An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Some years ago, someone introduced me to Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. It’s a remarkable document, almost 10 years old, and something I return to time and time again for inspiration.

Here are the first ten of the fourty-three articles that make up the manifesto. While you can start here, I’d encourage everyone to go to Bruce’s website and read the whole article.

---

An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

…read the full manifesto here: http://www.brucemaudesign.com/manifesto.html

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me....

Today is my 39th birthday. In other words, it marks the end of my 39th year on this planet and the beginning of my 40th.

According to the Globe and Mail if today is my birthday, and it is: “Jupiter, planet of excess, is strong on your birthday, so you will work harder and expect more, of yourself and of others, over the coming 12 months. However, if your body tells you it needs a break you must not ignore it. Plenty of short vacations throughout the year will keep you energized and engaged. “ Well, that sounds OK.

The Guardian (a PEI daily paper) tells me “You head down your own unique path this year, not wanting to be distracted. Though you might know what you want, others will challenge your ideas, direction, and commitment [so this year will be like last year?]. You will never get 100 per cent support for everything you do [no kidding]. This year is no exception […sigh, I was hoping it might be].”
Oh well.

July 18 is a rather auspicious day in history. The #1 single on the charts was Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass”. You can watch it here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ot4LvxKURs):

On the day I was born the two-day Honolulu Conference begins in Honolulu, Hawaii between US President Lyndon B. Johnson and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. On my 1st birthday, after a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drove an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, died.

In an odd twist, and no, we didn’t know this when we named him, July 18, 390 BC marked the Battle of the Allia - A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome. And the leader of the maurading Gauls? None other than Brennus, a chieftain of the Senones, a Celtic tribe of the Adriatic coast of Italy. Those who know us, know that Brennus is the name of our 19 month old. Keeping to July 18th, but about 400 years later, Rome began to burn. It appears that July 18th isn't the best day to have been a Roman. You can learn all about the last days of the Empire in the 1955 Looney Tunes “Roman Legion-Hare” here:


1968 was a year that, perhaps, exemplifies that time in our history: manned space flights, riots, shootings and deaths, countries gaining independence, all amidst the social climate of the late 60’s. Of course, the US was loosing and oversees war then too.

Well, as I move into this 4th decade of life, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve done and where I’ve been. Lived all over. Great wife, great kids. Lots of goals and lots more to do… You couldn’t beat the smile off my face with a stick.

Primary Colours

Well, the writ has been dropped and we all go to the polls on May 28^th, 2007. This should make for an interesting few weeks and we’ll be busy trying to keep the arts on the agenda.

One thing for sure is the difference in the level of interest in the Council and our thoughts on the arts. Let’s face it, this will be a battle between the two main parties the Liberals and the Conservatives. Sure the Liberals are raring to go and open to any ideas that might gain a few more votes – as a result their ears are open.

The Council must be non-partisan, and we’ve made efforts to present our plans and ideas to both sides, but, I gotta tell you that there seems to be a difference in how that information is received. Am I seeing “red”, well, let’s just say I’m not seeing much “blue”.