Granted, I was born and raised in the US — so I like to think of myself as no different than any other American. But I know that every group has its own identification of themselves in relation to other groups — diversity is a wonderful thing when called out and celebrated. At RISD we started something called RISDiversity because I believe that communicating the richness of a community’s diversity leads to a stronger community. So I briefly reflected a bit about this notion of being Asian and how that impacts how I might behave, and shared the following:

My one thought would be that we all love the story of the underdog. But specifically the underdog that is humble, and still remains humble even when the unlikely thing happens that s/he succeeds. Because more often than nought, the underdog’s role is to fail. Asian values are about humility — humility is a calming and welcome force in our chaotic world today, I believe.

Humility is always re-ingrained in me when I remember how I am the son of a mom-and-pop tofu maker from Seattle, and I worked along side them as a child. I learned what hard work is about — and it made me realize that no matter how high I might rise professionally, I will never be someone that could have worked as hard as my parents did at the tofu store. They taught me humility, just by being who they were and are.

I feel lucky to know many people of many backgrounds that resonate with my thoughts above … of their parents or relatives or friends. With respect, wonder, and love. And humility. Whether you’re Asian or non-Asian, of course. Human. Being. I figure that covers all of us. -JM

Kotovsky, another former graduate student, said Dr. Simon loved to argue. When he would preface a statement with the words, “Look, friend …,” that was a signal that he was about to put the kibosh on his opponent’s argument.

“You had to be sure your head was attached when he used the word ‘friend,’ ” said Kotovsky. He recalled the first time Dr. Simon directed “Look, friend” his way: “That was the moment I passed into adulthood.”

Dr. Simon enjoyed playing the piano and, particularly in recent years, used to gather with friends who played violin, viola and other instruments.

In addition to the Nobel, Dr. Simon was the recipient of virtually every top award in every scientific field he pursued: the A.M. Turing Award in computer science, the American Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology, induction into the Automation Hall of Fame, the American Society of Public Administration’s Dwight Waldo Award and the National Medal of Science, among them. He was always appreciative of such honors, but maintained they were no big deal.

“The thing that he really cherished was doing his job as a professor,” Kotovsky said.

One night, for instance, Kotovsky had invited the Nobel laureate to speak to a group of freshmen at one of the residence halls.

After Dr. Simon spoke, everyone sat on the floor eating submarine sandwiches, while the students huddled around him. The conversation continued for hours until Kotovsky, worried that Dr. Simon might be getting impatient and tired, sidled up and asked, “Will you be ready to leave soon?”

“No, you go on,” Dr. Simon replied. “I’ll be fine here.”

“That,” Kotovsky added, “was who he was.”

It reminded me of a frame I reference in Redesigning Leadership on “Professor as Leader” — I feel lucky to have had many teachers and mentors that quietly led with a similar eloquence like Dr. Simon. I am certainly, thankfully satisficed . -JM

Last week I was in Asia where I sat with a gifted creative leader. As we talked, I scribbled notes on the back of a menu that I can barely read now, as evidenced above.

One thought I liked was her response to my question on the meaning of integrity. As we both have an arts background, the word “integrity” has special meaning. She said resolutely, “Integrity equals consistency.” I have to totally agree with that. Her definition captures the ambiguity of how integrity doesn’t necessarily mean one is doing “good” versus “bad” — it means that they are being absolutely consistent sometimes to a fault but always towards an ideal.

The other takeaway I had from our meeting was something she said about people who “work hard” — as in the common form of phrase of, “S/he really works hard!” Her point being that we tend to value the idea of someone who works hard, but how working hard often isn’t good enough because, as she said, someone who simply works hard may be doing that hard work with what she called “small dreams.”

Instead, the paradigm she seeks in the people that work with her isn’t one of “hard workers” but those with truly big dreams. She quickly added, “Big dreamers … that execute well.”

I found this conversation extremely useful for when and if I am told, in a complimentary fashion and with only good intention, that I am a hard worker — which happens from time to time, but it’s always made me feel uncomfortable … but I didn’t know why. For I now know, if I want to be truly effective in life, that I might say … and ask back, “Thank you! But am I dreaming big enough?” -JM

I’ve started a new blog on whatisdesign.net — and yes, indeed, you are correct that I absolutely can’t maintain all of these sites. And yes, indeed, I have no idea why the link text in the previous sentence is so GIGANTIC. -JM

I was reading about how Twitter has enabled the ability to download one’s entire archive of tweets, and so I went ahead to take advantage of this new feature. I’m currently at my 3933th post on Twitter, which I made on July 13, 2008 at 1:51PM. It was a two-word post on the fact that I was working … which we all seem to be doing nowadays, so that was really nothing novel to post. At the time, I resisted posting about my lunch … which wasn’t easy as the peer pressure was enormous.

I vaguely recall that the user interface of Twitter was designed as something more to the effect:

@johnmaeda is [ blank box for text input]

so I was inclined to say “is (( doing whatever ))” … and then I soon realized that the “is ” was eating up three characters out of my 140 character allocation, and the free “is ” went away. So I switched styles, like everyone else was doing.

Before starting to post on Twitter, I blogged a lot on my “simplicity” blog at the MIT Media Lab … which unfortunately no longer exists for security reasons. It was sitting atop some really, really old build of WordPress so it had to get taken down — blogs were scarce at the Media Lab back then. Mine was one of three or so blogs in the early 2000s … along with my buddy and colleague Chris Csikszenmihalyi. Losing all that text made me unhappy, but luckily I had written a little book on simplicity based on that work entitled, The Laws of Simplicity, so I don’t feel completely sad. Thank goodness for printed books! And for MIT Press!

I got busy pretty quickly around the time I started using Twitter — as it was around when I had just been announced as the 16th President of Rhode Island School of Design — so the medium has suited my lifestyle much better. As a professor I had a lot more time to blog; as a president I simply don’t. There are random swatches of 15 minute blocks that fall from the sky that I use to post here … and it’s always a treat to get to do so.

Reading over the few thousand tweets thus far, I find it important to note that some things never change. @johnmaeda is (still) working. . And happy to be doing so here in 2013. Wishing all of you a great day, and life, of working …! And also taking a quick peek at my Spring Counter as we begin to approach a new spring in this hemisphere of the world. -JM

I try to stay technologically “fit” by writing software code. I know. A round on the elliptical machine, or even picking up Tae-bo (do people still do that?) or the likes might be a better use of time. But I guess I’m stuck in some of my old ways as I have been coding for over 30 years now. Woah. Where’d that number come from?

Writing code. Laying out a page. Cutting paper. Taking a photograph. Thinking out loud in text (as I am doing now). All of these tasks lie in the creative domain. You can do them, and do them, and do them. And you inch forward. You progress. And it feels quite nice because the immediate result is right in front of your eyes. Your hands did it. The materials obeyed your wishes. You have expressed yourself as you need to, in your own voice and without any intermediary. It’s an important kind of frame to keep in oneself, I believe, and that’s the reason why I try to stay fit in doing what can be done quickly — like coding — as a way to stay in touch with the agility of a directly expressed medium where high-speed iteration is the norm.

Leading people is quite different. Everything takes at least twice as long as you expect, if you are lucky. Iteration equals disruption. Creativity is construed as flakiness. So it’s no surprise to me that many people often ask me, “Do you still make your … art?” They often say this with a pained look on their face. As if somehow what I do today … isn’t what I really want to do. What underlies that question, of course, is the thought that, “Artists make art. Artists don’t lead organizations.” And it is that stereotyped thought, that resounds in literal stereo inside my head … that makes my work as a leader for me, as an artist, extremely exciting and provocative as a direction in life. A direction that I feel fortunate to get to take.

Art is about finding meaningful patterns. Traditionally artists found these patterns in how we see and touch and feel. And then, artists found a role in how society feels and works, and found a means to broaden their scope of what their “canvas” might be. In 2013, the canonical example that everyone knows, of course, is Ai Weiwei. It’s not hard to think of the many others that creatively lead from within the domain of the arts and resonate outwards. However, it is much less common for artists and designers to lead institutions or organizations — but there are excellent examples out there like Mark Parker of Nike.

In the leadership domain, I’ve found some patterns that I have been finding meaningful to my developing journey as a creative leader. There’s the work of John Gardner. There’s the work of Gianpiero Petriglieri. And there’s the work of many leaders that I get the opportunity to watch and learn from up close. Actually, I started this post for a specific reason — I wanted to quickly document something I learned from Regina Dugan. Regina said something I hadn’t heard before … to the effect:

“Most people think that when you take on a big, impossible goal with a team, that you immediately set yourself up for failure. That history will show that every time such a goal is marked in the sky, and a team is assembled, that failure is the common outcome. I, for one, have seen the contrary. That the more aspirational goal you set as a leader, the more likely that it gets done. Because the quality of the goal, determines who will join your team. And it is often the best people in the world that want to take on the most difficult challenges of our times.”

In other words, the quality of the challenge you choose as the leader, determines the quality of team that you get to create. Or, the quality of the challenge that you choose as a leader, largely determines the outcome. This is such an inspiring thought for me, and I’m so happy to get to share it with you. If you haven’t seen Regina’s talk on TED, I recommend that you do. And now back to the skies for you, and back to my treadmill routine of figuring out UTC time in Python for me. -JM

Professor Gianpiero Petriglieri of INSEAD’s kind comment about this illustration I made, among others, for my upcoming presentation at Davos.

This illustration by @johnmaeda is the best portrait ever of the experience of leading –and growing through it.

Thanks @gpetriglietri! -JM

I return to my Life Counter every year at this time, at the very start, to do a brief “look ahead” to put everything (as the late David Foster Wallace refers to as the “skull sized kingdom” of our fixation on our selves) into perspective.

What I am reminded of is not that the PHP script I wrote is getting old, or the GIFs I chiseled are losing their luster, or that the number should read 46 instead of 45 so I should edit the script. But that the progress bar of life is happening for me, and for everyone on the planet. We all have hopes that “the file” will be transferred across the network. That the transmission, ideally, won’t terminate prematurely. And that the estimated number of springs, based upon demographic averages, is way too conservative and incorrect. That’s not just what I want for me, but for all of us that are here.

In 2013, I will continue my resolve to desperately hold on to my original Four Rules from 1999. Undoubtedly I will fail at keeping them in focus for 2013, but as with all resolutions — constituted in plain, average, hopeful human resolve — I carry them into this new year as a conscious act.

In addition, I bring into 2013 a thought given to me by Matt Goldman by George Bernard Shaw on The True Joy in Life. It’s a useful one that nails, for me, the answer to the question of why we live, how to live, and to be aware of the when we live as happening right now, and to try not to waste it all for anything less than what it could and should be otherwise.

Five years ago I was a professor at MIT, and active as a contemporary artist and as a commercial designer. I had just earned an MBA as my part-time hobby, and I had been actively lecturing about the Laws of Simplicity to synthesize and integrate ideas I had formed then about design, technology, and business. And the 2008 election season was brewing … when, like many Americans, I felt that maybe there was a possibility, and a responsibility, for younger, inexperienced Americans to step forward and try to make a difference on the leadership stage. When I accepted the role of becoming President/CEO at Rhode Island School of Design in 2008, without any prior executive leadership experience, and immediately after that appointment being required to navigate my institution through the effects of the global financial crisis, now in retrospect, I often turned to my Four Rules and the annual resolve in them that I had put in place. Because I started with them from a place where I had no idea what “leadership” was really about.

Four years later, I feel fortunate to have tried to take what I learned from the late Paul Rand, as a designer and as a human being, and have worked to transplant that creative philosophy into the leadership space of the other “Paul Rands” in the leadership world like the late John Gardner. And I’ve started working on synthesizing how design, data, and leadership might fluidly intersect as I described in my recent presentation for GigaOm. Later this month I will present my newest thoughts on this topic of design, data, and leadership at the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos as moderated by Gianpiero Petriglieri of INSEAD.

Moving from being a typical “lone wolf”-style individual creative as a designer, artist, engineer, and professor just four years ago, to becoming the chief executive officer of a major non-profit organization has changed me, profoundly. On any given day, it’s easy to look at the range of positive “business marker” results that I have led — whether it be our recent quantum increase in applications, record scholarship and academic fundraising to support our strategic plan, gaining recognition as the top design school in the world — or, instead, the *true* results that matter — like the incredible creative talent that spills out into the world from RISD like no other. But there is always the negativity to contend with — which is palpable and ever present for the chief executive of any institution, and especially in my role as the leader of an institution which, as described by my colleague in the music education sector who inherited similar challenges to mine, is that of trying to run an institution that is inherently anti-institutional. The arts, in practice, are about pushing against the authority of “the man.” As an individual artist and as a professor for many years, I knew that mission and mantra of working against “the man,” intimately. But as the leader, I became … “the man” — and that ongoing struggle with that realization is something I went to in depth in Redesigning Leadership with Becky Bermont.

Whether you are an artist or designer that has chosen to lead, or a leader that isn’t an artist or designer that hopes to learn from artists and designers, or you are an engineer or scientist or any other “type” that is learning to lead, I want you to know that you are, like me, in that space of having an unknown allotment of springs left, that gets to share in George Bernard Shaw’s excitement and wonder. Of joy. And to find your own four, five, six, three, or two , or one rules to work and use as your own compass. Being an individual and contributing as an individual is never an easy task when you care about that work, more than treating it as if it were just “work.” The same can be said for leading individuals, or leading groups of leaders that lead individuals or leaders. It’s easy when you don’t care. It’s hard when you care. And when you care, it feels *awesome* when you win. And feels terrible when you don’t.

Failure is such an important aspect of leadership — something we’ve discussed often on the WEF’s New Models of Leadership Council, and I thought the most profound comment on the topic came from one of our members — a legendary hockey coach — the post is here, and the key quote is:

“Many times leaders in the public sphere are criticized for some mistake or failure as if it was the worst thing imaginable to happen. But as a coach of a hockey team I’ve learned that if you as a leader are not willing to feel any pain you are not willing to risk anything — you are not reaching high enough and far enough. I tell this to my players all the time — if they’re not failing, they’re not trying hard enough.”

This is a powerful thought: If you aren’t failing, it means you aren’t reaching high enough and far enough.

As an individual artist, designer, engineer, or any field you may be from, we know the power of failure and iteration, but when we fail, those failures often get to go unnoticed. When leaders fail, however, it becomes something quite different. And that difference is what a leader signs on to, and either falls under its weight and gets crushed, or chooses and shifts to a different path by exiting, or else … embraces the challenge, gets right back up, and finishes the job.

Hmm, this has gotten quite long. And it’s already past my 30-minute limit of extended blogging. Most of you have already left by now (that ending scene in Ferris Bueller remains one of my adolescent era’s all-time favorites). Thanks for reading to the end. I am now ready to add a fifth rule to my Four Rules. I now realize that was the original intent of writing all of this, which I didn’t know until I got to this ending. Now I can figure out how to title this post. There. It is borrowed from someone that I admire:

• 5. When others go low, go high.

It’s a variant of my rule #1, but especially important for anyone in the public sphere or otherwise exposed to scrutiny that goes beyond the kitchen table. Which reminds me, I wrote about this long ago in a different form. In 1990-ish. Here it is. I called it, in effect, “stepping into the sunlight.” Ah. That’s a better post title. There. All set.

Phew. And here I am by my window. And the sun is shining through the trees at the perfect angle and exactly in my face. Time to wait for spring. Thank you for helping me to start my new year, and good luck to you in 2013! -JM

This morning I stumbled upon the image above by an undergraduate student at MIT regarding the passing of Professor Robert Silbey. The story is quite charming, and I recommend that you click on the image above to learn what Taylor Swift and an internationally acclaimed scientist might have to do with each other.

Bob came to mind for me by accident yesterday. Yesterday, like many of us out there, I was trying to make sense of the tragic events in Newtown. President Obama’s words about the victims struck hard, “They had their entire lives ahead of them—birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers—men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.”

Much is being said about how this event is being covered by the media — so I will not go into it further. Yesterday I didn’t post anything on Twitter or the likes because I wanted to fully reflect, and I am still doing so. What I will say is that by the end of the day, my attention eventually turned to what President Obama spoke to in his words above — namely, what can happen in people’s lives when they are blessed with the opportunity to flourish and grow. Or in other words, what we get to do when we live a fulfilling life that inevitably fulfills all of those around us — what it is and what happens, is something profound, beautiful, and everlasting. And for those individuals affected by another loved one’s life, even if that life ends up unexpectedly short, there is beauty that remains and resonates interminably.

A Google search yesterday to check on a mentor of mine started in sadness, and then ended in happiness. That mentor, as you can guess, was Bob Silbey. He died last year — and I didn’t know it. And that fact made me reflect how important it is, everyday, to not lose the chance to reflect on what is truly important — which is the great encounters you often get to have with people. So I try to do so here and now.

Bob was the person that made me believe that becoming a leader might be something I wanted to try in my lifetime. As a professor at the Media Lab, I had served on the MIT Core Curriculum Task Force along with 20 other faculty across MIT that Bob led as the Dean of Science for three years, and it was my absolute *favorite* meeting to go to because I’d get to watch Bob in action. He ran each meeting masterfully. With real conviction and force, but also able to be generous and humorous at the same time. I truly loved watching him in action. At the Media Lab we had nothing like him … I knew that when I was at his meetings that I was getting to see a true Michael Jordan of academia in action. And I loved every minute of it.

I wrote to Bob, I think once, shortly after I moved from being a professor at MIT to becoming president of RISD. And had the chance to thank him — I remember him writing me back, and how thrilled I was to read his message. I wish I had a second chance to write him, but realize I am too late. I have quoted Bob time after time in my role as president here at RISD in expressing the epitome of a great academic and administrative leader — in the subtle, gentle, powerful way he always held himself. He truly, profoundly changed my career.

When I read online all the kind words about Bob from his students and colleagues in the sciences at MIT, I know that I am one of many, many people outside the sciences who encountered Bob — for even just a few hours a term — whose life was forever changed.

I especially loved this comment about Bob as a leader:

Bob was a truly singular person who had such deep abiding confidence without ego, if one can imagine such a combination that he was always there for others in personal transactions. He didn’t need the response to fill his soul, it was so secure and thus could be so generous.

To know someone who could show me, and others, generosity without needing or asking for or wanting reciprocation, and to carry himself with “confidence without ego”, speaks to me of the fortune I have had in my life to have known Bob. What a lucky life we get to live to know and learn from the amazing teachers, students, women, men, and children on this earth through the examples of their lives, and through the chance to live our lives with their lives intertwined. You are one of those people — a person that took a circuitous turn on the Internet to arrive here. Thank you for reading this, and for motivating me to share my thoughts of Bob, and for you to think of your Bob somewhere out there. -JM

I spied this worthwhile restroom graffiti earlier this year and shared it on Twitter:

“I’m worried about missing everything I’m too scared to live for.”

and found it had resurfaced as an echo on Twitter yesterday. While observing that all happening, I encountered the “FOMO” term as used by @cosekoski which I wasn’t aware about (I’m always embarrassed to be a few years behind everyone else). This article helped decode it for me as meaning “Fear Of Missing Out,” and I felt enormously better that my FOMO about what “FOMO” meant finally got resolved.

Artists and designers tend to have extremely high FOMO — I think in part it marks them (us) as hungrily insatiable and overwhelmingly curious. The latter attribute being more of an indication of being fearless (of the new) than being fearful (of missing out).

And there, my FOMO with respect to posting this thought right now is sated. Phew. -JM