CULTIVATED (Page 4)

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Is the CV Still the Best Way to Represent Professional Value?

Is the CV Still the Best Way to Represent Professional Value?

The CV has survived decades of reinvention around it — and viewed as a communication tool with a purpose, an audience and a context, that survival makes sense. What's missing is something else entirely.

Portfolio – a declaration of what deserves your attention

Portfolio – a declaration of what deserves your attention

Portfolio began as a leather case for carrying papers. Where the word came from, how its meaning changed — and what a portfolio really is at work.

The three areas of learning — and the one very few people invest in

Learning & Practice

The three areas of learning — and the one very few people invest in

When I first started out, I did the obvious thing. I got good at the work in front of me. It didn't take long to notice that being good wasn't enough.

Putting the human back into the work

Climate & Creativity

Putting the human back into the work

Last night I was at a new community event called The Something More Club. Three talks on running a small business, and beneath all three, the same two themes kept surfacing: human connection, and community.

The three ways ideas change (or don't)

The three ways ideas change (or don't)

Progress isn't movement — it's seeing. What stop-motion animation reveals about how your ideas actually become valuable.

The Public Commonplace Project

Learning & Practice

The Public Commonplace Project

It was some time in the mid to late 80s. A café in Bristol, a man sitting alone, and a twelve-year-old with a new notebook writing his first ever note. Thirty years on, that habit became all of this — and now a good part of it goes public.

The more we define, the less we understand

The more we define, the less we understand

Organisations often define everything, then define the definitions. Somewhere in the pile, understanding leaves the room. A case for clarity over completeness.

Good teaching is the creation of understanding

Learning & Practice

Good teaching is the creation of understanding

Good teaching is not the transfer of information. It is the creation of understanding.

Why I called it Cultivated

Climate & Creativity

Why I called it Cultivated

A second-hand book, a stranger's handwritten inscription, and the real meaning of the word cultivate — to tend, not to force. On why the company has the name it does, and what it means to grow good work rather than demand it.

Organisations are not machines

Climate & Creativity

Organisations are not machines

We borrowed our language for organisations from the factory floor. But the parts that decide whether good work happens are the parts no machine can see.

The anti-role model

Climate & Creativity

The anti-role model

We give a great deal of attention to the people we want to be like. The people we'd hate to become are teaching us something too — if we choose to look.

You are more than your job

Climate & Creativity

You are more than your job

It's 3pm on a Tuesday. The meeting isn't terrible. The job isn't terrible. But a small voice keeps appearing: is this really all of me?