One of the beauty parts of blogging (and in my case, writing 9 blogs) is finding the unexpected. Like when you read a post you think will apply to one part of your life (the techie, webby, bloggy side) and discover that you find content that applies to another part of your life (the hip & zen side.)
So it was with this post by a blogger who focuses on presentation design, Garr Reynolds. My first tip-off was the title of the post: "Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic."
Reynolds proceeds to compare recent presentations given by Microsoft's Bill Gates and Apple's Steve Jobs, and to explore how they align with some key aesthetic concepts found in zen. Why does he bother to do this? Because, he explains, he "believes we can use many of the concepts in Zen and Zen aesthetics to help us compare their presentation visuals as well as help us improve our own visuals."
Reynolds proceeds to not only compare the two presenters, their presentations and their physicality and style while speaking, he also defines a few zen principles. These include:
-kanso or simplicity
- shizen or naturalness
-miegakure or a suggestive mode of expression (rather than expressing the "whole")
It's a fascinating read.
I am going to subscribe to this feed because I expect to regularly get good advice for my business life. I don't know if it will ever again qualify as a hip & zen blog, but this post certainly does. Showing how zen principles can be applied to even the most business-focused parts of our lives is a reminder that we don't have to be two separate people...our personal selves and our business selves...we can try to integrate our principles into our one self.
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