The Lift | Brian@GrowthWorks
Hope Where Hope Is Hard to Find...
by Brian McDermott on 05/15/12
It's was a worn out cliche - "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" -- until I watched this music video shot at Seattle Children's Hospital. It's kids in the toughest of circumstances finding hope in a place where hope can be so very hard to find. Words I've heard so many times before take on new meaning when viewed through fresh eyes. See for yourself...
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Make a Difference,
Brian
P.S. Thanks to my friend Karen Noar in Seattle for sharing this. I was looking for some inspiration today.
Alive Inside...
by Brian McDermott on 04/28/12
I love this video clip every which way...
It's a promo for a new documentary about an experiment using music to bring a little dignity back into the lives of people suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's. There are 16,000 nursing homes in the United States, and 5.6 million people whose minds are going blank. The experiment appears to work. Dramatically.
As someone who works on the "people side" of facilitating change and innovation in businesses, Alive Inside, also strikes me as a powerful metaphor. There are a lot of workplaces in which leaders say, "Employees are our most important asset," but lead in ways that diminish people's spirits -- inflicting creative dementia through micromanagement, undervaluing individual talents and ideas, and dismissing well-intentioned challenges to the discouragement of the status quo with a wave of the "Sorry, that's the way we do things here" flag.
The question for Dan Cohen, the social worker who started this experiment, was focused on what it would take to reengage the light and spirit in lives assumed to be lost and unreachable.
The parallel question for me, thinking about how to make a workplace innovative and successful, is focused on what it takes to engage rather than disenfranchise workers. In my experience, that kind of awakening starts with meaningful and purposeful work and the chance for people to use their unique talents and skills as much as possible.
I marvel at the new hope this experiment provides for the elders in our lives. And I wonder, if iPods and a little personalized music can rekindle a spark in lives that seemed all but lost to age and illness, what can be accomplished by paying better attention to what causes minds and spirits to go blank in the workplace.
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Make a Difference,
Brian
Inspiration for Innovation...
by Brian McDermott on 04/10/12
This video -- about a creative kid with a stash of cardboard boxes, a filmmaker with an eye for finding things special in unexpected places, and a bunch of people looking to spread a little joy -- is a fresh reminder for me about what it takes to make the world an innovative and positive place.
It's a dazzling little concoction with story elements that touch on the value of passion, the contagiousness of creativity, and the marvel of imagination.
It's a tweak: Don't take life and business so seriously that the incredible ability to navigate the world with the eyes and energy of a child is forgotten or squandered.
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Kudos to the director, Nirvan Mullick. And thanks to friend Mary Coyne Wessling for brightening my day by posting this link on Facebook.
Make a Difference,
Brian
Before You Make a Judgment...
by Brian McDermott on 03/27/12
A moving reminder from a couple of teenagers about the risks and limitations of making superficial judgments and assumptions, and about standing by what we believe in -- no matter what.
What would have been missed if Simon Cowell's initial reaction to these two performers -- "Just when you think things couldn't get any worse." -- had kept them off stage? Watch and you will see...
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Make a Difference,
Brian
P.S. Thanks to Sean Schuette at IntrinXec Management Inc. for sharing this with me.
Everyone Helped Everyone...
by Brian McDermott on 03/20/12
This is an 11-minute story about "people just doing what they had to do"... about "everyone having a little hero in them." It's a 9-11 story I had never heard before about scores of average citizens who answered a call for help to get a half million people off Manhattan in 9 hours after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers -- the largest sea evacuation in history. Narrated by Tom Hanks.
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Make a Difference,
Brian
The Future of Learning...
by Brian McDermott on 03/12/12
From kindergartens to corporations, the work of learning may be in for some topsy-turvy overhauling, based on innovations developed by a former hedge fund manager in Boston who started making tutorial YouTube videos in a closet.
60 Minutes, the CBS TV News magazine, aired this 13-minute segment about Sal Khan and Khan Academy (it starts with a 30-sec. commercial). It has foundation-shaking implications if you're a teacher, a trainer, a student in any capacity, a parent with kids in school, or a business leader who values lifelong learning...
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Make a Difference,
Brian
We Don't Need No More Trouble...
by Brian McDermott on 03/09/12
This is a brilliant and inspiring musical counterpoint to the sounds of war that seem to keep increasing around the world. Let's hope (and act) that the voices raised for peace are heard more clearly...
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There are more great videos at Playing for Change | Connecting the World Through Music.
Make a Difference,
Brian
Wit in the World? What's Your Edge...
by Brian McDermott on 03/07/12
I can always use a laugh, and this delivers. But this 1.5-min video also inspires me to question: How comfortable am I with my status quo? How willing am I to change or innovate in what I do and how I tell people my own story my own way?
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Thanks to Vikas Narula at Keyhubs for passing this along, saying it might be the "best start-up video ever"... Visit: DollarShaveClub for details.
Make a Difference,
Brian
The Bully Project...
by Brian McDermott on 03/01/12
13 million kids will be bullied in the U.S. this year. Each month 3 million American students are absent from school because they feel unsafe. This is a worldwide problem that's often ignored until the worst happens.
It's a part of culture that's broken, but it's fixable. As one activist says in this 2-minute trailer for the movie, Bully, "All it takes is for one person to stand up."
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Get more info at The Bully Project or on Facebook. The film shows in select theaters March 30, 2012.
Make a Difference,
Brian
Any Little Thing...
by Brian McDermott on 02/17/12
You're gonna love this guy. He's making a difference one cup of coffee at a time.
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There is a longer edition of Dan's story on Detroit's Fox TV News here. And you can donate to Dan's Coffee Run on Facebook.
Make a Difference,
Brian
