On the Situations and Names of the Winds is the title of a fragment of a pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, most likely written by a later author of the Peripatetic school. The two-page work identifies and briefly describes the names not just of the four anemoi, but gives a wind-name to each of the twelve points of the so-called “wind-rose”, slightly less poetically the “compass rose”, which is the figure seen on classical nautical charts and maps that shows the cardinal points as well as points intermediate.
...In both agricultural and maritime settings, the names of the winds were at once practical and phenomenologically basic: to step outside and to feel them was to know how things were in the most basic sense, to “know which way the wind is blowing”, as we still vestigially say, and to find the language to speak of it.
...If I were ever permitted to teach a course on the philosophy of wind, I would begin with the questions: How did the winds lose their names? And what does it mean for us to live in a world of nameless winds? I step outside and I feel a gust. “That’s wind,” I think to myself, and I have nothing more to add beyond that. I don’t know the winds.
PEOPLE ARE NOT THEIR JOB TITLES.
TEAM MEMBERS ARE NOT “RESOURCES”.
PEOPLE WORK BEST WHEN THEY CAN BE THEIR FULL SELVES.
YOU CANNOT CALCULATE AN ROI FOR DESIGN.
FRAMING THE PROBLEM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOLVING THE PROBLEM.
(DESIGN) LEADERSHIP IS MORE TALKING THAN DOING.
YOU’LL DO A BETTER JOB IF YOU LIGHTEN UP
IF YOU HAVEN’T PISSED SOMEONE OFF, YOU’RE NOT DOING YOUR JOB RIGHT.
NO ONE OUTSIDE YOUR TEAM UNDERSTANDS WHAT IT TAKES TO DO GOOD WORK.
THE OUTCOMES ARE BETTER WHEN EVERYONE IS A DESIGNER.
AGILE TRANSFORMATIONS ARE HOSTILE TO GOOD DESIGN.
WHAT A DESIGN TEAM NEEDS MOST IS A CLEAR SENSE OF PURPOSE.
YOU ARE ON THE FRONT LINE OF A GLOBAL WAR FOR TALENT.
EVERYONE APPLYING FOR A ROLE HAS AN INFLATED TITLE.
INTERVIEWS ARE A POOR WAY OF ASSESSING CANDIDATES.
DESIGN EXERCISES ARE A BAD INTERVIEWING PRACTICE.
YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH DESIGNERS.
YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME.
THE SKILLS THAT GOT YOU HERE ARE NOT THE SKILLS THAT WILL CARRY YOU FORWARD.