An excellent cartoon by Stuart McMillen: www.recombinatrecords.com

by Stuart McMillen. December 2009. I liked school I liked learning ideas that I would never have taught myself. I liked being put in situations designed simply to challenge me. I even liked being thrown into the grading process. But my school days are over and the assignments have [...]

 I’ve heard this story many times and always liked it.
 A wise farmer owned a beautiful mare which was praised far and wide. One day the mare disappeared. The villagers, sympathising with him for his loss said Oh what bad luck you’ve had!   The farmer shrugged and replied: Good luck, bad luck. Who knows? Several days [...]

Randy Komisar: What’s his story? He has held various roles at Apple Computer, LucasArts Entertainment, Crystal Dynamics, Claris Corporation and GO Corporation. He’s also helped to build WebTV, TiVo, Mondo Media and other emerging companies.Currently, he acts  as a Virtual CEO partnering with entrepreneurs to create businesses with leading edge technologies. In addition, he’s a Consulting [...]

The third Dublin TEDx talk took place two weeks ago (Friday 12th March 2010) at the Science Gallery. The theme of this talk was around Creativity and Innovation; perfect timing given that the Innovation Task Force Report launched there the evening before.

Damini Kumar, Lecturer/Programme Director of Product Design at NUI Maynooth, Ireland’s Ambassador for [...]

With innovation and the ability to innovate perceived as the holy grail of business success the recent report, (by INSEAD professor Hal Gregersen, Jeffrey Dyer of Brigham Young University and Clayton Christensen of Harvard entitled Innovator’s DNA, and published in HBR in December 09 makes very interesting reading.
The objective of this six year research study [...]

January and it’s time for the annual JMW Turner exhibition at the National Gallery (A light in the Darkness). In accordance with collector Henry Vaughan’s bequest the watercolours, which are notoriously susceptible to fading, have their radiance preserved, by only being exhibited in the first month of the year. Famously known as “the painter of [...]

The Challenge: How to motivate people to take the stairs instead of the escalator?
The solution: If you want to change someone’s behaviour make it fun to do!

Or as Einstein put it: Creativity is intelligence having fun

(By Ruth O’Looney, TV Producer/Director)
Last week, the BBC series “Imagine” looked at an art ownership scheme that has been running in the UK for the last five years.
The Own Art scheme offers interest -free loans (up to £2,000) to people who want to buy contemporary artwork.  Organised and run by the UK Arts Council, 12,500 [...]

What you focus your attention on determines how your life will be. In other words, your life experience to date-who you are, how you think, what you feel and do is the result of what you have chosen to focus your attention on.
Our focus of attention falls on a spectrum. At one end of the [...]

Ben Zander (pictured) conductor for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, faced the same problem at the start of each semester. His students, all gifted instrumentalists and singers were so anxious over the measurement of their performance that they were reluctant to take creative risks and open themselves [...]