Earth Day provides us with an opportunity to reflect on our place on this planet. The planet needs action not just reflection. Lessons from psychological science can help us convert good intentions into planetary health. Beginning in 1970, much of the world recognizes April 22nd as Earth Day. The event was established as a means …
There are reasons people read or scroll through content on beautiful places and spaces; it inspires us to create. Our environments play a big role in shaping ideas and creating innovations. This post was inspired from the recent episode of Censemaking: The Innovation Podcast. When I was five years old, I had a terrible accident …
Our massive push toward more immersive online experiences, space travel, and connected social worlds seem even more divorced from reality when we consider what’s happening in the physical world. Maybe that is the point. When things come in threes I take notice. This is not for any superstitious reasons and more because it points to …
Our future depends on our ability to change how we see ourselves and the world and act on it — and it pays to know how this works. Climate change is here (as if there was much doubt). After decades of cautious language, scientists are now speaking about climate change in unequivocal terms. The future …
Change is often less about what we intend to change and our willingness to take action. If innovation requires us to change something understanding how change happens is important to doing innovation well. Much of the literature on behaviour change emphasizes things like raising awareness, providing information, and shifting people’s intentions. What is often missing …
Innovation is emotional work and it’s time to connect our feelings and thoughts to fuel our change efforts and actions. I recently read an interview between Yancey Strickler and Clare Farrell, co-founder of The Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement that attracted my attention. The interview was part of Strickler’s Ideaspace podcast and titled ‘from hope to …
Plastic language is all about using words in meaningless ways and that creates meaningless impact, too.
We prepare for what we know and see. To address the challenges of the future, we need to imagine things differently in order to see them before they exist. Sometimes we need to believe to see things. Sometimes we need to know what we don’t know and can’t know (now) to understand what we’ll need …
This year I took a summer holiday — something I’ve not done in years — and was reminded what literally stepping away from your everyday life and journeying to other spaces and places does for the mind, the heart and the soul. As kids (and adults) all over head back to school and tell their stories …
Yesterday Toronto was hit with a massive rainstorm that dumped more than 120mm of rain on parts of the city within the span of five hours knocking out power to more than 300,000 people, stranding thousands more, and even prompting a rescue of hundreds trapped on a commuter train out of the city by the …
