Where do Ideas Come from?

I was recently speaking to a group of students about how can we learn to be creative on-demand and was asked this question. The student asked is there a way we can categorise all the different ways we can come up with a creative idea. This is another way of asking – Where do Ideas come from? I have written about this in the past here, here, here and here. There are multiple different ways to look at this question from. One way is to look at this from the lens that Steven Johnson wrote about in his best selling […]

How do we know when to quit?

A young student recently asked me the following question: How do I know it is time to quit something and when to persist with it? Here is how I answered the question: There is no one answer that fits everyone. There are many ways to figure this out. For me, the best way is to go back to the reason why I started something. If the reason I started something is still relevant and important, I know that I would like to continue to engage on this topic. Then the next question to ask is if the activity is taking you towards […]

China’s ‘Negative List’ Adds Entry Limits to News Service Sector And Why I think This Could be a move in the Right Direction!

Last week saw Chinese government announce that they will no longer allow for private investments in the News industry. You can read more about this on the Bloomberg site here. In a strange way, I kind of think this is a good idea but not for the reasons that the Chinese government took this decision. Let me explain with respect to TV NEWS channels. My explanation below for the TV NEWS Channels holds true for newspapers to magazines to radio channels. It’s just easier to explain this from one perspective (I can see the irony here :-)). When I was […]

Reading or Watching with your own Filter on

I read this interesting post by Robert Twigger in which he talks about how he is trying to watch the NEWS with his own filter – a filter for creativity. He also shares a bit about the results. You can read his post here. This is interesting in many different ways. What he has done is make that which is hidden, obvious. Each one of us looks at the information that comes to us with a filter on. I say this on many occasions and also in my book Thrive, that the human brain is a large pattern recognition engine. […]

How Change Is Changing and What to Do About It

I read this interesting blog post about the changing nature of change, specially in the organisational context, in which the authors (Paul Kurchina, Glen Gonzalez & Stephanie Overby) share their perspectives and distinguish between the “C” change and the “c” change. I would highly encourage you to read it here. Here my take on this topic: Organisations (business or otherwise) will need to learn how to manage change well. This is soon going to become one of the core skills for them in order to even have a chance at succeeding in their endeavour. There is no one way to […]