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Climate & Creativity

Climate & Creativity — the conditions that allow good work to happen. Essays here explore environment, energy, creative practice, and the climate that surrounds our work.

What writers know about keeping an idea alive

Climate & Creativity

What writers know about keeping an idea alive

Most organisations say they want to turn ideas into value and rarely manage it. Writers do it for a living. Here's what their craft teaches us about keeping an idea's meaning alive, from seed to shipped work.

The case for a Chief Curation Officer

Orientation & Direction

The case for a Chief Curation Officer

On a family trip round Europe's museums, a pattern kept surfacing: the best ones curate your attention as carefully as their objects. Here's what that has to teach the places we work — and why the most useful skill might be learning to see the room you're already in.

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.

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?

In praise of the amateur

Climate & Creativity

In praise of the amateur

We often use amateur as an insult at work. But the word comes from the Latin for lover — and Vivian Maier's story shows exactly why that matters.

The conditions behind great creative work

Climate & Creativity

The conditions behind great creative work

For creativity to emerge it typically needs a different question: how do we discover what might be possible? That requires different conditions. Less friction. More trust. More room for work that can't yet prove its value in a spreadsheet.

How learning to see is the art of generating ideas (Word at Work)

Climate & Creativity

How learning to see is the art of generating ideas (Word at Work)

We use the word idea casually. But it traces back to a Greek verb meaning to see — and that changes how we understand what ideas actually are, and where they come from.

Don't take the job

Climate & Creativity

Don't take the job

Fun at work isn't a perk or a Friday-afternoon extra. Read properly, it's the earliest signal you have of a team's health — a barometer that moves long before the dashboards do.