A Song In My Heart

Image Source: news.sciencemag.org

When Lovemarks was created, one of the key elements that I could not leave out of the equation was Sensuality. The senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell have such an effect on our emotions that to leave them out would be simply unthinkable. Sound in the form of music has its roots in poetry, and in my opinion, the best songs always tell the best stories.

It is true that we don’t need music to live. It’s not like food - it’s not intrinsic to our survival – but it seems to have been helpful in human evolution. It’s also very good for the soul.

There’s a terrific story in Science of a neuroscientist who just had to study the effect of music on our brains after she was compelled to pull over while driving after hearing Johannes Brahms's "Hungarian Dance No. 5". Her name is Valorie Salimpoor, and with other researchers from McGill University in Montreal, what she has discovered is that when we have an emotional response to a song, we also have a direct intellectual one too.

The intellectual reward we get from music is pattern recognition. When music develops in a way that is slightly novel, but still in line with our brains predictions, we tend to like it a lot. Salimpoor describes it as something of an “intellectual conquest”. This, potentially, tapped in a brain mechanism that was vital for our evolutionary process and is related to our “ability to recognize patterns and generalize from experience, to predict what’s likely to happen in the future — in short, the ability to imagine.”

This explains why music is such a vital ingredient in film and in television advertising. Music creates heart. Music is a direct route to both the brain and the heart.

A Winner’s Mentality

Image Source: inc.com

I’ve been interested in ‘winning’ for a long time. Thirteen years ago I co-wrote a book that looked at how the world’s top sports teams nurtured Peak Performance so that they could maintain their winnings streaks.

If you haven’t noticed already, I love sport and believe that it has many lessons to teach us about how to be our best. It has it all. Highs and lows. Community, tenacity, commitment. The crucial importance of taking action when the right moment strikes; and what to do in the face of failure.

So when I came across this article from blogger Geoffrey James on getting yourself in the mental state to win, I thought it was on the money.

Here are some out takes:

• See the moments coming: Be prepared when it counts. Don’t run into the day blindly.


• Adopt a winner’s physiology: How you look affects how you feel. Stand up tall. Look people in the eye.


• Visualize the winning outcome: Lots of runners imagine themselves crossing the finish line. It helps them get from where they are to where they want to be.


• Mentally rehearse what you’ll say and do: Now that you’ve seen yourself past the finish line, what are the steps you need to take to get there?


• Disconnect from goals and results: Be in the moment.


• Take action: Make things happen!

The Showing

Being judged can be a nerve-wracking experience. More so if it’s for something you really care about. Is it good enough? Will you make the cut? How will you compare to others in your peer group? It’s bad enough to give you the shakes! Saatchi & Saatchi Fallon Tokyo has created a short film that exaggerates this anxiety to promote the first Tokyo Art Directors Club Portfolio Night on May 22. The Showing plays on Japan’s much-loved horror film genre and depicts a young creative talent as she prepares to show her portfolio to a creative director. Warning - there are a few jumps on the way!

Portfolio Night happens simultaneously in a number of cities around the world, and is an opportunity for young creatives to show their work to senior creative directors from multiple agencies in a kind of "speed dating" environment. I know that people are getting braver at letting their creativity be judged thanks to portfolio websites like Behance and the internet at large, but face-to-face feedback is a unique experience I would encourage anyone to expose themselves to. Don’t be nervous. It’s a great opportunity.

Is Business Beyond Education?

Image Source: isaac.uk.com

The Wall Street Journal sounded the death-knoll for business schools back in 1985. Applications were dropping. Mass closures were on the cards. The same headlines have appeared periodically since. Eight years later the New York Times headlined with “Business Schools Hit Hard Times Amid Doubt Over Value of MBA”. Last year it was Forbes asking “Is the MBA Obsolete?” If you scan the latest stories on business sites and in magazines, it seems to be in fashion to give the impression that innovation and talent trumps education. But is it true?

What is true is that the nature of business has changed. Lines of communication have evolved. Globalisation has opened up new markets and competition is fierce. Innovation is now a global catch-cry and anyone with a half-baked idea is trying to sell it. Yet we are still short of quality business managers.

In reality, it isn’t a competition between natural talent and formal education. We need both. What is important is that business schools adapt their style of teaching. They must ensure our next generation of leaders are learning techniques relevant to today. In America alone, 10,000 baby boomers retire every day. These are the people who have been our business leaders for the past 30 years and we are struggling to replace them.

Business schools know this. They also know the demands on modern managers are unique in the information age. Yale rewrote its curriculum back in 2006 and continues to regularly review it. Wharton rolled out a whole new plan last year. We are seeing a shift to customized courses tailored for 21st century enterprise. There is a greater focus on trouble-shooting, problem solving and communication skills, as I see from my own position on the Lancaster MBA programme where I’m part of Peter Lenney’s and Chris Saunders’ Mindful Manager initiative.

Business isn’t just about brilliant product, it’s about people (ideally, both brilliant). Success will come from ensuring that young people who have chosen business as their career have the right knowledge, skills and attitudes to lead.

Design of the Year

Image Source: gov.uk

The Designs of the Year awards is bestowed by the London Design Museum and described as the ‘Oscars of the design world’. Entries for this year’s award included Thomas Heatherwick’s fantastic Olympic Cauldron, the Raspberry Pi Computer, The Shard, and a collection by Louis Vuitton. The list is eclectic, but what is even more incredible is who walked away with the big prize on the night. GOV.UK, a new single platform government website bagged the top award.

When you visit the site, you may be shocked. It’s not dressed in a designer outfit like one would expect, but it works effectively in helping people find the information that they need. It changes people’s lives by getting to the point. Driver’s licence? Passport? You’ll find it here. Housing benefits. Here too. It’s convenient, it helps everyone save money. It’s a sweet deal that seems to be getting a lot of hits.

Early on the team at GOV.UK established 10 principles to help them make the right design decisions. It’s a list that works for more than design. You can apply it to your business and most of them can change your life.

1. Start with needs
2. Do less
3. Design with data
4. Do the hard work to make it simple
5. Iterate. Then iterate again
6. Build for inclusion
7. Understand context
8. Build digital services, not websites
9. Be consistent, not uniform
10. Make things open: it makes things better

Role Play

Image Source: conferences.ted.com

TED has just announced their speaker roster for TED Global in Edinburgh June 10-14 – and not a CEO in sight. Check out the job titles of the new millennium.

Anti-guerrilla creative Women’s rights activist Systems biologist Autonomous systems visionary Drone ecologist Airborne logistics activist Musical alchemist Circadian neuroscientist False memories scholar Science-help psychologist Rating agency reformer Gentleman thief Innovation economist Bees scholar Wild sex biologist

Accidental theologist Urbanist Biomaterials researcher Regenerative neurologist Spinal cord researcher Biomedical engineer Democracy thinker Arab sexuality expert Cloudspotter Mathemagician Privacy economist Electromusician Plutocracy chronicler Anti-corruption activist Open-source engineer