Serendipity

I’m back! This blog has been on a hiatus ever since I started business school. For the past year, life has been on hyper-speed: adjusting to life in New York City, figuring out how to survive accounting and corporate finance, recruiting for a summer internship, and meeting a few hundred new friends and classmates. Although this dear blog has suffered, the silver lining is that after a year of new experiences and new education, I’ve many new perspectives and thoughts to share here.

In this post I want to focus on a concept I’ve been thinking about a lot lately – Serendipity.

Most creatives and designers know about serendipity – it is that moment in the creative process when you take a left turn instead of a right, randomly or due to circumstance, and along this new path discover something you wouldn’t have otherwise. Serendipity has been repeatedly cited as a key to innovation and creativity by a number of intellectuals and business leaders. Here are a few notable ones:

“If we’re going to encourage more innovation, it’s not enough for us to just dig in and work harder. We also need to encourage surprise and serendipity. We need to play each other’s instruments.” ~ Steven Johnson, Innovation Writer

“In order to have creativity, you have to allow for dead ends to happen” ~ Christoph Niemann, Illustrator

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” ~ Steve Jobs

“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.” ~ Susan Sontag, Author & Philosopher

Clearly, serendipity and a willingness to get a little lost are well recognized foundations for creativity and innovation. With today’s increasing complex and squeezed global economy, creativity and innovation skills are not ‘nice to haves’ – they are necessities. Just ask some our leading economists - the task-driven, standardized jobs of the past are gone from America, sent either to cheaper labor sources abroad, or to machines and robots. The economy is changing, and we need to change with it.

These trends are leading more and more people towards careers that focus on creativity, innovation, and complex or technical problem-solving. And as more and more workforce supply rushes to these areas, the desire to standardize it is strong. For example, one of the most popular movements right now in entrepreneurship is the “Lean Start-up” – a philosophy coined by entrepreneur Eric Ries that centers on applying lean manufacturing principles (rapid scientific experimentation, validated learning, etc.) to the creativity and innovation-driven entrepreneurship process. My own business school has a course entitled “Systematic Creativity” that teaches a similar doctrine.

All of this is in many ways fantastic – if innovation and creative process can be taught and therefore learned, capital can flow to high-value ventures more often and more efficiently, the world gets more marketable innovations, and therefore more prosperity.

But what are some of the consequences of the standardization of innovation? Where does this leave serendipity?

One of the great political economists, Joseph Schumpeter, foresaw this tension and articulated it well in his prose 'Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy':

“It is much easier now than it has been in the past to do things that lie outside familiar routine – innovation itself is being reduced to routine. Technological progress is increasingly becoming the business of teams of trained specialists who turn out what is required and make it work in predictable ways. The romance of earlier commercial adventure is rapidly wearing away, because so many more things can be strictly calculated that had of old to be visualized as a flash of genius”.

The truthfulness of this quote and its direct application to today’s reality struck me the first time I read it. Technological progress has indeed made it possible for teams of specialists to converge across disciplines and borders to innovate (for example, the IDEOs and Googles of the world). Technology, huge pools of customer data, and scholarly analysis have shown us how to create an environment and organizational structure conducive to the success of these teams of specialists. Thus, we reduce to routine what they do, eliminating the “magic” from entrepreneurship and innovation, and re-envisioning it as simply another enterprise functional area.

Thinking about the issue through this lens, I get worried. I worry that this approach underestimates the important role of serendipity and random connection. I worry that educational institutions and corporations, anxious to replicate this successful model of innovation, will focus on churning out specialists from an early age, and will rob students and workers of the ability to wander, to explore, to change course, to indulge in diversions outside of their specialty. And what a shame that would be, to lose our next generation of Johnsons, Niemanns, Jobs and Sontags because we were so focused on the standardization of innovation and on “the race to win the future”, as Obama has put it.

Perhaps the best way to really digest this idea is to turn inward. Our lives are riddled with serendipitous events – how often have you said to a friend, “had that unexpected event X not happened, I wouldn’t have had the fortuitous opportunity for Y!”. For me, a big pivot point happened senior year of college. As a political science major (which I chose rather randomly because of one particularly great high school history teacher), I felt sure I wanted to be a lawyer. But as chance would have it (or perhaps my tendency to focus less on studying and more on my friends and boyfriend at the time), I didn’t do so hot on the LSAT. So I didn’t apply to law school that year. But still bent on a career in policy, I applied to a prestigious government fellowship in Sacramento – I was the first runner-up, but didn’t get the position. Confused and aimless, I moved to San Francisco and applied for any job I could find. Randomly (serendipitously), a Google recruiter found my resume on Monster.com, and called me for an interview. And I can say with relative certainty that I would not be where I am today, here in New York City, at business school, thinking about innovation, and pursuing what I feel in my gut is my destined path, had it not been for that turn of events.

The power and possibility of serendipity is strong, and we’ve got to find a place for it in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our lives.

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out | Video on TED.com

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out | Video on TED.com

JR's talk about how art can change the world is incredibly inspiring. enjoy!

Polaroid-ization

Facebook is a terrible and soul-wrenching time (and mind) suck – this we all know to be true. But indulge once in a while, with your social anthropologist’s hat on (mine is a Holmes-style deerstalker), and you can unearth some pretty interesting cultural trends amongst ‘friends’ and networks. [In fact, dear Facebook: instead of surreptitiously selling my data to advertisers and partner websites, why not give me more power to accumulate data and analytics on my own friends and network? Oh the creative things I could do with this information!...but I digress...]

One phenomena I have observed in my mini-feed lately is the plethora of Polaroid-style, sepia colored photographs proudly and artistically uploaded and shared by friends. This nostalgic photographic craze seems to parallel the rise of the camera-enabled smart phone, and in particular the iPhone. A popular iPhone app converts pictures taken with the phone’s camera into retro-style Polaroids. Here are some examples:

It’s not just smart-phone power users and geeky photographers who are adapting this aesthetic. Polaroid-ization has gone mainstream across many media types – for example, check out the newest music video from the indie pop band 'The Girls', who adapt the aesthetic to film. Major retailer J.Crew is currently featuring a Polaroid-inspired motif on their homepage. Polaroid, the company that actually started it all and incidentally filed for bankruptcy in 2001, recently launched a slick new website and is partnering with Lady Gaga to be their new ‘Creative Director and Brand Ambassador’.

If Lady Gaga is on-board, you know something very apropos is going on here.

So, as usual, this all begs the question – what does it mean? Why this incessant interest in reverting back to lo-tech – not just with photography, but also more broadly as an aesthetic? And, perhaps even more interestingly, what does it mean that we are creating and romanticizing this lo-tech, 'pure' aesthetic with high-tech digital devices?

To me, the rise of the Polaroid represents society’s current ambivalence towards the ascendancy of digital technology in the media space. It seems that almost all media we consume these days is digital or virtual, from photography to books to online video, even birthday invitations (evite, anyone?). We consume this media on our computers, ipads, kindles, ipods, smart phones….and so on. No doubt digitalization allows us to consume a lot of media very quickly, and also allows for very broad access - all very good things. But there is something important about holding a photograph in your hand, or experiencing the colors of a painting in person, or reading the words off a crisp white page that you can turn, mark, smell. Perhaps what digitalization is lacking is a sense of physical intimacy with images - experiencing an image with our complete range of senses and not just through an artificial, pixel-ated window. Our need for this intimacy could explain the rise of the Polaroid, in all its grainy, imperfect, physical glory. However, the sentiment and urge is not strong enough to drive us to actually revert back to the original low-tech devices with which these images were created - we want images and aesthetics that celebrate lo-tech authenticity, but are not willing to sacrifice the convenience, speed, or mass access of high-tech.

The tension between the benefits of digitalization (ease, speed, access) and its costs (a loss of authenticity and visual intimacy) will continue to build as technology advances - Polaroid-ization is just one example of a collective response to that tension. I’m sure we will see more, similar responses.

Keep your eyes on your mini-feed…

Eat Right, Live Right

I don’t know if it’s the spring weather, or the fact that Earth Day is coming up, or my new part-time writing gig at a social issue non-profit (www.MeaningfulMedia.org!), but lately I have been thinking quite a bit about what it means to live – and in particular, to eat – consciously and sustainably.

It probably started a few weeks ago when I finally got around to watching Food, Inc., the Academy Award nominated documentary about our industrialized food system. For anyone who has read Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, the film explores similar issues – mainly, the monopolization of our food system by a handful of large corporations whose efforts to increase efficiency have led to a corn-based, pesticide rich, unhealthy diet for most Americans. The film also highlights how politicians and policymakers exacerbate the problem by acquiescing to the demands of big business lobbyists in exchange for political support.

What struck me about the film (besides the horrifying facts and images) was its overall hopeful message: that we as consumers have the power to change things through our choices and lifestyles. This got me thinking about my community, my family, and my peers. And I also got hopeful. Here are a few things I thought of:

• Many of my social activities in San Francisco often center on visits to Farmer’s Market, craft beer festivals, organic cuisine, etc.
• Several of my friends are vegetarians (or pescatarians, or flexatarians…)
• My brothers are both Environmental Sciences majors. My dad composts. My mom is supportive.
• I have friends who have spent summers working on sustainable farms
• The other night I had dinner with my brother’s twenty-three year-old girlfriend and her roommate, who cooked me a delicious dinner from mostly organic ingredients and showed me how they are making homemade Kombucha.
• Next week Google is taking employees to a local urban farm to help plant.

I could continue with this list – and when I think about it, its pretty incredible. Many people in my social and community network seem not only conscious of what they eat, but also committed to making social, consumer, and career choices that are healthy and responsible. This consciousness seems to spill over into other areas of life, from fitness to community involvement to emotional mindfulness. This collective energy and resolution motivates me every day, and is a big part of what I love about my community in San Francisco.

Now, before I seem too hippie dippy or Bay Area Elitist to you, let me recognize a few things. First, that the Bay Area is a pretty unique microcosm. Second, living here makes it much easier to consume responsibly – we have access, we have collective support, and we have money (relatively). However, I don’t think that lack of access or funds necessarily limits others from making lifestyle changes. For example, not drinking sugary sodas, eating only seasonal fruits and vegetables, and cutting out meat once a week are three very simple, cheap changes that would amount to a huge difference. Ultimately, most of us probably have something we could give-up, it’s just a matter of making the choice.

To me, the next question is how we can spread and adapt some of these cultural values to the rest of the country, and eventually the world, and what economic and policy changes need to happen first to allow those values to take root. I’m very confident in my generation of industrious leaders and social entrepreneurs, and I think we will make it happen in large part through technology, design innovation, and media. I’m still figuring out what form my own contributions will take, but I know that conscious and sustainable living will certainly be a large influencing factor.

Emotional Intelligence

It cannot be denied that in America today there exists a powerful subset of elite who have been ‘running the show’ - in government, on Wall Street, and in the boardroom. We see these people as “the best and the brightest”; presumably they have made their way to the top because of their intelligence and their hubris.

And yet, over the last several years we’ve seen a complete breakdown of the economic and political systems that they are charged with (as noted by David Brooks in his column last week.) How could this happen? One thing Brooks suggests briefly is that we as a society have a very narrow view of intelligence, and completely neglect to consider and reward emotional intelligence*: the ability to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups.

I could not agree more. Having worked in a high functioning corporate environment, I’ve been exposed to many leaders considered part of the “power elite”. Most went to Ivy League schools and are highly intelligent in the traditional sense. Of this group, the ones who are the most effective, who truly inspire, motivate, and engage, are the ones who have a high level of emotional intelligence. They are empathetic, open, and able to deeply perceive and connect with the sentiments of a group. They have a humble understanding of how they fit into the current social and political context of their organization, as well as awareness around their own emotional tendencies. They also have the ability to bounce back quickly from failure, with an understanding of the lessons that can be gleaned, and with a positive outlook on the future.

Empathy, self-awareness, positive thinking – these elements of emotional intelligence are absolutely tantamount to success. So why don’t we value them more? Why don’t we teach emotional intelligence to children in schools, and incorporate it into the cultural fabric of more organizations? Other nations are far ahead of us on this. Perhaps it is because we see emotional intelligence as being at odds with the capitalistic values of competition and individualism that have built our nation and brought us historical success. However in today’s complex world of conflicting interests and limited resources, it is clear that these values are only taking us so far.

In my opinion, artists are some of the most emotionally intelligent people, because the creative process in large part involves observation, empathy, emphatic feeling, and reflection. For this reason, I look towards artists for inspiration and emotional learning. I recently watched a TED talk** with Eve Ensler (playwright, author, and performer). In the talk (about the suppression and destruction of girlhood around the world), Ensler says:

"The irony of course is that denying girl, suppressing girl, suppressing emotion, refusing feeling has led us here, where we have now come to live in a world where the most extreme forms of violence, the most horrific poverty, genocide, mass rape, the destruction of the earth, is completely out of control...we do not feel what is going on, so we're not being charged with the adequate response to what is happening."

Ensler’s analogy of “denying girl” is in many ways equivalent to denying our emotional intelligence – that part of our brain and our being that allows us to feel, to connect, and to empathize. While I think she takes it a bit far (probably for dramatic affect), I do agree with the sentiment that denying emotional expression is bad for the individual, and bad for society. Imagine a world where people truly strived to understand each other, and could better comprehend and regulate their own emotional responses. Countless friendships, relationships, and partnerships would be salvaged, even lives saved, if people had the courage to say what they felt and to say it well, and to listen, with thoughtfulness.

I’ve been lucky enough to take a ten-week course on emotional intelligence (thanks to my employer)– and it has had great effect on my life. I hope that emotional intelligence becomes more widely publicized and integrated into our education system and corporate worlds, so that we can reverse the trend of its undervaluation in American society.

*A good general overview of emotional intelligence is Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1996).

**TED Talks are an amazing source of inspiration, emotional and otherwise. TED.com is a small nonprofit devoted to “ideas worth spreading”. On their website they provide free access to lectures by highly successful people on topics such as technology, design, sustainability, and human rights (among many, many others).

Home Sweet Home

Perhaps I've been reading too many design and apartment makeover blogs lately, or perhaps I assume others are as nosy about people's homes as I am (you know who you are), but I thought it might be fun to share some pictures of my humble abode - my (tiny!) SF studio apartment. When you have a small space, love design, and enjoy nesting, as I do, you tend to become meticulous about the things you place in and around your home. Here's how I've gone about it:

I wanted bedding that had natural, floral elements, but without being too girly. I got this beige and brown garden duvet at the mass-market home decor mecca, Anthropologie. The painting hanging over the bed is one I did while taking classes with Susan Miller (Susan Miller Gallery, Union St.). I wish I had a better bedside table (this one is a shoddy excuse for craftsmanship from Ikea).

I love my iHome alarm clock and ipod player (it is, however, a bit bulky, and I'm sure they now sell much sleeker ones). Above the stack of books is a postcard I picked up at a store in Santa Monica that says "Meditation is for Everyone". It reminds me to (try) and do a quick meditation on the day right before I go to sleep.

I think that the books you choose for your bedside table are supremely important. There should be a mix of "staple books" (things that you like to flip through frequently, or that provide inspiration and thought provocation), and of course your current reads. I am currently reading Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers (for a book club), and Against Interpretation, by Susan Sontag. The rest are all regulars:

• Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Kundera, and Either/Or, A Fragment of Life, by Kierkagaard (for intellectual foyers)
• Strike Sparks, by Sharon Olds (when a poetry mood strikes)
• Practical Idealists, by Wilson, Barham, and Hammock (trying to learn how to have it all)
• The Principles of Uncertainty, by Maira Kalman (beautiful, beautiful book)
• Change by Design, by Tim Brown (design thinking is EVERYWHERE)
• Collaborative Habit, by Twyla Tharp (her soothing tone calms me)

I'm a big believer in a big, clear desk. No cluttered paperwork, no filers. Just a few important objects, and your computer. Nothing is more inspiring and makes you feel more like a 'professional' writer (or whatever), than a good desk. This dark wood desk is from Ikea, but is surprisingly sturdy and of good quality. In the center I have a desk calendar, note-cards (to inspire me to write thank you notes often), an old photograph of my grandparents, and some candles.

This little love seat couch pulls out into a twin bed, and has been a godsend for my out of town guests. It's actually comfortable, I don't know how - good work Crate and Barrel. Throw pillow and blankets from Pier One, guitar is a Guild (shamefully out of tune).

Perhaps my favorite thing in the apartment is this black and gold lacquer Japanese cabinet. I got it about ten years ago in Los Angeles (Japantown), and really love the funkiness that it adds to my space. It is crammed full of books and art supplies. The house slippers are handmade from Jaipur, India. The pictures in the frame are snapshots from my 2009 trip to Argentina and Brazil.

And finally, the kitchen. This is my baker's rack where I keep my dishes and kitchen knick knacks. The colorful tumbler cups and small plates in the front are from Pottery Barn, a gift from mom. The elephant teapot and small blue and yellow cups at the top are from Anthropologie. The small unframed picture on the left hand side is a Jennie Smith print that I picked up at Little Otsu in the Mission; the larger framed poster in the back is a John Post photograph of my hometown, Manhattan Beach.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. Interior design is a veritable playground for design lovers, and I have a feeling I will constantly be reinventing and reinvigorating my home with new items and themes. I look forward to having more space (and more funds) to play with in the future.

Gender Wars

Lately the news media has been rife with stories about the increased rate at which women are entering higher education and the workforce. The public discussion seemed to start with the release of a new study from the Pew Research Center in January titled “New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives”. The study finds that in recent decades, women have outpaced men in education and earnings growth, a trend that has resulted in shifting and increasingly ambiguous gender roles in marriages and relationships.

Since the release of this study, there has been a flood of follow-up articles analyzing the potential pros and cons of this “new” arrangement. Today I saw one such story in the New York Times that discussed the repercussions of this new gender imbalance specifically for female college students. According to the author, the growing scarcity of men on university campuses is leading to decreased dating amongst co-eds, and heightened insecurities amongst female students who worry about being able to find a suitable match in their early twenties. He writes that this phenomenon has created an atmosphere where it is acceptable for young men to aggressively and nonchalantly play the field, and where young women must reluctantly acquiesce to casual hook-ups and flings in place of committed relationships.

I’m certainly interested in this topic. I am a young professional woman, and as such know many other successful young women. I also know plenty of young men. And, when I reflect, it does seem that my female friends in their early twenties tend (on average) to be more intensely focused on career aspirations, professional growth, and intellectual growth (Although I might argue that for men, this impulse kicks in later, perhaps in the early thirties, when they start to focus more on providing for a family and gaining more financial stability.)

This fact does leave many of my friends feeling uncomfortable. After reading these types of articles, they get nervous about their ability to find eligible men who will be their equal in terms of ambition and intellect, despite their willingness and readiness to be in committed relationships. I myself sometimes wonder, should I be worried about the consequences of my choice to pursue a graduate degree and a career? Are these choices mutually exclusive to choosing a partner and a family? A creeping feeling of panic has been known to set in from time to time.

And this is why I take issue with these articles. The fact that more women are entering college, strengthening their minds, and contributing ideas to the world is something we should all be celebrating, not fearing – it is something that generations of women have fought for. Portraying educated women as “victims” is dangerous because it encourages a social construct where women can only be happy and whole if they are attached in some way to men (a concept we've never forced upon men).

Furthermore, by overstating the potential “negative” consequences of increased female education, we put women in a position to question their decisions around pursuing education – a position that I find to be not only unfair, but also unproductive. A million and one variables exist within each of our individual lives before such a macro-level trend might come into play – family background, ethnicity, religion, geographic location, personality traits, etc. While it is tempting to ponder the potential impact such a cultural and demographic phenomena has on our own lives, we are far better off focusing on the matrix of personal opportunities that lie before us.

As such, while I find the Pew study and these articles interesting and fun to ponder, I refuse to be discouraged by them and acquiesce to the idea that pursuing higher education is potentially cutting me off from a happy romantic partnership. I know plenty of amazing women who balance professional and academic aspirations with wonderful relationships with equally amazing men. I think that these articles don’t give men enough credit - I have faith that the male species is going to evolve with this changing landscape, and we will see a new kind of gender egalitarianism that will surely only benefit both groups. And if not, I can be content in the knowledge that I have pursued my passions and made no sacrifices based on insecurity and fear. I don’t think that is too bad of a worst-case scenario.