"Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace." Bhagavad Gita, Zen and now the mathematical equations of quantum physics do not prescribe actual existence - they predict the potential for existence. It states that solidity is a construct of the ordinary mind and that there never was anything permanent to begin with that we could hold on to. Hence, life would be much more efficient if we lived with the knowledge of impermanence as the only constant. Some 3000 years later the same philosophy gets a refresher course in the Google campuses of the high-tech Silicon Valley. Cordell Ratzlaff and Irene Au discusses about creating from the heart and subtracting the attachment factor from the impending results. Watch the video. It is an half hour journey into creativity and mindfulness. When you are not attached to the result in one way or the other, you become so focused in the now that the clarity of your mind goes on over drive. It accesses the wisdom of uncertainty. In uncertainty, lies the freedom from known belief and past conditioning. Professional players are at their best when they are in this "zone". Designers and musicians often surrender themselves to this field of all possibilities. By doing so, they welcome the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe. Keep in mind. You do not give up the intention or the desire to create. You give up your attachment to the result. "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." Rumi As I come to an end, the words of Dōgen Zenji illuminates my mind: “Do not treasure or belittle what is far away, but be intimate with it. Do not treasure or belittle what is near, but be intimate with it. Do not make light of or a big deal of what you see with your eyes. Do not make light of or a big deal of what you hear with your ears. Rather, illuminate your eyes and ears.” Articles that might interest you:
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In the words of the historian philosopher, Thomas Berry: "We are not just passing into another historical period or another cultural modification.......But more specifically we are terminating the last 65 million years of life development." He says, it's all a question of story. "The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story." The Darwinian story about being stronger, bigger and better is no longer the story of survival. Survival of the Fittest is an exercise in agility and adaptibility. The flawless adaptation to your changing conditions now makes you the master in the Art of Survival. This is the age of knowledge. We are increasingly being rewarded not for our emperical know how of delivering facts but for our ability to make meaning - whether that is telling story about our brand DNA or our balance sheet make up. Management consultant Tom Durel, emphasizes again and again, "everybody thinks it's the return on investment that you're selling...but it's really the story about ROI that an investor takes away." As we trend towards Type 1 civilization, we are increasingly defining ourselves to be a more homogenous race. When it comes to making a planetary cultural statement, denim rules as the fabric of our lives. To survive in the new post modern value conscious era, Levis Struass is a great story in adaptibility. I think in 2003 Levis Strauss came out with the Signature line. Notice the power of story and make belief at play. What visual cues and emtional expression do you get when you read Signature? Check out their label. Very similar to the vintage iconic label isn't it? What a marvelous way to harness the intangible into tangible. We humans have been story telling since 100,000 or more so years. We seek out experiences that fire our imaginations and enchants our spirit. Stories are the pathway in. Start at basic. Who are You? Defining who you are is the abiding question for marketers including trade show design architects. Weaving a story along this question alone is an opportunity to create a brand for your company so powerful that your logo or mission statement pales in comparison. Brian Tarcy, a journalist and an author reveals 5 secrets to the Mastery of Story Telling. 1. Think chronologically. Start at the beginning. A good writer can make the beginning be almost anywhere, but an obvious place to think about is the day the company opened/was formed etc. 2. Use philosophy, but don't preach. People want to learn who you are and what you stand for. Your story is more than just what happened in year 1, year 2 etc. There is something deeper in it. Bring that out. But be careful on your tone. 3. Tell stories. Remember the the events that created who you are. Details are crucial. Use your five senses and make stories come alive. 4. Don't only use your own words. Talk to your employees, board members, anyone invested in your story and see what they remember. Use these memories to paint a three-dimensional picture. Ask more than one person to remember the same event. 5. Make the sum bigger than the parts. You are not just telling your story to tell your story, although it is a nice memento. You want readers to believe in you the same way you believe in you. It should add up into one powerful thing. "Once people make your story their story, you have tapped into the powerful force of faith."--Annette Simmons, Author, The Story Factor. Your brand belongs to you. Your story belongs to you. The stage that you stand on in a trade show venue is yours. Shape your destiny, build your mountain. "But start at the base and tell everyone who are you and how you did it." Articles you might like
As I fly over the clouds from a land, where the mountains talk to you and the fog cloak you only to whisk you away to yet another dimension; to a land that has been lyricized as Christmas by the Bay and that which I call home, my heart fills with immense gratitude and joy. I feel elated that I live in an age where I get to immerse myself in the endless span of the blue sky which the masters say is our true nature. Realization of this nature of mind is our innermost essence, the truth that we all search for through out our lives. Looking out the window as I contemplate on the clouds below, it becomes clear to me why metaphorically it is always the sky that describes the mind. It has been said that our minds our embodiment of perfection. It is so perfect that not even the Buddhas can improve upon it, "nor can sentient beings spoil it in their seemingly infinite confusion." The sky is our essential nature and the confusion of the ordinary mind are the hanging clouds. When we are down below, looking up, it is unbelievable that there could be anything beyond the clouds. Yet, as I fly above I experience a limitless expanse of clear blue sky. It is often asked where is this buddha nature? And it is said: "It is in the sky-like nature of our mind. Utterly open, free, and limitless, it is fundamentally so simple and so natural that it can never be complicated, corrupted, or stained, so pure that it is beyond even the concept of purity and impurity. To talk of this nature of mind as sky-like, of course, is only a metaphor that helps us to begin to imagine its all-embracing boundlessness; for the buddha nature has a quality the sky cannot have, that of the radiant clarity of awareness." It is simply your flawless, present awareness, cognizant and empty, naked and awake.....(The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying) Profound and tranquil, free from complexity, Uncompounded luminous clarity, Beyond the mind of conceptual ideas; This is the depth of the mind of the Victorious Ones. In this there is not a thing to be removed, Nor anything that needs to be added. It is merely the immaculate Looking naturally at itself ............ Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche On this enlightened note, I start the official season of sharing and singing, dancing and dodging, giving and receiving. Thank you and thank you a thousand times for being part of my odyssey! For it's Christmas by the bay A time to celebrate In the San Francisco way It's Christmas by the bay I'm with you in my favorite place On my favorite holiday. Articles you might like
"Of all those in the army close to the commander none is more intimate than the secret agent; of all rewards none more liberal than those given to secret agents; of all matters none is more confidential than those relating to secret operations." Sun Tzu We live in an Age of Knowledge. The competitive edge lies no longer only in gaining new sales lead or finding new partners and alliances. Gaining competitive intelligence over your industry, customer, competitor, suppliers, and potential partners are the new prerequisites of your competitive advantage and your marketing managers are the secret agents of this new battlefield. The goal of competitive intelligence is to convert raw data into something that can lead to a competitive asset. It gives you insights into what might happen in the near future. This process requires that we go from data to information to intelligence. Here is a basic example: Data = Prices for our products have dropped by 5% Information = New offshore facilities have lower labor costs Intelligence = Our key competitor is about to acquire a facility in India that will . . The differences between data, information, and intelligence can be subtle, but very real: Data = Unconnected pieces of information: Nice to know, but so what! Information = Increased knowledge derived by understanding the relationships of data: Interesting, but how does it relate to what I do! Intelligence = Organizing the information to fully appreciate the implications and impact on the organization: Oh really, then we better do something! Given this relationship between data, information and intelligence, now you are armed to visit your competitors' trade show booth and ask them questions on: Product/service features and benefits. Recent product/service introductions and upgrades. Installation and maintenance. Pricing strategies: commercial, non-profit, governmental Special pricing policies - do they offer: credit, discounts, incentives, consignments. Corporate and business philosophy Be gracious and subtle. Remember: “Knowledge is what you are after. Information is the raw material you use. Intelligence is what finds and processes information.” The Intelligence Edge by George Friedman, Meredith Friedman, Colin Chapman and John S. Baker, Jr. Articles you might like
Before moving forward, take a look at the above illustration. Take your time. What do you think it is? Now check out here what it really is? The fine orange sticky dust that settles onto our fingers when mindlessly snacking on the guilty pleasures, is perhaps not the first thing that comes to our mind when we start exploring neuroscience, that which has given rise to not so new wave of marketing called neuromarketing. After scanning the brains of a carefully chosen group of consumers, in 2008 it was discovered that the "icky coating triggers an unusually powerful response in the brain: a sense of giddy subversion that consumers enjoy over the messiness of the product." Frito-Lay leveraged that information into its advertising campaign for Cheetos, which has made the most out of the brains' response to the mess. NeuroFocus, the company behind the research earned a Grand Ogilvy award for advertising research for "demonstrating the most successful use of research in the creation of superior advertising that achieves a critical business objective." The capturing of the synaptic brain waves seems to be the ultimate promise of neuromarketing. It takes about half a second for the sub-conscious to react to a stimulus received by the brain. During this vital time frame, the sub-conscious mind is free from memories and cultural convictions. It is in a state of primal potency: not polluted social norms and cultural beliefs. It is in this state that the cheese flavored orange dust of Cheetos seems pretty adventurous. However, once this action moves to the conscious level, the artificially flavored and colored MSG dust is, kind of repulsive. "I bet you, long ago if you looked at cave paintings, there were a bunch of Cro-Magnon men and women sitting around a fire in focus groups wondering whether to go hunt mastodon that night," says A. K. Pradeep, founder and CEO of NeuroFocus. "Today, our focus groups are no different." Being under the constant pressure of political correctness, we have denied ourselves the inner truth. Pradeep believes he can get at the truth. Read more about the players of neuromarketing who are spending millions to find out what you like and why like it. Explore how you can use the research to further your trade show marketing efforts. Articles you might like
The mind is a creativity. So also is a thought.
The mind says to a thought, "I have you." The thought says to the mind, "You I am." The heart is a creativity. So also is love. The heart says to love, "I have you. " Love says to the heart, "You I am." The soul is a creativity. So also is life. The soul says to life, "I have you. " Life says to the soul, "You I am." The learning of the mind is a creativity, an expanding creativity. The feeling of the heart is a creativity, a deepening creativity. The becoming of life is a creativity, a manifesting creativity. The universal truth finds expression in the poetic grace and beauty of Sri Chinmoy. Often times, our empirical minds only sees the outcome of creativity as an enterprise. Our utilitarian intellect fails to comprehend the muse that inspires us to manifest creativity. The veil of ignorance prompts us to separate creativity from enterprise in such a fashion that debates are being raised if creativity can be taught. More often comparisons are drawn between Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison prompting the former to be endowed with a visceral gift and the latter to be a tenacious sprinter in perseverance and experimentation. "I became aware, to my surprise, that every thought I conceived was suggested by an external impression. Not only this but all my actions were prompted in a similar way. In the course of time it became perfectly evident to me that I was merely an automation endowed with power of movement responding to the stimuli of the sense organs and thinking and acting accordingly. The practical result of this was the art of tele automatics which has been so far carried out only in an imperfect manner. Its latent possibilities will, however be eventually shown. I have been since years planning self-controlled automata and believe that mechanisms can be produced which will act as if possessed of reason, to a limited degree, and will create a revolution in many commercial and industrial departments." My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nicola Tesla "I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent it." Thomas Elva Edison. Compared to the intuitive clarity of Tesla, Edison might seem like a savvy business man yet Tesla's genius inadvertently affirms Edison's legacy. The first commercially viable bulb was produced by Edison. Without electricity delivered widely, safely and efficiently the light bulb was of little value. Tesla's perfection of AC was the tool that made the light bulb so beneficial. Without the expanding creativity of Tesla and the manifesting creativity of Edison, life as we know today wouldn't have existed. Chimera of Creation is the manifestation of thoughts and ideas that transforms, merges and mutates to produce history's biggest breakthroughs. It is the learning of the mind, the feeling of the heart and the becoming of life spanning across several life spans. It is Infinitely Gracious. Articles you might like
In his 1993 essay, The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era, professor, science fiction writer and Hugo Award winner, Vernor Vinge mentions: Within 30 years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. According to him, Homo sapiens will become dull bystanders in history of evolution. This view is in contrast with the famous futurist Ray Kurzweil, who believes that while artificial intelligence will make humans obsolete, it will not make our consciousness irrelevant. The singularity won't destroy us, Kurzweil says. Instead, it will immortalize us. Perhaps, this is the reason why virtual trade shows and events have not kept up the same pace of acceleration as the digitization of our lifestyle. And according to the recent research, sponsored by Lynch Exhibits Inc., Impact Unlimited Inc., and Altus Corp, virtual events are unlikely to replace live trade shows and events anytime soon. In fact, 68 percent of respondents who have participated in virtual events say they’d rather host a live event, most notably because they “miss the energy of a live event“ and “attendees seemed less engaged during virtual events.” "Whereas even a few short years ago, many exhibit and event professionals claimed virtual events were the future of our industry, it seems the novelty may have worn off — or perhaps the hurdles outweigh the perceived payoffs." 47 percent of the respondents personally felt that virtual events offer only “little” or “moderate” potential, while 10 percent believe they’re nothing more than a hype. I believe, this is where human consciousness come into play and virtual reality will never be able to simulate actual human interactions. In his 1989 book, The Emperor's New Mind, Oxford physicist Roger Penrose claims that the classical physics ruling neurobiology cannot explain consciousness. The mind, he declared, relies on the baffling mechanics of quantum physics. Most recently, physicist Efstratios Manousakis at Florida State University showed that certain peculiarities of visual perception are most easily explained by quantum mechanics. If consciousness is indeed a quantum phenomenon, then virtual reality will have to wait for a long while for engineers, scientists and trade show exhibitors to get the hang of it. Articles you might like
Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe embraced the axiom "Less is more" to describe his creation of arranging the numerous forms into objects of extreme simplicity, by attributing every element and detail to serve multiple visual and functional purposes (such as designing a floor to also serve as the radiator, or a massive fireplace to also house the bathroom). Designer Buckminster Fuller adopted the engineer's goal of "Doing more with less", but he focused on engineering rather than aesthetics. A similar sentiment was adopted by industrial designer Dieter Rams' motto, "Less but better". The maxim "More is More" was brought forth into mass consciousness in 2009 by the American pop recording artist Heidi Montag. "More is More" makes heavy use of synthesizers, specially the auto-tune software to alter Montag's voice. This is the key. "More is More" plays with the fabric of perception. Since the 1970s photographer Alex Webb has been exploring the visual over-load ability of his pictures: "It's not just that that and that exist. It's that that, that, that and that all exist in the same frame. I'm always looking for something more. You take in too much; perhaps it becomes total chaos. I'm always playing along that line: adding something more, yet keeping it short of chaos." Hence the Anomaly. Design can be an expression of extreme ascetic simplicity or it can be an overwhelming experience of shapes, colors and textures. In a trade show booth design it is an expression of that intangible emotional property more commonly known as the brand proposition. Chic Chocolates and Visa are 2 designs expressing the opposite modalites. Both designs are the grand expressions of their brand pshycology. Articles you might like
"ABUNDANCE, ASIA and AUTOMATION" has brought us to the doorstep of Conceptual Age. Prosperity, Technology and Globalization has presented us with the paramount challenge: How do we make our products and services shine? The simple answer is Upscale Design for Common Commodities. Ben Evans, director of London Design Festival said: "Design and creativity are one of the key competitive advantages companies in developing economies can have. In the future it will probably the only one that they have left." The same sentiment is shared by Robert Hayes, professor emiritus at Harvard Business School: "Fifteen years ago companies competed on price. Now, it's quality. Tomorrow it's design." Nicholas Hayek, chairman of the Swatch Group instilled the magic of design in his Swiss watches when faced with Digital Delirium from the Japanese watch makers. In the Swiss culture of high-end hand made watches, Hayek embraced the opportunity of this new technology. He re-engineered the conventional watches into a technological wonder. However, he realized that this piece of high technology was missing the high touch of design and poetry. So he combined his high-tech product with vibrant color and flamboyant design. Then, with a single stroke of marketing flair he created scarcity by limiting the number of copies made for each model. Hayek created miracle. He elevated his commodity from the assembly line and injected it with the fantasy of a six year old. This brings up the point is Design a mere fanciful piece of decoration that dolls up places and objects. That is the serious misunderstanding of DESIGN. John Heskett, Chair Professor of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University states that Design is a combination of utility and sigificance. For example the Skyline Pop-up Trade show display is a trade show portable utility. But at its most effective, it is a carbon composite self-locking frame. There are no connectors. You literally pop it up and there it stands. That is significance. As we usher in the Conceptual Age, utility enhanced by significance is now the definition of Design. Design is a means of differentiation. Design is an enabler in creating new markets. "Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world did not know it was missing." Paola Antonelli, curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art. Articles you might like
As 2010 draws to an end and 2011 is about to begin, I stand at this nexus and ponder about the perception of time. Many philosophers have pondered about the nature of time. Aristotle speculated that time itself is motion. He contradicted himself by suggesting that motion could be slower or faster but not time. Ofcourse, he did not have the knowledge of Einstein's relativity in which time is subject to change. Writer and physicist Paul Davies has called "time" Einstein's unfinished revolution. Philospher John Ellis McTaggart observed that present is the most real perception of time however almost all of that we perceive as the present is already past. The present is a fleeting moment, whatever is happening now (present) is confined to an infinitesimally narrow point on the time line which is being encroached upon by what we think of as the past and the future. Hence the famous idiom, there is no time like the present.
Catapulting to present, today is the 363rd day of the year, two days before we welcome 2011. At this point in time, I express my gratitude to my friends, families and contemporaries for their encouragement and benevolence. My readers from Amsterdam to Azerbaijan: Thank you. I am not a writer. Yet, your enthusiam has prompted me to explore this introverted expression. My superiors: Thank you for believing in me even when I failed desperately. My friends and clients: Thank you for travelling with me even when the destination was not clearly mapped out. Skyline: Thank you for the innovative products that you have brought to the trade show arena. As I muse over time, I travel to the future and find myself exploring some exciting avenues. My logic knows time to be a continous present, however, it is the future that is the convenient place for my dreams. Happy New Year. Wishing you all very well. |
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Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. Franz Kafka |