Tidying Up
This past weekend Monocle magazine’s much-anticipated television show for Bloomberg premiered with the airing of the first two of six episodes on Saturday and Sunday. If you are not yet familiar with Monocle, since its 2007 launch much has been written about it and its globetrotting founder, Tyler Brûlé, including two love letters last year [...]
Irrational Exuberance
Earlier this month the window display at Sicis on Broome Street in Soho caught my eye, as it often does. Only this time it was, as I wrote when I posted a picture of it on Twitter, ridonculous–beyond. It was a bathtub–in the form of a gold, mosaic, high-heel platform pump. I loved it for [...]
Breaking Rules
Luxury Culture is a website that breaks rules. For that reason, and many others, I am an ardent fan. First, before rule breaking, comes beauty. Around for at least five years, maybe more, this is a site that has long understood and capitalized on the power of simplicity, strong images and vibrant color. It’s delicious. [...]
Future Perfect
What will the world look like in 2050? This is the question at the heart of Drivers of Change, a terrific planning and brainstorming device created by the Foresight and Innovation team of the London-based engineering firm Arup. Packaged in a sturdy, bright box, Drivers of Change is 175 cards posing pointed, forward-looking questions and [...]
Ferocious Integrity
Last summer as I was thinking about how to tackle several thorny personal and professional situations in my life, I picked up Susan Scott’s book Fierce Conversations. At its core this is a book about relationships, not conversations. But as Scott says, “The conversation is the relationship.” And when conversations are superficial, controlled, inauthentic, avoided, [...]
No Shortcuts
One of the life lessons I learned as a junior investment banker was There are no shortcuts. A corollary to this lesson was If it looks too good to be true, it is. These lessons were learned in the late night hours, when I was tired, wanted sleep. If I cut corners and breezed by [...]
Fashion Democracy
This past Saturday the first of two annual transatlantic fashion marathons kicked off with men’s fashion week in Milan. Every year those intimately familiar with the fashion calendar (the way others are intimately familiar with professional sports seasons), eagerly anticipate the mid-January to mid-March romps down the runways of Milan, New York, London, and Paris, followed [...]
Vital Energy
There’s nothing I love more than a maverick. By that measure, Boone Pickens has my heart. Trained geologist, Texas oilman, vintage corporate raider, 21st century billionaire investor and philanthropist, at 82 years old he’s going strong. And for the last two and a half years he’s been a visible, dynamic force focused on a topic [...]
Catalyzing Creativity
Innovation–the creation of a product or process that is radically new, unique and different–is the holy grail in today’s business world. What many of those who beat its drum rarely mention is that the path to true innovation is rooted in pure creativity. To innovate brilliantly requires facing down the deepest challenges of the creative [...]
Innovation Lab
On January 28th nominations for the Aspen Institute’s 2011 First Movers Fellowship are due. If you are a CEO or Senior Manager focused on integrating the fundamentals of what is variously called Shared Value (discussed by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer in this month’s issue of the Harvard Business Review), New Capitalism (described by Raj [...]
Fierce Smarts
Fierce smarts turn me on. They crackle. In October I caught wind of a marketing campaign fired by fierce smarts: the promotional effort for Jay-Z’s forthcoming book, Decoded. An interactive scavenger hunt, pages from the book appeared imprinted on billboards, Gucci jackets, parked cars, pool bottoms and roof tops in New York and London, Miami, [...]
Awaken Possibility
Last fall I came across a two year old TED talk from Boston Philharmonic conductor Benjamin Zander, entitled “On Music and Passion”. I’d heard good things about The Art of Possibility, the book Zander wrote some time ago with his wife, Rosamund. Passion and possibility are favorite subjects of mine, so I watched. I grew [...]
Welcome
Welcome to emotional INTELLIGENCE, a collection of observations at the intersection of business innovation, culture, finance, leadership and political economy. I have considered writing on these topics for some time. Thanks to creative new thinking about communication, design, borders and business models, old boundaries are dissolving. Leaders in corporations, non-profits, civic and global communities recognize [...]
