whether we write poems for them
or not.

I concentrate on small things:
ivy threaded through chain link,
giveaway kittens huddled in a soggy cardboard box,
a fat man blowing a harmonica
through a beard of rusty wires
brown birds chattering furiously on power lines.

I try not to think about
lung cancer, AIDS,
the chemicals in the rain;
things I can't imagine any more than
a color I've never seen.

My heart is graffiti on the side of a subway train,
a shadow on the wall made by a child.
Nothing has been fair since my first skinned knee

I believe death
must be.

I cling to love as if it were an answer.
I go on buying eggs and bread,
boots and corsets,
knowing I'll burn out before the sun.

I'm thinking of
the days I tried to stay awake
while the billboards and TV ads
for condoms, microwave brownies, and dietetic jello
lulled me to sleep.

A brown-eyed girl once told me a secret
that should have blown this city
into a mass of unconnected atoms
Our sewage is piped to the sea.
Beggars in the street
are hated for having the nerve
to die in public.

Charity requires paperwork,
Relief requires medication

as if we were the afterthoughts of institutions
greater than our rage.

Gravity chains us to the asphalt with such grace
we think it is kind.

We all go on buying lottery tickets
Diet Coke and toothpaste
as if the sky over our heads
were the roof of a guilded cage.

We provide evidence that we were here:

initials cut into cracked vinyl bus seats,
into trees growing from squares
of concrete,
a name left on a stone, an office building,
a flower, a disease, a museum,
a child.
Tonight the stars glitter like rhinestones
on a black suede glove.

In the coffin my room has become,
I talk to God
about the infrequency of rain
about people who can't see the current gentleness
running under the pale crust of my skin.

I tell him under
the jackhammer crack, the diesel truck rumble,
even the clicking sound traffic lights make
switching from yellow to red,
there is a silence
swallowing
every song,
conversation,
every whisper made beside graves
or in the twisted white sheets of love.

I tell him I can't fill it
with dark wine, blue pills,
a pink candle lit at the altar
the lover
touching my hair.
God doesn't answer.
God doesn't know our names.

He's only the architect
designing the places we occupy
like high rise offices or ant hills

I know this
the way I know
sunrise and sunset
are caused by the endless turning
of the Earth.

Maura O'Connor

"loop"

i noticed today
that i keep looping
it's either the middle
or a loop
never a complete circle
or the end of a line
it's either the middle
or a loop