Beauty is in the eye of the beholden

The Nativity is such a compelling story for a number of reasons, but my favourite is how it challenges our preconceptions. Specifically our notion of status. A human-born deity with the power to change the world comes into being in a setting of abject poverty and humility. He is not a king, nor the son of a king, but the son of a carpenter; witnesses to his birth include cows, sheep and a donkey. Yet without this individual, who came from such a humble setting, our lives may have been considerably different.

So this week I’ve been thinking about the notion of preconception and challenging the status quo. We tell our clients that the Recruitment landscape is shifting, but are we heeding the very advice we are dishing out? In this week’s merry bunch of examples, we draw inspiration from children, from those who are hard of hearing and from those who are forcing us to rethink the way we work. So as you come to think about New Year and the list of things you’ll be looking to change, you could do worse than drawing inspiration from the example below.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Andy

Can children draw the internet?
In a world where the balance between what can be imagined and what can be achieved is precariously thin, it is often those who can approach the mundane from a different viewpoint who come up with an idea that truly stands out from the crowd. Such people are often derided as being childlike and over-playful, but in this intriguing experiment, we are all encouraged to relish  our childishness, as it is in this mode that we are uninhibited by preconceptions and more likely to come up with a great idea. The test is simple: senior level creatives and children are asked to draw the internet. The output is fascinating and displays a level of insight coupled with imagination that would stand us proud.

Hearing with your hands
I’ve had to live with people who are hard of hearing all my life, adjusting the manner in which I speak to my family to make the conversation easier to understand and be involved in. The problem is that deafness and partial deafness isn’t exactly easy to spot and for some reason, people are often reticent to admit that they can’t hear. Sometimes, just to understand what being deaf is like, I try to live life without sound. Think about it – how much of your perception of the environment is dominated by what you hear? Try watching a TV programme from start to end with mute switched on and see what impact it has on the way you perceive the programme. Anyway, in this link, the cast of Glee listen to John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ as sung by a deaf choir. Sounds strange, but is heart-rendingly moving.

Why work doesn’t happen at work
One of the things that really irritates me is the number of times someone interrupts what I’m doing by asking an inane question that they could quite easily had answered for themselves. Or the long meeting involving all and sundry which could have been done and dusted in a much shorter timeframe between a couple of people. In this engaging and entertaining 15 minute presentation, Jason Fried, the brains behind the hugely successful collaborative work tool Basecamp, discusses how our workplace could actually be counter-productive, providing some suggestions as to how to resolve this. My favourite is No Talk Thursday.

The story of the Nativity & The Digital Nativity
I thought I’d finish with something appropriate to Christmas Eve. For those of us who have ever got involved in acting, a huge challenge is how to provide an interpretation of the playwright’s work that is differentiated and entertaining. Over the past few weeks I have been looking at differing representations of the Nativity and it never fails to amaze me how many different ways there are to articulate what is, when you think about it, quite a straightforward sequence of events. These two videos, which both provide a modern view on the Nativity, have been trending recently and it’s easy to see why: one is tongue in cheek, the other slightly more serious. Both are worth watching.