![innovation-broken-ideafaktory-econovation12[1]](http://www.ideafaktory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/innovation-broken-ideafaktory-econovation121-300x106.jpg){kind=small}
![75px-HP_New_Logo_2D.svg_[1]](http://www.ideafaktory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/75px-HP_New_Logo_2D.svg_1.png){kind=logo}
![johnny-depp-pirates-400a011007[1]](http://www.ideafaktory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/johnny-depp-pirates-400a0110071-290x290.jpg)
![spongeworthy[1]](http://www.ideafaktory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/spongeworthy1-290x290.jpg)
Currently viewing the tag: "career"
Below is a transcript of a speech I gave on August 27, 2012 to NYU Stern’s 600+ incoming freshmen and transfers. I’ll post the video when I get it…if the quality is halfway decent.
It’s exciting to see all these bright shining faces. You’ll look nothing like this after your first all-nighter studying for your finance final. You’ll wake up covered in highlighter wondering why you were highlighting your iPad in the first place. You’ll run into class late, give some lame excuse, and think about what you’ll tell your parents as you doodle skeletons where the essays should go. I remember those days well.
Today, I’d like to share with you three lessons I wish I got before I started college. Luckily all you have to do is stop texting for five minutes to benefit from my mistakes.
This is a re-post of my original article on Harvard Business Review
I’ve often fantasized about hurling my laptop over Niagara Falls, then grilling a fresh salmon to celebrate my sensory liberation. I’d become a Maker. I’d build a sailboat to circle the globe. I’d live off the sea, fending off killer whales and Somali pirates. I’m not alone in yearning to resuscitate my flabby Tweeting muscles. As I’ve written before, there’s plenty of evidence that people who make a tangible product, use their senses, and help others are happier than mere office dwellers. But let’s face it, Microsoft won’t pay you to conquer the Amazon or extract salmon roe. Offices are where the work is. Which explains why I’m here — with you — writing about making things instead of weatherproofing my pirate-repelling catapult. But there is a glimmer of hope for us Clickers, Copy/Pasters, Conference-Callers, and Collators. In this digital office world, happiness can — and must — be simulated.
This is a re-post of my original article on Harvard Business Review
Over the last decade, I’ve watched hundreds of cooking shows. It’s a matter of time before Martha Stewart demands UN sanctions for my stockpile of useless culinary knowledge. In reality, my own cooking is a malignant medley of boiled ravioli, lopsided omelets, and fresh veggies dying of embarrassment. So why do I torture myself with shows about food I can’t touch, taste, or feel guilty about? The answer will surprise you … and possibly change your life.
The proliferation of cooking shows, blogs, celebrity chefs, and their inevitable diabetes drug endorsements proves that everything is better wrapped in bacon. But cooking also taps into something more primal: it’s one of the last jobs that still does what most of us don’t — make things. In this sterile, white-collar world, where meat comes from ShopRite and homes are built by “guest workers,” cooking is the last physical job we can relate to.
I recently saw a post on the TED web site posing the question, “Can advertising be a force for good?” Here’s my response:
What a nonsensical question! Advertising is a vehicle for transporting messages. It’s not inherently good or evil. It conveys the desires, values and motivations of the payer (client). Is every client good? I’m always amused when people try to spin their chosen professions as altruistic. Advertising is what it is – something you do for client money. (It’s no different than consulting, something I’m all too familiar with.)
One thing to keep in mind – advertising produces nothing. It is the means, not the end, so it has no intrinsic demand, like Kit Kats or even Sea Monkeys. It exists to create demand and awareness for something else. If someone truly creative didn’t produce the products themselves, no one would be rioting on Madison Avenue demanding advertising – or even know they were missing it.
To take it a step further, most people expend a good amount of effort avoiding advertising – throwing out magazine inserts, skipping DVR ads, using browser ad blockers. So by definition, if most see blocking as good, then is the thing you’re trying to block “bad”?
Log In
To view exclusive, subscriber-only content & comment,
GET THE BOOK
