Theme 31: Revolution

There's no line item on a balance sheet for "give a damn" but it's the most valuable thing you've got in the business.

It's not the what or the how, but it's the why that's at the heart of creative entrepreneurs.

Because I believe in the core of my being that Baltimore will not sleep and Charleston will not heal and the seas will not stop rising and the poor and the weak will not get a fair shot until a dying world is shaken from it's slumber.

My revolution? Would be for people to have the confidence to stand up and say "the system doesn't work and we can change it with our own hands"

I didn't want to be a designer that created more "stuff" in the world I wanted to be a designer that could help change the world

How design for me was about telling the narrative of tomorrow but making it tangible and physical in the now

My whole work is about tooling up for radical change

Most of us have never been permission to be heard.

Revolution is no one else's job. Revolution is your job. Revolution is my job.

What I realized was the establishment was me. The establishment is you. We talk about revolution like that's somebody else's job ... we look for somebody else to tell us how to stand up.

"If you want to be the change, first think about the change you want to see. Really think about it. Examine it from every angle. Ask yourself the hard questions."

Purpose is the new bottom line

In the particular lies the universal.

If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution.

What I found on my journey, is that it's not the what or the how, but the why that is at the heart of creative entrepreneurs. It's the why that sparks the revolution.

There's a whole group of people and problems who are overlooked and undervalued... And it's time that we do something about it.

To be a creative individual takes work, it takes an effort to maintain it. Because school teaches it out of you, because they want you to 'get in line'. To 'learn the rules', so we can get 'uniform students'. You know, As Bob Dylan says, '20 years of school and then they put you on the day shift.' You know - factory workers.

The things that made you weird as a kid, make you great today. But only if you put it in your work.

We're not trying to build an audience, we're trying to build a community.

We take serendipity seriously.

We accepted loss of control. It means partnerships where people bring in proposals that were not our own, bringing in artists who proposed projects that were not theirs but also bringing in other artists again. It was not about the idea of a curator who is on top of the machine and decides everything that comes in. No, we opened and sometimes this led to beautiful surprises and also — I have to be honest — disasters.

I really accept that there's people out there who have smarter ideas that I have. The only thing is that my job is to get them in here.

By opening up [to external initiatives and projects] we didn't have to invent every format ourselves.

If you have one curator, you have one explosion. If you have more people involved in creating a program you can create more explosions. And if you can create more explosions this might be the start of your combustion engine that you want to go forward.

[Art centers] They're not investing in bringing people together but they're investing enough in bringing art works together. And I think that's a mistake. It is in the first place about bringing people together.

There's a very little art centers that are aware of this [digital] revolution. The main capacity we have today as art centers is our communication through the social media and I see a lot of art centers struggling with that.

That is what we call « focused programs ».They're basically the idea that combining the strength of a festival with the strength of a seasonal program. It means that we can program a bit further ahead and that we use the idea of a festival that we work topical, thematical. We use this combination of the two.

Do not underestimate the audience as part of the engine or as part of the explosions.

Since I'm here we tried to provoke small explosions. Small people driven ways of changing things sometimes very simple sometimes a bit bigger but never revolutionary in itself but maybe the adding of up all these different explosions might be a bit of a revolution or at least a strong evolution.

I prefer to talk about small explosions rather than revolution.

Can art save the world? My answer is very clear, very simple, very short—no. Then there is this another question, "Can art change the world?" and there my answer is very short as well, it's also no. But I do believe that people can change so in that sense if people can change and art can really change people then, there's some hope in the purpose of art.

"You are not for everyone!"

Nunca se llega a ningún lado. Siempre hay una búsqueda detrás que nos impulsa. Y ese impulso, esa #evolución, es la que hace que nos vayamos topando con pequeñas REvoluciones.

Me parece interesante que nos podamos asumir como seres en formación. {…} Nada está dicho, todo está por aprenderse. Todo está por encontrarse.

Ese tremendo error — de los diseñadores — de pensar que el enemigo es el cliente.

Lo que te marca por completo son las dificultades, lo que no te sale hacer.

Start something that inspires people.

If we think about the randomness of our starting point, we can transform our society.

We don't realize our privilege until we've lost it or until we've gained it.

The birth lottery is the happenchance. It's the randomness of our starting point. It's the randomness of the traits and circumstances that we're born into, that we have absolutely no control over, that determine the opportunities and the challenges that we're going to face in life.

Siempre es la gente que va en contra del sistema la que crea el cambio

Descartes no podría estar más equivocado: aún cuando uno deja de pensar, uno sigue siendo. Cuando uno deja de pensar es cuando uno más es.

La forma de en verdad conocerse a uno es el silencio.

There's where the revolution comes from: from knowing yourself and understanding who you are.

De ahí es donde viene la revolución: de uno conocerse a uno mismo, de uno entender quién es uno.

How to bootleg a brand and start a little revolution in 15 steps.

In Kentucky, there are more barrels of bourbon than there are people.

Never let money be the driver, money is the outcome. Focus on passion and you’ll get money.

If you want to succeed in life, don't wait to be asked.

If you talk about revolution, you're actually talking about risk. You can't have revolution without risk.

Sometimes, to predict the future, you have to kind of look in the past.

Hoy en día los dueños de las imprenta somos nosotros.

Por primera vez en la humanidad la gente como nosotros tiene la capacidad de producir.

No tenemos excusa para no HACERLO.

Lo que tenés que hacer es pensar en lo que vos querés hacer y en cómo eso es ÚNICO.

Se está gestando una revolución creativa.

Es mucho mejor un mundo en el que la gente se pueda colgar a hacer el pire que se les ocurra.

La plata no es central cuando querés HACER.

Hacerlo y hacerlo bien, toma un montón de tiempo.

No necesitas la probación o el permiso de nadie para hacer.

Si vos tenés una computadora, es todo lo que necesitás.

Act more than you plan.

Fluidity and growth need to be a constituent of my work and life for me to be happy.

You are never not supported by the Earth.

Le design graphique est un moyen d’expression facile et important dans un mouvement social pour rendre les idées le plus clair possible et rendre les messages intelligents.

You are never not supported by the earth.

A business can be a prototype of the world you want to live in.

You don't need credentials or special expertise to start a business.

If you ask the question, you will get the answer. (Eventually.)

Imagination is information.

It was about connections between people that didn’t know each other, it was about why things mean something and matter to us and it was about a very simple but still important message that even reading can be resisting.

Revolution I think doesn’t happen through generalised sentiment it usually happens because people are riled up about something very specific that’s happening in their communities.

Arts organisations often do exploit communities, sometimes in quite a knowing way.

Absolutely crucial for us as a company and for a national company is a strong sense of the local.

It is really important to have integrity with what you do and how you do it.

Everyone in this room has their own superpowers. One of mine is music.

We've got some work to do; waking people up, conscientising so that folks can first be aware of oppression, and then we can collectively rise up against it.

In order to get free you need to think free. You need to be able to see into the future and create that reality which is just a pipe-dream to other people around you.

In order to free yourself, you must first know that you are enslaved. That takes critical thinking, questioning; it's no wonder reading a book as a black person could get you lynched during this period.

Your captors will have you believe that you don't have any power at all.

You're rebellious and smart, swift and enduring, and you know a better world is possible. In fact it's so clear that you can actually see it, but many of the folks around you can't seem to fathom it.

Mass slaughters, millions of African sons and daughters thrown overboard, thumb screws, forced migrations, beat down and bludgeoned for this country's foundations. All in the name of salvation.

White men have always been depicted as the saviours while everyone else is either the villain or the helpless people who need saving.

In naming Harriet Tubman, a black woman, as a superhero, that is in itself a revolutionary gesture; because it's a paradigm shift away from the ubiquitous, white saviour narrative that dominates many aspects of our history and culture.

The revolution is not 'out there'. The revolution doesn't exist. It's you. It's you and what you've got. It's you and your talents.

If the revolution is you, what happens is you attract an audience - YOUR AUDIENCE, not just an audience, your audience, and they are true, and they will follow you.

We often work for clients that make us got through all of these revisions to make it as wide-a-spectrum as possible, as socially acceptable as possible. Basically making work that offends the fewest amount of people. It doesn't work. It's impossible.

Another key to "The revolution is me" - you are not for everyone.

We love heroes. Do you know why we love heroes? We recognise them. They are us. They are what we're capable of.

It should be a tattoo. "The revolution is me." So we can constantly look at it. That's a mission statement right there.

It's a fucking revolution. It's going to be hard. It's going to involve sacrifice.

The one things that makes us strong, the one thing that makes us unique, and we give up that power to somebody else.

Here lies Thomas. He would've done great work, but his boss wouldn't let him.

Here lies Thomas. He would've done great work, but he had rent to pay.

Our creativity gets rapped on the knuckles so many times that the one tool that makes us unique and makes us, quite frankly, powerful is the one we start to disown.

As we become adults the pressure to be normal, to conform, to fit into that square body, to fit into that square cubicle mounts.

I was called 'creative'. You know what that means? That means "We don't know what to do with him."

If there is a question burning in your mind. If there's a problem that just won't let you go. If there's a system so broken that it makes you want to cry. If there's a friend or a stranger whose pain has become your own. If there is a gift that you have that drove you here today in search of a way to give it; then you have found your 'why', and you hold one spark to the next great awakening.

The very fact that a course called Reimagining Capitalism is being taught at Harvard Business School means that we live in revolutionary times.

It's my turn to raise my hand and roll up my sleeve and say: How can I help?

But just before I gave up, people from every corner of my community, some of whom I didn't even know; they stepped in, and they raised their hands and they rolled up their sleeves and they said: How can I help? And that's the only reason I'm standing here.

It's the 'why' that sparks the revolution.

There's a whole un-exotic underclass of people and problems that are overlooked and undervalued. And it's time we did something about it.

The point is not to bash these founders and their ideas, but it is to say that if only these companies are allowed in the entrepreneurial tent, we're screwed.

We're all entrepreneurs now.

In this age of chaos, and networks, and decaying systems we no longer have to wait for a gatekeeper to green-light our ideas. In this new playbook, we give ourselves permission.

Just before we pulled the plug, we decided to join a long procession of young kids with crazy ideas who were told by some authority that they couldn't do what they wanted. We said fuck it. We'll do it anyway.

La parte creativa no se da si uno no lo intenta... pero nace algo con una convicción dentro y si uno no lo expresa y tiene temor al fracaso, jamás descubre, inventa ni hace nada.

Fui motivo de muchas burlas; pienso que todos los que hacemos una revolución tenemos eso por delante, el no se puede y una gran burla.

La révolution, avant de devenir politique, se prépare dans la société, par d'innombrables gestes. Et ces gestes-là sont motivés par des buts. Quels sont vos buts, au-delà de vous-mêmes être heureux?

Sans possibilité de participer à la vie démocratique, aux décisions qui sont prises en mon nom, qu'est-ce que je peux changer?

J'ai confiance qu'il y aura toujours quelqu'un qui, devant un mur, va découper des portes pour les ouvrir.

A revolution is the fight between the past and the future.

Compassion is not compassion without action.

We're all entrepreneurs now.

Rule 1: The hierarchy is dead.

Los caminos escolares como una forma de hacer ciudad

Es muy importante llamar a las cosas por su nombre, de esta forma las identificaremos, y al identificarlas podremos poner solución

La publicidad para parecer y la creatividad para ser

Los verdaderos cambios en las revoluciones no se cuentan, se hacen

Seamos realistas, hagamos lo imposible. Soñar y exigir cultura es también un acto revolucionario.

Hoy, la calidad de vida está profundamente ligada con la cultura debido a su gran capacidad de desarrollar sentido de pertenencia, capital social y el respeto por la diversidad cultural.

La cultura brinda a los seres humanos la capacidad de reflexionar por sí mismos.

Las revoluciones son consecuencia de procesos históricos y de construcciones colectivas que ven hacia atrás para rescatar algo de la historia y construir un nuevo presente.

The things that made you weird as a kid make you great today. But only if you put it in your work.

What I believe is a revolution that you guys already have inside of you. The revolution is you. The revolution isn't something you're going to join. It isn't something you're waiting for an invitation for. The revolution is you.

You have to trust that what you have inside you – what you have to say – is of value and people want it. And we can't let our circumstances or other people take it away from us.

The revolution is me. Cause I understand the things that drive me as a human being drive other people as a human being. So, I have freed myself from making shit up.

The more authentic, the more human, the more vulnerable and truthful and honest I can be here, the greater impact it's going to have on you guys.

Put it in the work.

Having a revolution is sexy and attractive. And other people want to be involved in it.

We don't do it for the reward. We don't do it to make people happy. We're not in the people pleasing business...We do it to make ourselves happy.

Revolution doesn't exist. It's you. It's you and what you've got. It's you and your talents.

The revolution isn't something you're going to join. The revolution isn't something you're waiting for an invitation for. The revolution is you.

To be a creative individual takes work. It takes an effort to maintain it.

Be bold, be respectful, be kind and be happy.

How exactly, professor, does one spark a social awakening? To which she said what perhaps no Harvard professor has ever said. She said, "I don't know."

Courage is not an absence of fear.

A white-paper isn't going to end poverty.

Give a damn. Listen more than you speak. Act more than you plan.

Creatives, at your best, you wake us up. You lift our eyes and our collective consciousness to a horizon of hope.

There's no line item on a balance sheet for 'give a damn,' but it's the most valuable thing you've got in the business.

Purpose is the new bottom line.

It's not the what or the how, but it's the WHY, that is at the heart of creative entrepreneurs. It's the WHY that sparks the revolution.

The hierarchy is dead.

What if we drove into the heart of America to put our overpriced MBAs to use not just for making a buck but making a difference?

F*ck it. We'll do it anyway.

On a planté seize érables rouges pendant le Jour de la Terre autour du Mont-Royal pour qu'une fois les arbres poussés ça fasse un grand carré rouge.

Don't live a safe, comfortable life. Remember a turtle only advances when it sticks its head out of the shell.

Look at nature for your inspiration. Nature provides us all the tools we need to be creative.

Let us embrace the fact that we are human beings with soul power.

Really what it was about was the joy of being able to create this, and share it with other people.

Whatever it is that you make, make it well, make it to last, make it to serve humanity.

I realized music [my craft] wasn't my problem, music [my craft] was my solution.

There's no such thing as a new idea... so revolution, is really about cycles of knowledge and memory, old ideas becoming new again. Revolution is the remembrance of an old idea, today.

I'm actually living in the future. Because you can see into it when you're surrounded by the people who make it.

If you say nothing, no one will hear you!