Time ticks as you walk in the dark, emerging or failing light — and you realize that your true reliable momentum measure is the sound of your heels — moment to moment: pavement, gravel, pea, grass, chipped woods, snow and ice. Each, a rhythm, a story.

Here now, hear now — [are you] what passes by? You are into the mist, and, this deed, in deed — you are in the midst.

As I measure out the spin, the stride of next steps, new movements, the beauty of what could be found in that new curve [up the road, that I can't quite see, I realize there must be, shall be -- some uncertainty in the clinging fog of mystery. Something is there, just up the road -- but what calls, good -- or bad?

For me, it's always the good, the striking beauty of what we have, or are, experiencing [that, a blessing unto itself] — simply, at the opening distant sighting you can’t quite see; it will reveal itself.

You’re either looking for the good, in what might come forth — future bringing; or you are looking for something else, the contrary. Look for something — that path, that corridor, that boulevard, of and to, light.

Look down that corridor — that there is light, something showing you the way — is the beginning intimation of secret, wisdom, love, celebration, sharing, learning, wonderment.

If it was all black and lightless, you’d be forced to fumble and “feel your way” — and who knows where, and how, that might lead you.

With the light of your listening, and the character of the emerging journey — you hear things, know things in a new manner, sense new possibilities because you’ve come further. And coming further, you can go further — that being the most important to any adventurer.

This, of course, applies to everything.

TSG | THE OLD ISLAND ROAD, SOUTHBOUND TO LOPEZ CHANNEL
…..

G I R V I N | THE MESSAGE IS THE VOICE
DESIGNED TEXTUAL CONTENT: THE BREATH OF SOULBRAND
http://bit.ly/sJ4IjO

Tim Girvin | founder + principal
mobile direct. 206.890.0621
teams: New York City + Seattle | Tokyo

work: http://www.girvin.com
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Decades later, I still watch them, count them out — the roadside, waterside running –
point out the red-tailed hawks, the bald eagles, the peregrines and osprey.

There’s nothing on earthly experience quite like getting close to one of these birds — and in the poetry of studying them, leaning in — you might know that one path to get close to the big birds is Falconry. When I was first exploring the “art” of Falconry, as a teenager, it was defined as “the sport of kings.” I couldn’t imagine that there were communities in the Pacific Northwest. But there are, still running. Given the character of the birds, there are State restrictions and protections, as well. The real tradition, hunting with, training Falcons as literal “life partner birds,” is perhaps more than 4,000 years old, a global tradition — every falconer starts as a falconer’s apprentice
.
That is where I began, in Spokane.

The training, in working with the big birds, requires a bonding of absolute trust — between the falconer and the bird. Trust happens in working with a bird that’s a chick or a fledgling. You can never start a relationship with a grown bird. What that means, and what limited my time with “a” big bird, was the living in, having the bird in the house, in close proximity, that means living with the bird — as a baby chick, then growing up with the bird; letting it grow up with you. Smelling you, being around your movements and sounds, you share that early life. Interestingly, my Mom and Dad weren’t too keen into that idea — bringing a bird in, like that. It’s pretty committed relationship and household-altering positioning.

With a warm barn room, a wood stove, it’s possible; but a big bird isn’t easy. Newspaper in a cage isn’t an option — raptors stand on a grip, with talons as sharp as awls — a beak like a polished steel hook. Instead, I was an apprentice, a carrier — a handler.

Looking into the eyes of a raptor — eye to eye, only inches from your face, is an unforgettable experience.

The idea of seeing — deeply, precisely, close and far, newer levels of attention that are almost impossibly imaginable, animal focus — is wholly changed in being with, close by, the raptors. Because this is how, and what, they see. Indeed — rapt attention — the rapture, the capture of wholly engaged attention is a profoundly powerful revelation. Something we’ve noted in other blogs.

My mother forwarded this story, of another captivated by the spirit of the “big bird.”
“A true story: http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/freedom.asp

Eagle nuzzling.

And the story | Freedom + Jeff.

Life changing encounters with Raptors

Freedom and Jeff

“Freedom and I have been together 11 years this summer.
She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken
wings. Her left wing doesn’t open all the way
even after surgery, it was broken in 4
places. She’s my baby.

When Freedom came in she could not stand
and both wings were broken. She was
emaciated and covered in lice. We made the
decision to give her a chance at life, so I took
her to the vets office. From then
on, I was always around her. We had her in a
huge dog carrier with the top off, and it
was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to
lay in. I used to sit and talk to her,
urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay
there looking at me with those big brown eyes.
We also had to tube feed her for weeks.

This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still
couldn’t stand. It got to the point where the
decision was made to euthanize her if she
couldn’t stand in a week. You know you don’t
want to cross that line between torture and
rehab, and it looked like death was
winning. She was going to be put
down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in
on that Thursday afternoon. I didn’t want to go
to the center that Thursday, because I couldn’t
bear the thought of her being euthanized;
but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone
was grinning from ear to ear. I went
immediately back to her cage; and there she was,
standing on her own, a big beautiful
eagle. She was ready to live. I was
just about in tears by then. That
was a very good day.

We knew she could never fly, so the director
asked me to glove train her. I got her used to
the glove, and then to jesses, and we
started doing education programs for schools in
western Washington.
We wound up in the newspapers,
radio (believe it or not) and some
TV. Miracle Pets even did a show
about us.

In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with
non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I had stage 3,
which is not good (one major organ plus
everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of
chemo. Lost the hair – the whole
bit. I missed a lot of work. When I
felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey
and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would
also come to me in my dreams and help me fight
the cancer. This happened time and time again.

Fast forward to November 2000, the day after
Thanksgiving. I went in for my last
checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not
all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last
option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they
did the tests; and I had to come back Monday for
the results. I went in Monday, and I was
told that all the cancer was gone.

So the first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and
take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty
and cold. I went to her flight and jessed her
up, and we went out front to the top of the
hill. I hadn’t said a word to
Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me
and wrapped both her wings around me to where I
could feel them pressing in on my back
(I was engulfed in eagle wings), and she
touched my nose with her beak and stared into my
eyes, and we just stood there like that
for I don’t know how long. That was a
magic moment. We have been soul mates ever
since she came in. This is a very special bird.

On a side note: I have had people who
were sick come up to us when we are out, and
Freedom has some kind of hold on
them. I once had a guy who was
terminal come up to us and I let him hold
her. His knees just about buckled and he
swore he could feel her power course through his
body. I have so many stories like that.

I never forget the honor I have of being so close
to such a magnificent spirit as
Freedom.”

Being close to big birds creates a link to an ancient legacy — being linked to them, manifests a deep and compelling line of wisdom, one that reaches back thousands of years, where the rapture of the hunt for food, creates a powerful attachment between beings. Others explore the ancient hunting alliance between birds, animals and human kind.

TSG | THE PIKE PLACE MARKET OFFICE OF GIRVIN
…..

G I R V I N | THE MESSAGE IS THE VOICE
DESIGNED TEXTUAL CONTENT: THE BREATH OF SOULBRAND
http://bit.ly/sJ4IjO

Sometimes in the planning of strategy, for your life, brands and other enterprises, striking out the mapping of the path — moving forward: slow down and study the surroundings as you move forward.

Pay close attention to the movement, by: market landscape changes as you move. And the strategy should be a feeling watchfulness.

Driving, the country roads of old Kauai, I found this old, weather-beaten sign board (“SLOW“). Watching it, studying the character of the sign, the lettering, (“TRY SLOW”) I almost drove off the road, down the hillside.

Looking at the road, I’d missed the point — the wisest map of route might be simply paying closer attention to the movement itself. Go forward and watch, embrace what happens in the stride itself — which is you.

The brand is at the center — you, walking forward — look out, your own sentinel, looking out, surveilling the evolutions of what is happening in the grace of transition.

Sometimes, working on maps and planning — one month, two — a year, there is no accounting, no reckoning, of landscape. Just barreling. Go slow, you see more.

Visioning evolves. The stride is tuned, keep moving.
Like the classical navigator, shifts in weather and surging tides will prevent staying on the planned route. Move on.

Till the end, which might be just the beginning of the next routing.

Go: instinctive — watchful feelingness.
Discoveries will emerge in your sentience.

Tim
––––
Crowdweaving innovation >
ideation, charrettes + brand events
Girvin BrandQuest® | http://bit.ly/eiFIuP

image above, tweet from HuffPst.

In the beginnings, at Apple 70s, working for Steve, his driving curiosity was always about how to take the hand, into the computer – and mix/improve the outcomes – for something digital, yet hand-wrought – much of the early G|Appleworks rotated around the notion of cursor, hand, screen, mouse – how to mix them, to magic.

Reminded me of this revelation, day before yesterday – speaking of hand-wrought, and now color-washed. This idea – the watercolored wash – logo is said to be about 30 years old, the 80s – to my recollection, color washed design treatments popped even more recently – like 5 years back…
next up, a script logo for Apple?

Been there, done that.

trend back, time – trend forward: future.

Our sense of trend, technology? That the touch of the hand means something, to human connection.
The real cue is the bridge between the hand – the unexpected push between, the old craft, the newly visualized:
the pulse of flowed watercolour pigment molecules and pixels. Touch, me. Please.

Yes, I will, touch you.

TSG | The old Queen Anne Studio | QA Middle School Building
…..
GIRVIN |  MEDITATIONS ON
THE LEGACY OF STEVE JOBS & APPLE
DESIGNING IMAGINATION : AND THE TOOLS TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
http://bit.ly/gFldge

Twitter: http://twitter.com/tgirvin

Which way are you listing?

open, sourced?

foundation: sharing.

––––––––––––––––
Vince — good question last night, listening into our meeting; “how does a meeting with people that you’ve never met becomes a familial love / hug fest?”

Silence — and observative, feelingness –– listening. The way that you hear is by being quiet and watching the person that you’re paying attention to. And connecting with them. Bringing them into yourself. You’re holding them. That hug starts at the beginning.

Someone just said –

“I will give you my full attention.”

Really, what’s that mean?

That’s hard, since it means being wholly present — and attached to the person, listener to actor — appreciately, intuitively and empathically — it’s about holding; I’ve seen it only rarely in another. It is a presence of astonishing serenity — it is a calming listening that is profoundly quieting. Or disquieting.

Have you had someone listen to you in a way that is nearly “disquieting?”
It’s probably because it is uncommon. And unfamiliar.
Whole listening.

Watching a person wholly, to see WHAT THEY’RE DOING with their body — the hands, the arms, the legs, the faces — and feeling the what, and the why, they’re feeling.

that will be appreciative listening. feelingness. Empathic entanglement.

e m b r a c e m e n t . . .

Bodies, faces, tell us a lot — about connection or disconnection. What that means is “the lean.” Or — “the list.” Where are you, or they, leaning – towards you, or away. Leaning in, leaning out — leaning forward, leaning back.

The brand could be about listening, as well — leaning in, leaning out. Holding, or not holding — is there something to be, or could be, carried away, onwards — outwards?

Someone said — “for me, this brand is something for me — really, just for me. That’s what I’m thinking about — how this is: for me”

Did you know that listening links to “list?” Lean in, get closer, empathize:

list (v.1)

“tilt, lean,” especially of a ship, 1880, earlier (1626) lust, of unknown origin, perhaps an unexplained spelling variant of M.E. lysten “to please, desire, wish, like” (see listless) with a sense development on the notion of “leaning” toward what one desires (cf. incline).

It’s your language, it’s the listening language — of the empath, or the appreciative listener. The appreciative sensor.

Intrigued, list in, dispelled, leaning out?

tim
—-
Girvin Cloudmind | http://bit.ly/eToSYp
TEAM-BUILT STRATEGIC INNOVATION WORKSHOPS
Twitter: http://twitter.com/tgirvin

Thinking about the iconography of place, what’s made in it. What are the talismans of your place?

A person stopped by my condominium, asking to borrow a can opener.

Peering into my place, she said — “are you moving?” As I looked back, there were piles of books, clothes, luggage, presentation tubes, folders and project envelopes (and lots of power cords). And I realized, in 2011, that if I wasn’t going somewhere one day, I probably would shortly thereafter — so I was always leaving my luggage out, partially filled with clothing and stuff that I’d likely have, to wear, the next trip.

Like the one that I’m on.

And what I’m wearing.

One trip, another.

I realized that being there — one thing that I hadn’t really done much of, was re-organizing and cleaning up. I was always in transit — the thing that I attended to, more than anything, was to care for was the orchids. They last and last — telling their story as I return home, after another sojourn. I keep them in one place, that’s relatively dark and prone to the possibility of misted moisture — they survive the longest, flowering there, in that place. Where the shower is — they thrive.

My places are two fold [one, the image above] — and both are more to studios than conventional living places — books ascend in towering colums; they lean in stacked arrays, there are altars of talismans, artifacts and mementos from travels to sacred points around the world; there are vast collections of perfumes; small prints of crows, of paintings from Mughal India, Russian icons, boxed insects, cricket cages from China, old signage from Japan, masks and puppets from Bali, old posters, Javanese keris knives range the wall, statues and amulets from Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, collections of old log books, manuscripts and sacred nomadic Tibetan and Sanskrit texts lie stacked in dark and quiet places. Skulls loom out from Mexico — grinning. There are stones piled in cairns, on the carpet.

These are the same in both studios — the island studio, the old schoolhouse in Queen Anne. Light dominates. Still, these are confusing working places — there are dozens of things that fill out the places. To that end, it looks like I might be moving.

Organization, one day. But the nature of creative involvement presumes chaos — that work can’t be organized.

But being organized might have another value.

That reminded me — of the hidden work.

Household Work Is a Large Hidden Part of GDP
In Europe, unpaid family domestic work and child care, most of it performed by women, has a value that amounts to between 17% and 32% of the region’s GDP, according to a team led by Gianna C. Giannelli of the University of Florence. As a result of their household labor, European women work an average of 460 minutes per day, compared with 424 minutes for men.
Source: GDP and the value of family caretaking: how much does
Europe care?

TIM | white plains, NY

When you’re looking at something, how closely are you tuned?

I was watching people watch. This is a habit.

That is, studying people as they “study” — watching to see how people are paying attention. This couldn’t be any more in-depth or capable interpretation of the ongoing analysis of watchful friend, Linda Stone, and her studies of “attention.”

But it’s more to an inherent curiosity that I’ve got about people and how they see things, and what they do when they see them. How they do, or do not, pay attention. With people that I work with, clients, those that I observe on the subway, walking the street, studying their eyes, for what they see, and what they do not.

That lead me to think about context in connection — how people sense things in relationship to design. Sitting through hundreds of hours of focus sessions — or dozens of anthropological visits, you begin to get a sense of what to “look for.” The whole body is a sensing organ — watching the eyes is one channel of consideration; but what about everything else. What are the degrees of engagement, alertness, fascination, deep gaze, dream sight, disconnected focus, continuous sight? Working on launch programs — building a story, a product, a place — and watching it go live, linking into the observation of visitors, guests, audience — I ponder the question: who’s synced into the “real time” of the moment — and who is just “passing by”?

When you really get into watching people watching people [or things], you begin to study how other creatures examine. Spiders, for example — try getting close enough to a spider that you can track the movements of that body, sensing yours. Dragonflies. Lizards. Hummingbirds. How deep, the dog’s study? The cat? But being a student of raptors, corvids and other larger intelligent birds, I cast my gaze there.

Pondering the focused link, the attention of one engaged, what would be the most powerful visible parable? One, to note, the owl. Get close enough to watch a raptor watch — and you realize there are layers to seeing in to things. The attached imagery is incredible to watch — the liquidity, the fluency, the grace. http://www.dogwork.com/owfo8 But more so, the focus.

And the design, of how it works…Owl coming in — from one hundred feet, one thousand frames a second — for the strike right at the camera, only a minute long. The head, the gaze never moves — and the last two or three seconds are amazing, watching the feathers ruffle and the wings swell. This is taken at 1000 frames per second.

The idea of looking, a metaphor of seeing — when you look at something, how far do you look in? Looking out, is looking in — even etymologically, to look is the modern turn on an old, perhaps first millennium expression of a German dialect, lugen “to look out.”

In my earlier days as a falconer’s “valet,” I recall looking into the eyes of the raptors that I hand-roosted (and that’s all that I was entitled to do — being a carrier of these birds. They looked out, through me, to the far lands, and to the mammals that scurried in the grass fields beyond where I stood, holding them.

Look out. Look in. Look beyond.

tsg | NYC

G I R V I N | INNOVATION WORKSHOPS
CREATING STRATEGIES, PRODUCTS, IDEAS FOR CHANGE.
http://bit.ly/vfzyEU

I was thinking about the right ideas, that come from the tumble of those that try, but fail. Those that stumble, and find. These that jumble and arrive at the new.

There is tumble, stumble, jumble — and topple.

They’re interrelated.

Long back, working with a team of scientists, they’d offered that the ideas come when teams of investigators are continuing rattling and railing at the same challenge — yet, perhaps, they’re coming at that challenge in the same forum, over and over. There’s something right there, but it needs to be pushed over the top.

Then there’s one, or a series of minds, that somehow pop past the challenge or evolve and tinker against the notion of disrupted solution finding to another tier, another plateau of evolution. That evolution becomes something else.

In the patterning of the work that you’re doing, you might find a thread that relates to how you’re moving through the plaited knotwork of being. There are threads — but, like the knots [the complications] of challenge, they will entangle and flip the movements; sights and insights are tumbled. The wrong string, crossed, wire tripped, balancing thread lost — and you [or your team, your enterprise, your brand] are stumbling, tumbled — toppled.

First, it’s right to recognize the thread of being in the who that you are — pardon the personal allegory — but these questions might be asked in a far bigger way to the nature of brand. That threading is the string of the patterning of what’s important and what will be held by you, your team, others that embrace the challenges that you face and the solutions that you offer.

But the journey of the knot-tied, the string laid, the stumble of the tumble, the staggered jumble — there are two things to contemplate.

One:
It’s in the railing towards the solution that the knot work — the tumbling and un-stumbling that will be the making of the next stride — moving into the new day, the new year — it will be about the stumble, the tumble, the surprised jumble. A good start is a tumble.

Two:
In the tumble, there’s something about being turned upside down, jumbled in the new seeing, that allows for one to perceive answers in a new way. Ever answer is a question turned upside down — it’s a jumble of the query.

It’s worth mentioning, in the beginning of anything, that the word start comes from an aligned etymology — to “fall.”

(s)Tumble, to the new — 2012.

TSG | PALM DESERT, CA
…..

G I R V I N | INNOVATION WORKSHOPS
CREATING STRATEGIES, PRODUCTS, IDEAS FOR CHANGE.
http://bit.ly/vfzyEU

While you’re looking out, traveling the distant vista — a long road, the living running — the journey shall continue.

And who said it would be easy?

Craft, in the making of anything, building the outbound relationships to people, in the truth of it, will be fraught with failure. Tries and trials, and circumstances wrestle what was once a straight path into something of a twisted labyrinth of knotted wanders.

Stick to it, the trials, the trying.

Thinking about the story of living, it can be about the struggle in finding the right solution; but that challenge will be in a set of failures, in getting to the next bend in the path.

Meeting with a friend of mine, Creative Director John Jay — one of the power drivers of Weiden + Kennedy, Portland, Oregon — gave me a tour during the overview meeting at their offices.

There’s a big sign there. Fail harder. It’s made of several hundred thousand clear push pins. And a couple of hundred hours of pin pushing…

the sign+the pins
>
photo by dac

As Barrett Rossie, marketing strategist notes, failing harder is a bigger win.
To the notion of the journey and the journal of the daily creative explorations of making this living matter, you’ve got to fail harder. As I contemplate the challenges of my own running — now, 35 years in the sprint of that long road, it’s still right there — the perspective of the distant longitude, the sequencing of the stride: fail big, risk, leap, roll and bolt hard onwards. Speaking to some of the other creative directors at W+K — failure is common; it’s not celebrated, but it’s never considered anything but a learning against the curve of creative exploration.

The point will be the nature of the experiment.

As a person that’s perpetually putting a positioning between people that make things and people that need them, I ponder the three key words.

FAIL. From a Latin word for falling.
TRY. From the Old French — trier — to pick out or cull.
EXPERIMENT. From the Latin, experiri: to test, to try. (experience)

It might be in the last word that the risk is summed up — one to the nature of experience, there is a journey there.

Your journeying.
Experience comes from the most ancient of all, the PIE etymology — ex, from the Latin, and *per from the PIE base “to lead or to pass over” — founding the same word as peril. The trial of any effort will play to the action of risk — and the danger of striding one place that will remain unattempted by others. Trusting the maturation of instinct, the pleasure of the heart, and the fitness to leap — there, you go.

There is a long road, and failure will be right there, in the laying of the journey, stone on stone, stride on stride.

In risking the harder failure, the willingness to imperil — the outcomes will be more profound. And isn’t that what it’s all about, making the pathway more unforgettable?

TIM | NYC
––––
WAY MAKING | THE JOURNEY
Girvin+People+Brand: http://bit.ly/sxa1C5