so this is christmas & i’ve got clean up duty… now, where did i put that egg nog?
Author: coffeehousejunkie
Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks?
Stephen Wright
watched the nightmare before christmas & strange brew while wrapping gifts… ‘there wasn’t much to do. all the bowling alleys had been wrecked…’ to quote bob mckenzie…
imho, wcqs has the best holiday programing on the radio… listening to ‘festival of nine lessons and carols’…
I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.
Stephen Wright
In a survey of attitudes toward artists in the U.S. a vast majority of Americans, 96%, said they were greatly inspired by various kinds of art and highly value art in their lives and communities. But the data suggests a strange paradox.
While Americans value art, the end product, they do not value what artists do. Only 27% of respondents believe that artists contribute “a lot” to the good of society.
Further interview data from the study reflects a strong sentiment in the cultural community that society does not value art making as legitimate work worthy of compensation. Many perceive the making of art as a frivolous or recreational pursuit.
Other insights further illuminate the depth of the paradox:
• A majority of parents think that teaching the arts is as important as reading, math, science, history, and geography.
• 95% believe that the arts are important in preparing children for the future.
• In the face of a changing global economy, economists increasingly emphasize that the United States will have to rely on innovation, ingenuity, creativity, and analysis for its competitive edge—the very skills that can be enhanced by engagement with the arts.
i’m feeling this paradox… almost everyday of my life… after two group shows & a solo show, i have yet to sell an original painting… but when i design the cover to a book or cd with original art it seems to be a more acceptable art object…
There is no friend as loyal as a book.
Ernest Hemingway (via bookscakesnkisses) (via booklover) (via bookncoffee)
Wisdom comes with winters.
Oscar Wilde, A Florentine Tragedy (via 52books)
i used to work as an artists assistant to a calligrapher. he used to have pages of vellum samples like this for reference material. it’s from him i learned the traditional form of drawing celtic knotwork (as opposed to the imitation celtic knotwork found in tattoo parlors)…
kunstwissenschaftlerin: medieval: Large illuminated initial. Smaller initials, rubrics, border designs. (1325-1350) via images.nypl.org
Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
Turkish Proverb
another photo from our end of the mid-atlantic blizzard of december ‘09… it’s still snowing… expecting another foot of snow by sundown…
photo from our end of the mid-atlantic blizzard of december ‘09
i’m orange peels. i’m coffee grounds. i’m wisdom.
Marjory The Trash Heap, Fraggle Rock, Season 1, Episode 1
a “bitterly agreed upon climate accord in copenhagen” is inked as a way to keep “temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees celsius” & i’m snowed in (over 12 inches & it’s still coming down… expecting 24 inches by nightfall) from a blizzard. almost two years ago i mentioned another ironic event & i’ve come to a completely non-scientific conclusion based on a conspiracy theory: any time al gore goes to copenhagen the u.s.a. experiences a mini ice age.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill (via mellabrown:vereteno:zeastwood-bloom:somethingmoreproductive) (via subcreation)
There is no language without deceit.
Italo Calvino (via 52books)
Three Keys to Effective Execution
Why can even the most brilliant strategies founder in the implementation phase? “When things haven’t gone as planned, it’s often because the process wasn’t well defined, we missed a step, or we didn’t follow a specific sequence,” says Gordon Woodfall, former president and general manager of Waltham, Mass.-based Thermo KeyTek (now Thermo Fisher Scientific). The execution phase forces you to translate your broad-brush conceptual understanding of your company’s strategy into an intimate familiarity with how it will all happen: who will take on which tasks in what sequence, how long those tasks will take, how much they’ll cost, and how they’ll affect subsequent activities.
Here are three recommendations to help you make this translation.
1. Communicate the key points
2. Develop tracking systems that facilitate problem solving
3. Set up formal reviews
More here http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hmu/2008/02/three-keys-to-effective-execut.php
Social Media Marketing Report
According to a social media study by Michael Stelzner, sponsored by the upcoming Social Media Success Summit 2009, 88% of marketers are now using social media in some form and 72% have begun within the last few months.
Key findings from the data conclude that:
- Small-business owners are more likely to use LinkedIn than employees working for a corporation.
- Men are significantly more likely to use YouTube or other video marketing than women (52.4% of all men compared with 31.7% of women).
- For those just getting under way with social media marketing, LinkedIn is ranked as their number-two choice, pushing blogging down one notch.
- Among those who have been using social media for a few months, Facebook is in second place. This group also has more Twitter use.
- Twitter is used by 94% of marketers who have been using social media for years, followed closely by blogs. This group also endorses online video significantly moreso than the other groups
SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Michael Bierut shares notebooks he has kept from 1982 until 2008.
“There always seems to be a lot of interest in designers’ sketchbooks, but I call these notebooks for a reason. I’ve seen other designer’s sketchbooks and I’m always impressed by how much creativity is on display. Not in mine. Page after page contain nothing but records of phone conversations, notes from meetings, price estimates, specifications. I keep the random doodles to a minimum. Someone looking at those pages would think the book might belong to a lawyer or, more likely, a party planner. Every once in a while, though, there are some drawings that would suggest that the owner was a designer.” – Michael Bierut
I’ve always envied other designers who keep really interesting notebooks with amazing sketches and beautifully handwritten notes, worthy of exhibition (Jose Cabaco, Mathias Paeres, Patrick Rockwell..). I’ve tried to analyse my notebooks at one time, and out of laziness I drew the conclusion that my role and relationship with my work has reached a point where I don’t feel the need to meticulously draft it all out. But a more accurate analysis would be that my process is just different from those designers whose notebooks I envy. And this is ok. Thanks Mr. Bierut. 🙂
Each new fad calls attention to one virtue or another—first it’s efficiency, then quality, next it’s customer satisfaction, then supplier satisfaction, then self-satisfaction, and finally, at some point, it’s efficiency all over again. If it’s reminiscent of the kind of toothless wisdom offered in self-help literature, that’s because management theory is mostly a subgenre of self-help. Which isn’t to say it’s completely useless. But just as most people are able to lead fulfilling lives without consulting Deepak Chopra, most managers can probably spare themselves an education in management theory.
“The Management Myth,” Matthew Stewart The Atlantic Online (via somethingchanged)
The heart of a virtuous person has settled down and he does not rush about at things. A person of little merit is not at peace but walks about making trouble and is in conflict with all.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659 – 1719) (via blogut) (via quote-book)
Coffeehouse Junkie 