Berries, Snowflakes and Baubles... #58
Hi everyone. As this may well be the last collection of the year, I wanted to thank everyone for the very kind comments, contributions and of course friendship over this year. I hope these occasional missives brighten the day or cause some thought or simply remind us of the power of great minds. If of course you don’t want to receive them anymore or are subscribing via the ‘Quotes Blog’ then always ping me and I will take you off.
Have a great holiday season and of course a calm, safe and exciting 2008!. John
Errr...
“I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.” - Winston Bennett. (University of Kentucky basketball forward)
“It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.” - Al Gore
“I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law” - David Dinkins, New York City Mayor
And seriously...
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” - Buddha
“I do everything I can to disrupt my comfort zone.” - Brian Grazer,
“Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind the stronger the trees.” - Williard Marriott
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.” - James Neil Hollingworth
“The best way out is always through.” - Robert Frost
“We're really a niche company, but it's a huge niche." - Kip Hirschbach
“You will rise by lifting others.” - Robert G. Ingersoll
“I believe advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable.” - Robert Stephens
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” - Abraham Lincoln
“One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.” - Marie-Henri Beyle
“While it's important to work hard, all work and no play is a recipe for diminishing returns.” - Wendy Marx
“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” - Peter F. Drucker
And finally two wonderful if not massive understatements from 2007...
“There is actually the opportunity for value creation in being socially responsible.” - Brian Walker
“The needs of business travellers have not been helped by the current realities of air travel.” - Owen N. Wild
John Caswell I Group Partners I http://www.grouppartnerswiki.net | SKYPE John Caswell | JC Blog http://johncaswell.typepad.com/my_weblog/ Quotes Blog | http://www.grouppartners.net/blog/index.html
“Pattern recognition is the brain’s ability to scan the environment; discern order and create meaning from huge amounts of data; and thereby quickly assess a situation so that action can be taken right away and with a high degree of accuracy.” - Roderick Gilkey & Clint Kilts
P Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to
"Helping our clients avoid solving the wrong problem really well"
Gems from around the place...#57
“Who idolizes the plodding studiers of spreadsheets? Nobody.” - Rob Walker
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” - Steve Jobs
“Even the best are ineffective unless they can also lead.” - Jim Bolt
“The display is the computer.” - Jen-Hsun Huang
“The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing.” - Edward Tufte
“Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all.” - Douglas Martin
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” - Herman Melville
“Nothing happens unless first a dream.” - Carl Sandburg
“Don't just tell customers you've changed; show them you've changed.” - Saabira Chaudhuri
“[Leonardo Da Vinci] combined art and science and aesthetics and engineering, that kind of unity is needed once again.” - Ben Shneiderman
“Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.” - Paul Rand
“Wimbledon - A private members club that has a bit of a do in the summer...” - Anon but told to me by Ian Ritchie the CEO recently.
And finally, not so much a pithy insight but the more I read this explanation the more it inspires...
“The sound of vision: Vision comes to those who exercise themselves to see what they hear, as they listen, who learn to see what is said and who enter in the experience of simple perceptual connection with the wide open personal completion to the moment's happening. As one develops the maturity of full participation with the moment, so does the perceptual envisioning dexterity. From the normalization of envisioning into one's perceptual connection getting firmly established in the daily living, then comes the envisioning. The envisioning is the imagination's inner screen lighting up in context of where the envisioning grows. To envision is to become aware from soaking in the atmosphere. To envision is the focus coming in contact with the natural deployment grown from the whole envisioning atmosphere I soke in daily. The essence of vision is from the personal relatedness development in its whole simplicity of perceptual connection of the moment. The sign of a vision is confirmed when it gets communicated in the context that it addresses and that the focusing message lights up a healthy stimulation of the imagination screen and creativity from each listener's own personal perceptual relatedness. It is also recognized from the pure joy of effortlessly knowing beyond any possible argument... offered with love in faith and hope.” - Benoit Couture
John Caswell I Group Partners I http://www.grouppartnerswiki.net | SKYPE John Caswell | JC Blog http://johncaswell.typepad.com/my_weblog/ Quotes Blog | http://www.grouppartners.net/blog/index.html
“We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box.” - Robert Fulghum
"Helping our clients avoid solving the wrong problem really well"
Thinking Kindling & Touch Paper #56
“You've got to be honest; if you can fake that, you've got it made.” - George Burns
“We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box.” - Robert Fulghum
“Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others? ” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing.” - Charles M. Schwab
“Creating a clear and compelling vision statement is not a simple matter.” - Gordon Quick
“Creative thinking begins with great questions, not answers. Great creative thinkers stay with the question instead of rushing to find an immediate solution. They ask more questions than the average person and are comfortable in the often uncomfortable situation of not immediately having the answer." - Elaine Dundon
“The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.” - Toni Morrison
“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.” - Chinese Proverb
“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.” - B. B. King
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” - Nelson Henderson,
“What particular privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the universe?” - Baron Paul Henri Thyry d’Holbach
And finally...
“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” - Bob Dylan
John Caswell I Group Partners I http://www.grouppartnerswiki.net | SKYPE John Caswell | Weblog http://johncaswell.typepad.com/my_weblog/
“We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box.” - Robert Fulghum
P please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to
Imagine, ponderings and thoughts... #55
“You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.” - Benazir Bhutto
“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” - George Bernard Shaw
“Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.” - Muhammad Ali
“Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things.” - Albert Einstein
“Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.” - David Lloyd George
“You should empower the creativity of others.” - Brad Garlinghouse
“Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible.” - Hannah Arend
“Most civilization is based on cowardice. It’s so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards that could lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.” - Frank Herbert
“You can't have everything. Where would you put it?” - Steven Wright
“Pain is only temporary, giving up is forever.” - Lance Armstrong.
“Words are like bullets; if they escape, you can't catch them again.” - Wolof (Senegal, The Gambia)
“The people who oppose your ideas are inevitably those who represent the established order that your ideas will upset.” - Anthony D''Angelo
"The trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true." - Isaiah Berlin
And finally...
“What's another word for Thesaurus?” - Steven Wright
John Caswell I Group Partners I http://www.grouppartnerswiki.net | SKYPE John Caswell | Weblog http://johncaswell.typepad.com/my_weblog/
“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.” - Douglas Adams
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Snippets and Nuggets from hither and thither... #54
“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.” - Tom Robbins
“There is no point in asking consumers - who do not know what they want - to say what they want.” - Russell Ackoff
“The real marketing potential of online social networks is listening, not talking.” - Tim Manners, publisher, "Reveries"
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” - Douglas Adams
“It's fine with me if design is regarded as nothing more than a business tool.” - Sam Lucente, VP of design, Hewlett-Packard
“To be or not to be that is your choice. And that choice will influence your whole life.” - Horatio Nelson
“There is nothing that a manager wants done that educated subordinates cannot undo.” - Russell Ackoff
“We don't stop laughing because we get old; we get old because we stop laughing.” - Unknown
“When the truth is missing, people feel demoralized, less confident, and ultimately are less loyal.” - Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans
“The simplest definition of design is how you treat your customer.” - Yves Behar
And finally...
“It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.” - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
John Caswell I Group Partners I http://www.grouppartnerswiki.net | SKYPE John Caswell | Weblog http://johncaswell.typepad.com/my_weblog/
“It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear.” - Douglas Adams
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Collections from the Road... #53
“The one thing worse than not being able to see is having no vision.” - Helen Keller
“There’s never a budget for the management of change.” - A UK Government Minister in a recent talk.
“Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behaviour. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behaviour.” Dee Hock
“Design is the art of gradually applying constraints until only one solution remains.” - Unknown
“Developing leaders and high-potential talent has become a strategic necessity.” - Jim Bolt
“The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.” - Bertrand Russell
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it's the only thing.” - Albert Schweitzer
“The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.” - Benjamin Disraeli
“Interactive design [is] a seamless blend of graphic arts, technology, and psychology.” - Brad Wieners
“Leonardo Da Vinci combined art and science and aesthetics and engineering, that kind of unity is needed once again.” - Ben Shneiderman
And finally - and at the same talk - just not by the same UK Government Minister... (Deliberately not attributed)
“The commercial models between us and the private sector are in the main incompatible...”
“Implement change, not technology...”
“There are glaring discrepancies and real paradoxes between the definitions in Private Sector and Government in the following areas, leadership, risk, ownership, objectives, and relationship - in these observations lies the gap between our assumptions, our expectations and then our disillusionment...”
John Caswell I Group Partners I http://www.grouppartnerswiki.net | SKYPE John Caswell | Weblog http://johncaswell.typepad.com/my_weblog/
“I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.” - Woody Allen
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Ponderings, cluelets and wonderers... (#52)
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” - Edgar Allan Poe
“Figure out what changes, what doesn't change, and what you want to change.” - Anne Hartman, Essex Partners
“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.” - Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. ” - Nelson Mandela
“Playing safe is probably the most unsafe thing in the world. You cannot stand still. You must go forward.” - Robert Collier
“We had 12.9 gigabytes of (Microsoft) PowerPoint slides on our network. And I thought, 'What a huge waste of corporate productivity.' So we banned it. And we've had three unbelievable record-breaking fiscal quarters since we banned PowerPoint. Now, I would argue that every company in the world, if they would just ban PowerPoint, would see their earnings skyrocket. Employees would stand around going, 'What do I do? Guess I've got to go to work”- Scott McNealy Sun Microsystems
“Disorganization is an issue for more people than it isn't.” - Barbara Hemphill, productivity consultant
“You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.” - Olin Miller
“Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.” - Gore Vidal
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.” - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
And finally...
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So - get on your way.” - Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel)
John Caswell I Group Partners I http://www.grouppartnerswiki.net | SKYPE John Caswell | Weblog http://johncaswell.typepad.com/my_weblog/
“I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.” - Woody Allen
P please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to
