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Archive for Design – Page 6

Simple Beauty in Reno

I spent part of this Labor Day weekend in Reno with good friends, sharing a lovely afternoon swimming in the Truckee River in downtown Reno (it’s true!) and hiking in the Sierra’s Lake Basin area.

I also managed a few minutes alone with their beautiful daughter who is off to college this year. She showed me a couple of short films she made from clips & stills she’d taken with her digital camera on trips to Paris and Ashland Oregon.

I was absolutely stunned by her creative ‘eye’, inspired by her
initiative and impressed by the wizards at Apple who had the vision to
package creative tools of this caliber along with their computers…
iMovie rocks!

I’m very excited by the creativity I see coming out of this new
generation, and just felt like expressing my gratitude to all that
nurtures their flowering. I pledge my assistance as a part of this
support network for all my young friends and family. For that matter, I pledge my support for the flowering of creativity in all of us! May it be so!

Internet as Conduit I

Driving home from the World Café Stewardship Dialogues yesterday, I had the honor of sharing a car and conversation with evolutionary dialogue pioneer George Por, who manages to find the time with everything else he is doing to write a fascinating blog on collective intelligence.

It was one of those conversations where one is almost swooning with the
pleasure of discussing out loud what one’s secret heart most desires.
In this case we were discussing the magic of aligned design – the
conscious use of line and form, light & color, to evoke and
catalyze awareness & a sense of connection between all beings – and
our mutual belief in the power of the internet to convey and awaken
consciousness of & for good.

I am still a bit overwhelmed with the internal resonance of this conversation and my delight in meeting such an aligned soul. For one of my deepest passions is using the internet as a conduit for thoughtful, consciously spirit-filled communication, a vehicle for awakening consciousness & illuminating Beauty in and around us.

This potential drives my desire to work towards evoking what I am calling ‘sacred space’ online. In less exalted terms, I’m motivated by the idea of creating an environment where there is the possibility of solace from the ‘noise’ of the everyday world, a quiet clear place to meet and work with others who share an intention to seed ‘good’ in the world, a place where collective wisdom can emerge and take conscious form.

This vision I have is very different from most of the chaotic information overload we’ve all seen online, although the experience of creating a transformative environment is familiar to many of us from our face-to-face work together.

My contention is that the way to invite sacred space online is not dissimilar to the way we seed it f2f… What’s needed is a clear intention and conscious invitation, a well-designed structure with beauty at the center always, a warm welcome and respect for each person that is drawn to respond to the invitation, and a knowing that each one is meant to be there and has something of value to share.

This whole sphere is something that is only just beginning to be imagined in this medium, and I see those of us who are investigating it as visionary pioneer guides, laying the paths and preparing to lead the way forward by applying what we have learned about all this (the online environment, creating sacred space, building community, etc.) so far.

There is a lot more to be said and done about this subject, and I hope I will be an active part of those conversations and actions, but I offer these musings as part of an ongoing collective conversation. I look forward to what is coming next for us all as Light continues to bounce around between us in cyberspace …

Seth Godin

I listened to a Skypecast sponsored by Typepad today, with Seth Godin. I knew him briefly in my days working with Fast Company, read most of his books and have always liked him. He didn’t disappoint me this time either, declining to pitch his new book Small is the New Big by saying if we were interested we would go to his blog and buy or download it. But what he did say warmed my heart.

His message was simple. He talked about blogging being a force for authenticity in the world,
citing the fact that one couldn’t really lie consistently day after
day, and eventually the real ‘you’ would be known. And once we let
ourselves be known, people begin to relax and others can’t help but tend to love us.

In answer to someone’s question about the best, fastest way to build a massive readership, he said that it didn’t really matter. If we were telling the truth to 5 people, it was far better and more effective than talking crap to 50,000. He gave a big boost to all the small bloggers who were there, and prioritized the sharing of what is real and true in our lives rather than slavish devotion to some supposedly effective business strategy.

You can listen to it yourself here.

Old Stone

Stone

You’ve just got to love old stone… I’ve just returned from a business/pleasure trip to the green and pleasant land (England, and parts north), and feel washed in the aura of old earth. This image is from a brief walk I took around Bath…