by Mark O'Brien | Dec 16, 2015
I couldn’t help thinking about Charles M. Schultz’s most popular character (with the possible exception of Snoopy) when I read “The Dark Side of Creativity”. The article would have us believe creative people are negative, moody, depressive,...
by Mark O'Brien | Dec 11, 2015
If you read this article from Fast Company — “What Does Authenticity Really Mean?” — you’ll get a smorgasbord of options: According to one person cited in the article, “If you want to be a leader, you have to be yourself—skillfully.” So,...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 23, 2015
I’m noticing what seems to be a proliferation of a phenomenon called use cases. These seem to constitute vignettes or scenarios in which sellers of products or services illustrate various applications of said products or services — having already elucidated the...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 20, 2015
There’s an old expression in the graphic arts that says this: If you’re not creating an effective presentation of a message, it’s not design. It’s art. So it is with content: If you’re not creating an effectively persuasive message for an...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 19, 2015
irony (noun): incongruity between what is expected to be and what actually is, or a situation or result showing such incongruity When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 16, 2015
If you read my ramblings with any regularity, you know I don’t believe in accidents: Everything that’s supposed to happen does happen. Everything that’s supposed to happen happens in its own time. And everything that happens happens for a reason....