OCTOBER 31, 2025
Discovering new forms, new symbols and new patterns
"Whereas moral courage is the righting of wrongs, creative courage, in contrast, is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which a new society can be built." - Rollo May
company, complexity
"What we face at the tail end of our industrial society is a design problem."
One of the reasons I feel hopeful about our collective future is that change itself changes. The mindset that got us here—linear, industrial, growth-at-all-costs thinking—no longer defines the path ahead.
ARTICLE: An Introduction to the Book No Straight Lines: Making Sense of our Non-linear World
CULTURE, creativity
Creativity as a defense against authoritarianism and cultural stagnation
Born in Italy, Silvano Arieti emigrated to the United States in 1939 to escape fascist persecution as a Jew. He became a professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College and served as chief of psychiatry at Metropolitan Hospital in New York.
BOOK: Creativity: The Magic Synthesis
communication, social messaging
An exhibition that celebrates the rebellious, democratic force of ink and paper
SHEPARD FAIREY: OUT of PRINT is an exhibition exploring the artist’s lifelong dialogue with printmaking. The 2008 Obama “Hope” poster made Fairey’s style famous, showing the power of shared art to move people and define a moment.
ARTICLE: Beyond The Streets Presents Shepard Fairey: Out Of Print
teaching, teal management
Reimagining school leadership as a collaborative structure that empowers individuals at every level of the system.
As a student of Teal Management principles popularized by Frederic Laloux in Reinventing Organizations, I was interested to read Dr. Lindsay Whorton’s ideas on rethinking leadership structures in schools.
BOOK: A New School Leadership Architecture: A Four-Level Framework for Reimagining Roles
company, systems thinking
Kalundborg, Denmark, has set the standard for how industries can collaborate to reduce waste, save resources, and cut costs.
Industrial circularity is a systems-based approach to production that eliminates waste by turning one company’s byproducts into another’s resources. The result is a closed-loop, regenerative network that benefits the environment, the economy, and the community.
ARTICLE: Case Study: Kalundborg Industrial Symbiosis
nature, public health
The Power of Trees for Public Health
The Green Heart Project in Louisville, Kentucky, is a pioneering study that links urban greening to human health. Launched in 2018, it’s a controlled, community-based trial in a racially diverse, working- to middle-class area of south Louisville with about 30,000 residents.
ARTICLE: The Green Heart Louisville Project
COMMUNICATION, SOCIAL MESSAGING
"If you give me a smart phone then I'll be able to ask everyone - everyone - whether or not I look pretty in this bathing suit."
The Phone-Free Schools Movement is a nonprofit organization advocating for bell-to-bell phone-free school environments, allowing students to focus, connect, and build relationships without the constant pull of social media.
VIDEO: If You Give Me A Smartphone—PSA
"I am always doing what I can't do yet
in order to learn how to do it."
- Vincent Van Gogh
OCTOBER 24, 2025
Joy is a fine act of insurrection.
“Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.” - Rebecca Solnit
Civics
"This crisis is not about election cycles. It’s about historical tides."
The cover theme of The Atlantic’s November 2025 issue is “The Unfinished Revolution.” The editors mark the 250th anniversary of America’s founding and explore how the ideals, struggles, and unfinished business of the Revolution continue to shape the nation’s present and future.
ARTICLE: America Needs a Mass Movement Now
Civics
National ideals can still be organized and renewed, one neighborhood at a time.
On October 18, communities across the United States and beyond turned a day of protest into a vivid demonstration of grassroots coordination—proof that national ideals can still be organized and renewed, one neighborhood at a time.
ARTICLE: No Kings Protests (June 2025)
Civics
Nonviolent civil resistance is not just morally preferable—it is strategically superior for securing freedom and sustaining democracy.
Political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan have reshaped how we understand the power of ordinary people to create change and defend democracy.
BOOK: Why Civil Resistance Works. The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict
Habitat
The best measure of success in workplace design is how people feel at work.
In the 1990s, Veldhoen + Company, a workplace strategy and management consulting company based in the Netherlands, introduced Activity-Based Working (ABW), an approach to workplace design that aligned physical spaces (“bricks”), technology (“bytes”), and organizational culture (“behavior”) to support different types of work.
ARTICLE: Experience-Based Working: Putting People First is the Way Forward
Company
True leadership is the art of amplifying collective intelligence.
Jon Levy sees leadership as the art of amplifying group intelligence. He thoroughly busts the myth of the “heroic leader,” making a clear case that great leaders don’t succeed through charisma but by building cultures of strong collaboration.
BOOK: Team Intelligence. How Brilliant Leaders Unlock Collective Genius
Communication
"I guess what I'm trying to say is I want to exist in a world where I don't have to think about these things, ever again."
This ad works because it’s direct, honest, and plainspoken. It speaks to human needs and desires we all share.
VIDEO: End Violence Against Women Coalition: 20th Anniversary
Learning
Complaints are a really lousy way to express and idea.
Scott Berkun, an author and speaker on innovation, creativity, and design, thinks that complaining is a lousy way to initiate real change. Instead, he urges people to channel their frustrations into constructive action.
ARTICLE: Why You Should Stop Complaining
One-liners
"We must all do our work.
Be accountable and go heal, simultaneously, continuously. It’s never too late. Each of us is precious. We, together, must break every cycle that makes us forget this."
— adrienne maree brown
OCTOBER 17, 2025
Three things in human life are important.
"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." - Henry James
Civics
“If you wanted to design a system to break empathy, you could scarcely do better than the society we’ve created.”
Jamil Zaki is the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory. Concerned by the decline of empathy and kindness he saw in society—marked by rising tribalism, isolation, and growing barriers to understanding—he brought these concerns into his lab.
BOOK: The War for Kindness
Company
Kindness is a core leadership practice and a proven driver of organizational success.
Boris Groysberg teaches leadership, organizational behavior, and management at Harvard Business School. His research and experience have led him to conclude that in times of uncertainty, traditional management approaches fall short.
ARTICLE: Good Leadership Is an Act of Kindness
Learning
How learning to live with uncertainty about the past can help us make wiser decisions about the future
Francis Gavin says we're doing it wrong. He says we need a smarter way to learn from history. We tell simple stories about the past because they’re easier to understand.
ARTICLE: The Lost Art Of Thinking Historically
Learning
"Seriously, I mean starting right now. Do art and do it for the rest of your lives."
In 2006 Ms. Lockwood, an English teacher at Xavier High School in New York City, assigned her freshman English class to write persuasive letters to their favorite authors, inviting them to visit the school and asking for advice.
VIDEO: James Earl Jones reads Kurt Vonnegut's inspirational letter to a group of students
Communication
"Sweden is the first country in the world prescribed by doctors. Welcome to a destination of a different nature."
Sweden’s ranking as one of the happiest countries in the world is frequently attributed to its comprehensive welfare system—a model that provides citizens with free education, universal healthcare, and generous parental leave, ensuring basic needs are met for everyone.
VIDEO:The Swedish Prescription
Teaching
Outdoor time for students relieves stress and sets the stage for better memory, mood, and classroom behavior.
Outdoor time—often called “green time”—offers powerful benefits for student well-being and learning. Schools, especially those serving under-resourced communities, can play a crucial role in providing equitable access to nature, even with limited budgets and tight schedules.
ARTICLE: From Screen Time to ‘Green Time’: Going Outside to Support Student Well-Being
One-liners
"Self interest is of the past.
Common interest is for the future."
— David Attenborough
October 10, 2025
The only question is how?
"It’s necessary to have a democracy. It’s not a question of whether we’re going to have a democracy. The only question is how?” - Danielle Allen
Civics
Danielle Allen says ordinary citizens need to step up.
Danielle Allen puts it plainly: democracy’s promise of freedom and equality can only be fulfilled if we show up as engaged citizens. A working democracy depends on participation, collaboration across differences, and continual renewal of our institutions.
ARTICLE: Democracy Teetering on Brink
Civics
"Couldn’t we devise an education that, rather than teaching citizens not to talk to strangers, instead teaches them how to interact with them self-confidently?”
Danielle Allen suggests that for many in the South, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was, in effect, a reconsideration of the Civil War.
BOOK: Talking to Strangers. Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education
Learning
"You have it in your power to make a difference. Don’t give up. There is a future for you. Do your best while you’re still on this beautiful Planet Earth."
Jane Goodall had long described hope as an active, moral choice—something you do, not just something you feel. For her, hope was not blind optimism but a form of responsibility, the force that keeps people working for change even when the odds seem impossible.
ARTICLE: In an Exclusive Interview Dr. Jane Goodall Leaves Behind Her Last Words
Civics
“We can change the world if we start listening to one another again.”
When Margaret J. Wheatley wrote this book in 2002, she said: “I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again.”She still believes this.
BOOK: TURNING TO ONE ANOTHER. Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future
Civics
"Parties are a public service, you’re doing people a favor by throwing them."
Uri Bram has apparently spent a lot of time thinking about how people interact at gatherings. Building on personal experience, social observation, and thoughtful experimentation, he summarizes what he's learned about hosting great parties.
ARTICLE: 21 Facts About Throwing Good Parties
Learning
Banned Books Week ends tomorrow. But young people still have free digital access to books that may be restricted in their communities.
Launched in 2022 by the Brooklyn Public Library, the Books Unbanned initiative gives young people free digital access to books that may be restricted in their communities.
ARTICLE: Books Unbanned: 1 Million Checkouts
Culture
"Hippie modernism has been not only misunderstood but also underestimated."
Greg Castillo is a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, with expertise in the countercultural design of the 1960s.
ARTICLE: Hippie Modernism. How Bay Area Design Radicals Tried to Save the Planet.
One-liners
"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. Only in this way shall we live without the fatigue of bitterness and the drain of resentment. "
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
OCTOBER 3, 2025
How to affect the situation
"The way we live our daily lives is what most affects the situation of the world. If we can change our daily lives, then we can change our governments and can change the world. Our president and governments are us. They reflect our lifestyle and our way of thinking." - Thich Nhat Hanh
Learning
All things are interconnected.
This week’s quote from Thich Nhat Hanh comes from his book Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, first published in 1991. The book is a practical guide to cultivating mindfulness and peace in daily activities, even amid the stress and rush of modern life.
WEBPAGE:The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings
Learning
“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”
Susan David is recognized as a leading thinker on emotional intelligence and its role in organizational health. Yet she wrote this book, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life, for anyone seeking to improve mental well-being and self-management in any relationship, regardless of context.
BOOK: Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life
Company
"Strategy is how we know what the hard choices are, and when and how to make them."
Cate Huston says that strategy – how to be strategic, and how to be seen as strategic – is one of her ongoing obsessions. Years ago, she read Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, and she says that it’s guided her thinking ever since
ARTICLE: Getting More Strategic
%20poster.png)
Communication
Using posters to express concerns, influence public opinion, and foster dialog
This poster was issued by the Northern Friends Peace Board (NFPB), a Quaker organization based in northern England. Founded in 1913 in response to rising militarism and the threat of war, the Board’s mission was—and still is—to encourage and support efforts for peace across Britain and beyond.
WEBSITE: Northern Friends Peace Board
Learning
"For many people who read, there is a desire to find an escape and also a need to be found."
Nina West made history in 2019 as the first person to walk the Primetime Emmy Awards “purple carpet” in full drag, the same year her season of RuPaul’s Drag Race won multiple Emmys, including Outstanding Reality Competition Series.
ARTICLE: Why Drag Queen Story Hour Matters
Company
Transforming everyday waste into high‑design objects close to home
Gunnar Magnusson and Tess Olofsson founded Manu with a simple brief: turn waste into usable objects. They work with a signature mix of lemon peels, PET bottles, and cornstarch, letting the materials guide the design.
WEBSITE: Manu Matters
One-liners
"People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them."
— Rilke
SEPTEMBER 26, 2025
One of the few things that keep mattering.
"Art is one of the few things that keeps mattering when everything else is uncertain." - Frank Ape
Culture
Radical hope is the engine of change.
I call my new website "A catalog of radical hope." he philosopher Jonathan Lear introduced the term in his 2006 book Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Drawing on the story of Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, Lear describes a kind of hope that looks forward to a good we cannot yet imagine from within a collapsed cultural framework.
ARTICLE: Radical Hope
Learning
Seeing crisis as a homecoming that brings us back to community, collaboration, and shared purpose
Sarah Wilson wants to confront what few dare to say: our civilization, as we know it, is not going to make it. Climate deadlines? We’re missing them.
TED TALK: How to respond to societal collapse | Sarah Wilson | TEDxSydney
Communication
"Before we had the design system, logo and identity for Sun Day, it was just an idea. After, it became the seeds of a movement."
The headline quote comes from Bill McKibben. Together with Denis Hayes, founder of Earth Day, he launched Sun Day this past Sunday, September 21, 2025.
ARTICLE: Designing Action: COLLINS, McKibben, and the Birth of Sun Day
Habitat
A citizen-centered, dignified approach to elder care
In Denmark, responsibility for elderly care—including housing, nursing homes, home care, and social support—is fully delegated to each of the country’s 98 municipalities.
ARTICLE: This Cathedral-Like Health Centre in Copenhagen Aims to Boost Wellbeing, Empowering its Users
One-liners
ARTICLE: More Americans working in clean energy than as servers or cashiers
ARTICLE: Oceanic biodiversity gets its own international treaty
ARTICLE: Survey finds psychedelics offer significant workplace benefits In Australia
ARTICLE: Yes, dogs surf. Yes, there is a national championship. Yes, there are photos.
“Make the drummer sound good.”
— Thelonious Monk
SEPTEMBER 19, 2025
Most people subscribe to an outdated worldview.
“As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is becoming more and more evident that the major problems of our time – energy, the environment, climate change, food security, financial security – cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are all interconnected and interdependent. Ultimately, these problems must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. It derives from the fact that most people in our modern society, and especially our large social institutions, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with our overpopulated, globally interconnected world.” - Fritjof Capra
Learning
“There are solutions to the major problems of our time; some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values."
Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi have synthesized contemporary scientific knowledge to show that true sustainability requires aligning human systems—economic, social, and political—with the patterns and values of natural systems: cooperation, diversity, and cyclical processes.
BOOK: The Systems View of Life, a Unifying Vision
Learning
Yes, we are still on a trajectory of overshooting and potential collapse, but...
In 1972, a team of MIT scientists used systems modeling to explore the future of industrial civilization. Their report, The Limits to Growth—commissioned by the Club of Rome—warned that without radical change, society would reach its limits and collapse within the 21st century.
TED TALK: Will the end of economic growth come by design — or disaster?
Nature
What if ecosystems could show us how to metabolize fear, restore balance, and regenerate after trauma?
Mor Keshet is a New York-based Integrative Eco Art Therapist who has worked internationally with refugee children, survivors of human trafficking, and families in crisis.
ARTICLE: Post-Traumatic Ecology: Learning Emotional Resilience from the Living World
Civics
"Supporting independent bookstores isn’t just about personal consumer choice—it’s civic engagement."
This spring, Kate Broad was six hundred miles into a two-thousand-mile road trip when her phone buzzed with the update she had been dreading.
ARTICLE: A Refuge From Censorship: Why Independent Bookstores Will Save Us
Habitat
A meeting place for all generations
The Austrian village of Langen bei Bregenz needed a community center. What they had was a very tired municipal building. In 2025, MWArchitekten transformed it into a modern hub for civic life.
PROJECT PORTFOLIO: Community Center Langen bei Bregenz / MWArchitekten
One-liners
ARTICLE: Oregon has passed a bill to protect school libraries from book bans.
ARTICLE: “What makes a good beekeeper is someone who can plan and have impulse control, who can focus, be mindful, calm and curious. They need to be involved in nature, be interested in themselves and others, and have empathy." A pilot program in Massachusetts is teaching inmates the science and practice of beekeeping.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2025
In rooting for democracy, choose hope.
“To be optimistic is to assume things will work out. To be hopeful is to realize things can work out if you work at them. Hope requires responsibility and agency; optimism relieves us of both. In rooting for democracy, choose hope.” - Eric Liu
CIVICS, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
“When you are compassionate and generous, society can become compassionate and generous."
In January 2000, the White House asked Octavia Butler to write a memorandum to President Clinton outlining her vision of the future. She chose to focus on education.
ARTICLE: A Few Rules for Predicting the Future
CULTURE, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
A “possibilist” believes that what we do matters, even when we cannot predict the results.
john a. powell spells his name in lowercase to reflect humility and interconnectedness. He is director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California Berkeley.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Can We Build a World Where We All Belong?
NATURE, SPIRITUALITY
"Reality is basically about change."
Mary Evelyn Tucker sees a clear path toward healing the planet, our relationship with nature, and with each other. She suggests that spiritual ecology—the field that explores how spirituality and the environment are interwoven—is the way finder.
ARTICLE: Why the World Needs Spiritual Ecology
