By Tom Peterson Do you work in an unhappy place? Are people mean? Do you abandon hope as you enter? Do you ask yourself, “How did I get here?” Do you want to go home and rethink your life? Is the stress too damned high? Are you thinking don’t rock the boat? Just lay low? […]
By Tom Peterson On a Friday morning in August, some three dozen people gather in a large meeting room at the Forsyth County health department in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Down the halls are public clinics and offices for the staff who inspect restaurants, track diseases, or otherwise keep the […]
Mind Mapping, Part 2 To read Part 1 “Mind Maps: who, what when to use them” click HERE. By Tom Peterson Visually outlining through mind maps opens up creativity and helps you see structures and connections in fresh ways. It’s great for tasks like understanding complex issues or starting new enterprises. […]
By Tom Peterson Although we’re rarely conscious of it we use maps all the time. Every day we use mental maps to navigate the rooms of our home, get to school and work. Maps teach us as children about our strange and wonderful world—green is vegetation, tan is desert, bumps are mountains. And we learn […]
By Tom Peterson The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.” — Albert Einstein. Before you […]
By Tom Peterson Coming up with a great solution to the wrong problem may feel good at the time but it can send you down a rabbit trail that wastes time and energy. Instead of spinning your wheels on the wrong question, you can get better solutions if you reframe the problem. Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg’s article […]
By Tom Peterson We all know someone who tries—and sometimes succeeds—to make us feel bad about our efforts and ideals. At some point we’ve probably even let their one small comment crush our spirit. Ray Bradbury tells us to ditch those bad “friends.” Speaking to an audience of aspiring writers he offered […]
By Tom Peterson “Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and, therefore, the foundation of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.” […]
By Tom Peterson Do your cause a favor and adapt your words to fit the folks you’re talking with. I occasionally shop at a Target store near my house. The retailer recently mailed me a large brochure with 24 coupons: 25% off spices, 15% off pillows, 25% off sliced jalapeños. These coupons […]
By Tom Peterson Who is your target audience? Each student in my class—marketing for nonprofits and social change at the Clinton School of Public Service—creates a marketing plan for a real organization. They work on it all semester. As the weeks progress we go over their work, and almost every year, no […]
