space to imajin

Crash on Old Hope Road near RADA Office.

POW, CRASH, BAM. 5:30 woke me up with another  crash on Old Hope Road that runs between Hope Pastures and Mona. I swished some Listerine, slid on the sandals, grabbed my camera and ran! Out of breath I arrived and started snapping away. When I arrived, the last person, a woman, was entering a car to be transported to the hospital.

Accidents draw all sorts of people. Rich, poor, light, mocha and darker. There was the young police officer asking about what it was like as a photographer, the elderly lady in her pink house dress, the cyclists cranking his neck to see as he zooms by, mini-skirts and sticky fingered onlookers too. What a mix it was.

For me one of the most interesting things was connected to a previous accident. Another Suzuki that flipped multiple times and landed smack on it’s top. And all the occupants alighting alive…. I think Suzuki is doing something right with their small cars.

I do hope drag racers on this strip on Old Hope Road slow down. This is the second accident in as many months. It’s not an inherently dangerous road. It just seems like when we see a great stretch of pot-hole free tarmac we skin ketch a fire….slow down…it’s not worth it.

Trust me…

Ever believed something your whole life but never really knew how to put it into words or action-able tasks? As I read this I realized that someone was thinking as I did but had a MUCH better handle on how to express it.

Excerpt from The 100/0 Principle, by Al Ritter

What is the most effective way to create and sustain great relationships with others? It’s The 100/0 Principle: You take full responsibility (the 100) for the relationship, expecting nothing (the 0) in return.

Implementing The 100/0 Principle is not natural for most of us. It takes real commitment to the relationship and a good dose of self-discipline to think, act and give 100 percent.

The 100/0 Principle applies to those people in your life where the relationships are too important to react automatically or judgmentally. Each of us must determine the relationships to which this principle should apply. For most of us, it applies to work associates, customers, suppliers, family and friends.

STEP 1 – Determine what you can do to make the relationship work…then do it. Demonstrate respect and kindness to the other person, whether he/she deserves it or not.

STEP 2 – Do not expect anything in return. Zero, zip, nada.

STEP 3 – Do not allow anything the other person says or does (no matter how annoying!) to affect you. In other words, don’t take the bait.

STEP 4 – Be persistent with your graciousness and kindness. Often we give up too soon, especially when others don’t respond in kind. Remember to expect nothing in return.

At times (usually few), the relationship can remain challenging, even toxic, despite your 100 percent commitment and self-discipline. When this occurs, you need to avoid being the “Knower” and shift to being the “Learner.” Avoid Knower statements/ thoughts like “that won’t work,” “I’m right, you are wrong,” “I know it and you don’t,” “I’ll teach you,” “that’s just the way it is,” “I need to tell you what I know,” etc.

Instead use Learner statements/thoughts like “Let me find out what is going on and try to understand the situation,” “I could be wrong,” “I wonder if there is anything of value here,” “I wonder if…” etc. In other words, as a Learner, be curious!

Principle Paradox

This may strike you as strange, but here’s the paradox: When you take authentic responsibility for a relationship, more often than not the other person quickly chooses to take responsibility as well. Consequently, the 100/0 relationship quickly transforms into something approaching 100/100. When that occurs, true breakthroughs happen for the individuals involved, their teams, their organizations and their families.

More about the book, here: The life changing 100/0 Principle….

Apple and Jamaican tourism have something in common. The ability to grow when your competitors are contracting, even hemorrhaging. With Apple now officially a $50 billion company, their profits up 50% and the iPhone sales near 9 million they have shown that recession or no recession people want their digital wares from Cupertino, California…..bad! It is within this carefully crafted context that Apple is about to unleash the tablet today, January 27th. A date that seemed so far off a few months ago is now here. The hype has reached it’s crescendo and I am reminded of that buzz you hear of musicians tuning their instruments and anxiety laced chatting in the crowd. This all ends when the conductor raises his baton. Mr. Jobs is about to waive his wand again and the press and the Apple fans are transfixed in another suspension of reality. We are plunged again into another techno-orgasmic escape of global proportions. Designed to drive their stock price even higher. Sigh…why didn’t I buy that Apple stock in 2003.

There have been countless predictions regarding the tablet/iSlate/iPad whatever!?!?! But the ones that intrigue me the most are the following. Apple’s partnerships with print publishers and the possibilities of the tablet as an input device. It was amazing to follow last year how the media covered numerous print houses that were crashing left right and centre as the Red Baron of the new digital reality shot them mercilessly out of the air. Remember the Napster days? Digital distribution was spear-headed by pimply-faced iconoclasts out to rule the world with gnarly code and a pirate server. Just like the music industry of yore before the iTunes store and Napster, the print industry was caught with their pants on the ground.

Last year, a very obvious tipping point for print was reached. Newspapers were folding (pardon the pun) all across the US. This accelerated Kindle lust and helped Amazon and others to sell e-readers like gangbusters. But Apple waited, biding it’s time as they negotiated and secured contract after contract to enable their new product to be head and shoulders above the rest.

The tablet will create a whole new world for us content creators and designers. I can just imagine the next generation of children’s books, sports magazines and the soon to be popular music LP that Apple introduced last year that I believe will transform our musical experience…again. As a designer, I am really looking forward to the input capabilities of the tablet. I think Wacom is going to suffer some serious losses over the next 2-3 years. It will not be pretty. They may have to shift to input wands and software for the tablet to stay in business.

One thing so many other pundits are not mentioning much of is that the tablet will not only be a platform for print media but also for Apple’s twin juggernauts.

Apps and Music.

This is what the Kindle and the other players do not have. This One-Two-Three punch will really create the most sought after, life altering device since….fire. Either way, Apple is doing it again. Ol’ Stevie is proving why he was chosen as CEO of the new millennium’s first decade. It just goes to show that even if you get kicked out of the company that you founded there is always a chance for a second coming.

Fear is not a Growth Strategy.

So said Amy Cosper Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. She went on to mention, “It’s bad enough that Detroit is wheezing, Rome is burning and all hell has broken lose, but what’s worse is that the situation is making normally rational people act like loonies. It’s fear. And it’s a real business issue these days. But fear is not a growth strategy. 

Fear makes us irrational – like thinking cutting and growing are the same thing. Cutting costs does not equal growing sales Never has, never will. 

As I look over the second half of the coming year I see it everywhere, wanton fear. The kind that paralyzes every nerve in front of the car that is speeding towards you at 70 miles an hour. That car, is the future and we are trembling between it’s headlights. 

There are few among us that are thinking above the tide. Few that realize that the tide is coming in, will continue to come in and must go back out….naturally. Few that believe they will survive these “tough times”. This few, this “remnant” are the ones that have been innovating all along not as the next cool business trend but those that innovate as a means to survive. They innovate not because some book on the NY Times best-sellers list said so. They innovate because it’s in their culture to do so. It’s at thier deoxyribonucleic acid level. It’s a kaizen mentality. It is this remnant that will be head and shoulders above the rest as the tide goes back to sea.

Although the financial capital markets have dried up to a trickle, the creative capital market that exists between our ears has the potential not only to help us survive but to catapult us ahead of the curve once we get around the bend. While everyone else is idling in traffic, project your business, organization or government ministry beyond this stagnant mess. But remember, fear can kill this. 

As I look forward in my own business I am seeing how difficult it will be to drive business, I see how tough it will be to increase the bottom line. Innovation as a culture and not a fad is the only way forward. Innovation is not about creative cost cutting it’s about adding value for your clients/customers and extracting value for yourself at every step of your business process from soil to dining table, from camera to screen, from pencil to product, from thought to finish. 

So as a designer I must ask myself where can I innovate not only in the designs I produce but in my process, how can I move the state of the art to a place that lifts everyone. My clients, my colleagues, my community? 

These are the questions that I ask myself, Which ones do you ask? At the same time remember…

Never Doubt,
what you can do
with a little imaji nation.

stay tuned……

- Yorkali