The Business of Design

Category: Mentoring

  • 100 Conversations

    The contents of this blog arise from the ‘conversations’ I’ve had with people; whether in person or through various digital interactions. I’ve been contemplating adding a level of intention to this, and have decided to embark upon: 100 Conversations My goal is to reach out to 100 people and start a conversation with the question: At this point…

  • What Problem Do You Want to Solve?

    I just saw a simple but fantastic post on someone’s facebook feed: Don’t ask a student what they want to be when they grow up. Ask them what problem they want to solve. What I like about this is that it illustrates the importance of asking the right questions. We cheat when we interact with each…

  • How to Build Mutual Accountability

    The only real accountability is that which we enforce on ourselves. In order to internalize accountability, we have to be a meaningful part of the process.

  • Mentoring, Semantics and Understanding

    Have an intentional system in place that absorbs and corrects errors and minimizes mistakes.

  • Mentoring – Peer to Peer

    Your role where you work is to complete your tasks to your highest capabilities. It’s typical that we stretch a bit, perhaps to 110%, since we figure out some things as we go along. What this means is that you make sure your supervisor doesn’t need to catch things that you should have done. What they should…

  • What Does Mentoring Mean?

    Mentoring takes many forms. Many of our growth interactions with people are informal, and have only the structure of the conversation. There is value when we engage into mentorship in a more rigorous fashion, either through our own planning of our growth… or through defined relationships with specific people. This blog post takes a loose…

  • The (un)Benefits of Owning Your Own Firm

    ArchDaily posted a request today for input about The Benefits of Owning Your Own Firm. When I talk to people about this, I used to say that it was like a version of retiring. Not retiring to go play golf, but retiring INTO something that was more of your choice. I always followed it quickly…

  • Optimistic Cynicism?

    What personality type would describe someone who it optimistically bitter and cynical? Many of the posts that this blog will contain will start with a complaint in my head about how things are. Then the little voice inside of me tells me to make lemonade, “be solution based!” I grumble a little but then shift into trying to…

  • Build Each other Up

    You get to a point in your career when you realize that your value isn’t so much in what you know, but it’s your experience in how you apply it. There’s community value in sharing your knowledge. While perhaps initially counter-intuitive, my optimistic self would like to believe those that say this raises your value at the same…