The Idealist : Fuck you Hallmark
The Historian : I miss you Dad
The Father : Thanks Keira
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Hey Ho – Let’s Go. R.I.P. Arturo Vega
Arturo Vega: 1948 – 2013
Arturo Vega has died, aged 65. Pretty much everyone with even a passing interest in punk knows of Arturo Vega’s work. He was the man who designed the iconic Ramones logo, and many of their album covers. As much as The Ramones were at the vanguard of full on live and loud three chord punk, so too was the logo, representative of the US presidential seal, with the American Eagle sporting an apple branch and a baseball bat.
In 2011, Carole, Keira and I, along with a few others were fortunate to spend a morning with Arturo Vega watching him work. He was screen printing a design of his for the art installation Never Records, which in turn was part of the Better Bankside festival that year. Only around 20 or so items were printed by him with the Never Records logo. Keira and I each have one and so too does Neil Usher, who at the time I thought would appreciate a t shirt as a gift.
This is not one of those cringing ‘What can HR learn from Vega’s artistic approach?’ or ‘How can HR be more like The Ramones?’ type posts. It’s simply an acknowledgment of the death of an artist. I’ll leave you with – what else but The Ramones kicking the ass out of Blitzkrieg Bop at The Rainbow Theatre in 1977, with ‘that logo’ as the backdrop. Hey ho, let’s go.
Keeping it Conversational
Having just blogged again about how email is a poor substitute for conversation, I thought I should check myself and see how I’m measuring up.
Last week started with a shot of extra Joe Gerstandt via Skype quickly followed by an interview with Jo Dodds for Engage for Success radio. Tuesday was spent talking with clients about culture, effective communication and collaboration. On Wednesday I got to spend time talking with Meg Peppin and the author Jamie Notter on humanising work, before flying towards the weekend in conversation with Kev Wyke about business development, and more client stuff about making work better and communities. I also squeezed in phone conversations with Julia Briggs and Dorothy Matthew too, and a few very helpful mini chats with folk on Twitter. The week closed on a high after Susan Avello offered to have a Google Hangout with me as a sneak peek on my contribution to the upcoming Illinois SHRM conference in August.
My session in Illinois on connected leadership will be a series of building blocks. I’m pulling together a series of stories, approaches, ideas and exercises and I’m going to lay them out and encourage people to choose the direction of the talk on the fly. A lot of my work is about how good conversations sit at the heart of good work, and by way of example I want the nature of the session to be more conversational and participative.
Having checked my email sent folder I’ve not done as well as I would have liked, and a few people have had emails from me where I think a phone call would have been better. Sorry if you’ve been on the less conversational end of things this last week, I make mistakes and I learn from them too – I will do better next time.
And I guess another thing I need to check is – was all this conversation needed? Would our week have been more collaborative, more productive had we not picked up the phone as often as we did? I guess I should have closed each of the conversations I’ve been involved in with those questions, so I can’t speak for everyone but for me, those conversations weren’t just enjoyable – they were absolutely necessary. Thank you to everyone I spoke with for helping make a good week, great.