The newly launched Italian magazine Note Bene asked me to do a piece for their introductory issue, tantalisingly devoted to (paraphrasing from the original Italian intro text) “the authenticity and creativity of action”.
Break that phrase down more and you have a real jewel: “the authenticity of action”.
As a motivating concept for almost any pursuit, it doesn’t get much better than that. It also resonates strongly with one of my favourite quotes from my business side:
“We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”
– Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines
I love the simplicity of that statement, and the no-nonsense reality that the most effective strategies are in fact no more complicated than doing things. It was fitting that the invitation for the piece came on the back of a talk I gave to a conference in Italy called The Nameless City, as from both a design and urbanist point of view, the authenticity of action and the simple strategy of doing things is the most effective techniques we can employ against the sameness of our visual, narrative and physical landscapes.
The piece is a fleshed out version of one of my The City as Platform talks, as delivered in Italy. It’s a gorgeous full colour A3 production, so please search for it at your local international magazine source. For more information on the publication, you can download a PDF of their English press release here (2.8MB), which also has contact information if you want to get in touch to get a copy or help distribute them. At the moment, they don’t have a website.
They went with an Urban Play identity to illustrate my text, so until you can get a copy, here’s a couple spreads from the issue:
