blog from 2009 to mid-2015 by ยป John Maeda
In 2008, I left a tenured professorship at MIT to learn how to become a leader and operator at scale during the financial crisis of 2008-09. The latter wasn’t planned of course, so the transition was unexpectedly challenging by all accounts. Even my own. I had previously founded research groups at MIT, where I established a new field spanning art and technology, and worked with a variety of corporations advising their research and innovation teams, and I even earned an MBA as a side-hobby. But nothing I could have had under my belt, really, could have prepared me to run a 130-year old institution with a 9-figure operating budget amidst financial conditions that took a long, long time to settle down.
This blog was a place where I would “think out loud” in order to find a way forward through those turbulent times -- and it’s now pretty much frozen. I don’t intend to add to it much right now -- it’s a little archive that I’ve re-designed to be responsive to literally stay up with the mobile generation. Thanks for visiting these old, creaky thoughts from my formative period when learning how to swim about the world as a creative leader. I hope they are useful to you.
PS. I am blogging again at maeda.pm and remotedesignteam.com.
Top 14
2009 Characteristics of the Creative Leader 2010 Brennan’s Hierarchy of Imagination 2013 Dream Big, Execute Well 2012 Wanting Your Way Gets In The Way 2011 The Language of Art, via Paul Rand 2011 The True Joy in Life, via Matt Goldman 2011 Father as Leader 2012 Service-Minded and Hospitality-Minded 2012 My Four Rules 2013 Survive, Compete, Aspire 2011 Being the Answer, via George Clooney 2013 Hiroshi Ishii’s Vision 2013 Generosity as Doing, Not Thinking 2013 A Fifth Rule to Start a New Year
2015
1/19 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1/15 Being A Steward 5/16 The Teacher’s Lunch Box 5/10 I Believe In You 2/8 Tapping In
2014
12/26 Classical Leadership 2/18 Creative Leaders in Silicon Valley 1/11 Putting People At Ease 1/11 Becky’s Message 8/10 Making Questions 5/27 Fondation Cartier 30 5/10 David Lynch and Me 6/15 Reflections On Father’s Day 6/10 Paying Attention To Your Team 6/8 Interviewing Sarah Lewis 3/7 An Organization’s Surface Area 4/4 Organization Design At Scale 10/4 A Story That Moved Me
2013
12/30 Design And Venture 8/24 In Memory of Red Burns 11/22 Fors and Againsts 11/18 Social Media 10/16 Not Running Your Own Meeting 3/28 Professor Herbert Simon 3/24 Dream Big, Execute Well 3/17 What Is Design 3/16 Is Working 6/30 With Joe Gebbia at DLD 6/9 Non-Game-y Games 6/7 Generosity as Doing, Not Thinking 4/5 On Humility 7/3 Survive, Compete, Aspire 2/2 Makers like to Make, Not Lead 9/28 Hiroshi Ishii’s Vision 9/2 Consumer Telepresence List 1/20 Design at Davos 1/1 A Fifth Rule to Start a New Year
2012
1/30 Creative Experimentation 1/28 Women x Power 1/28 Service-Minded and Hospitality-Minded 1/27 Good More Versus Bad More 1/24 Leading With Humility 1/20 The Upside of A Crazy Boss 10/30 Organization Design Links 10/24 Design, Tech, Leadership 10/21 Visualization Links 11/27 My Goto Leadership Quote 11/27 99U 11/23 Old Note To Self 11/21 My Four Rules 11/20 The Diagonal Mentor 2/18 On Lin-dership 6/12 Turning the Houseboat 9/11 Remembering Bill Moggridge 8/9 Bridging Divergence and Convergence 8/8 Your Ears Don’t Blink 8/1 Wanting Your Way Gets In The Way 12/16 Confidence Without Ego 12/9 FOMO 12/9 Riflemaker London 12/8 The Aesthetics of Leadership 12/5 Scale Discontinuities
2011
12/30 Your Team’s Plus-One 12/21 And Daddy Lost 12/17 The Art Party 12/11 Forgetting Why You/They’re There 8/30 Thinking Differently 10/30 Design at Gunpoint 10/8 Being the Answer, via George Clooney 4/23 Me And Martha 4/19 Don’t Be Small 4/16 Father as Leader 4/6 When Leaps Are Made 4/3 The Professor’s Assistant 2/20 Creatives and Leadership 2/17 Takeo Book Note 2/9 Charlie’s Wisdom 6/11 On Standing Up 6/6 The True Joy in Life, via Matt Goldman 7/6 Unhesitatingly Doing Right 5/6 The Language of Art, via Paul Rand 9/5 David Kelley Clip 9/2 Productively Fail 9/1 Prized Thinking 3/1 Questioning The Right Thing
2010
12/28 Uma And Her Cameras 12/28 Dining In Europe 12/18 Old vs New vs Good 12/18 Involved Note 12/5 The Two Briefs 12/1 To Blend Or Not to Blend 11/27 Brennan’s Hierarchy of Imagination 11/13 On Being Gifted The License To Fail 9/21 Connecting The Dots 2/16 Basic Managing 5/9 Keep Learning 1/4 Doing Right vs Being Right 1/1 Tony Hsieh Link
2009
12/31 Big Ideas Need Time 12/30 Office Hours With Jason 4/30 Creative (Student) Leaders 4/21 The Dirty MBA 4/20 Why Is Art Important? 4/4 HBR Blog 4/3 Web 2.0 4/1 Creative Leadership Slides 1.0 3/28 On Teamwork 3/25 Being Together Keeps Us Together 3/16 Characteristics of the Creative Leader 7/16 The Creative Leader 7/9 Creative Leadership x WEF 2/9 Eames House Beginnings
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Copyright 2009 - 2016, John Maeda