I had a little visit again today at Britain’s fabulous Royal Society for the Arts and was again delighted by the provocative, mind-expanding ideas I came away with. And I did it all sitting at my computer by pointing my browser to thersa.org. (Unfortunately someone else got the address they wanted first and you have to add THE to the beginning.)

Anyway, one of my favorite places is (quick links on the right) RSA Animate where they take a full talk, edit it down to something like 12 minutes and do a whiteboard illustration of what is being said and post it as a video. The other is RSA Shorts where a big idea is introduced in about 5 minutes or less in a video presentation.

If you have read this blog in the past, you may recall that I have spoken about some of these presentations in the past. I have a few relatively new ones I would like to call your attention to today.

The first is an RSA Animate presentation by Dave Coplin, which has the enviable title of Chief Envisioning Office at Microsoft UK. How about that or a great job title?! Seeing the name “Microsoft”, you might think that Coplin’s presentation will be all about The Cloud, that place where Microsoft, Google, Adobe and hundreds of other companies are competing to be custodian of our data, photos, music, etc. True to his job title, Coplin takes a broader look at how we can be more engaged, more productive and happier in this post-industrial knowledge age in which we live and work. He touches on office cubicles and open-plan spaces and how they impact our sense of comfort and security. He also speaks about “homeworking” and how technology has been both the bogeyman and a possible solution for some of the things which cause more than 70% of workers to feel unhappy in their work. Don’t worry, he doesn’t advocate writing more emails even though that is how many people today try to show that they are productive.

I suspect that the solutions he advocates are not for those who require a lot of structure in their working lives. But for those who can cope with some freedom, he makes a great case. Watch the video here: http://vimeo.com/75407545. If you are in the office and can’t play the audio, you can download and read a transcript here: https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/rsa-animate/2013/09/rsa-animate---re-imagining-work

If you want more Coplin, check out his blog at http://www.theenvisioners.com/ and read a behind-the-scenes report about the making of David's RSA Animate presentation.

After you have digested that one, if you are still hungry for another thought-provoking idea, feast on this RSA Shorts presentation by Kate Raworth, a renegade economist teaching at Oxford University who is focused on the rewriting of economics to make it a fit tool for addressing the 21st century’s social and ecological challenges. She makes the case that we put too much emphasis on simple economic growth as defined by such tools as GDP. If our politicians and business leaders were less simplistic in their approach to what defines a healthy economy, Raworth suggests that we might achieve a better quality of life. Watch the video at https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/event-videos/2018/01/kate-raworth-on-economics-for-the-21st-century. Read Kate's blog, "Exploring Donut Economics" at http://www.kateraworth.com/

- Herb