Valentine’s Day is actually named for two different Roman saints, both called Valentine and both utterly unconnected to romantic love. Though legend persists that the original St. Valentine was a priest who performed illegal marriages for Emperor Claudius’ soldiers, there’s no evidence to suggest this ever happened.

Valentine's Day and Roman Saints

The first mention of St. Valentine’s Day as a romantic holiday appeared in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer in 1382. With the medieval period came a new focus on illicit but chaste courtly love, and it is here that we see some of the familiar iconographies begin to appear. Knights would give roses to their maidens and celebrate their beauty in songs from afar. But sugar was still a precious commodity in Europe, so there was no talk of exchanging candy gifts.

The First  Romantic Mention of St. Valentine’s Day

<ul><li>By the 1840s, the notion of Valentine’s Day as a holiday to celebrate romantic love had taken over most of the English-speaking world. </li><li>Into this love-crazed fray came entrepreneur Richard Cadbury (around 1868). Cadbury had recently improved its chocolate-making technique so as to extract pure cocoa butter from whole beans. This process resulted in an excess amount of cocoa butter, which Cadbury used to produce many more varieties of what was then called “eating chocolate.” </li><li>He recognized a great marketing opportunity for the new chocolates and started selling them in beautifully decorate<warningtag>d boxes that he himself designed.</warningtag></li><li><warningtag>From that point, it was a quick jump to taking the familiar images of Cupids and roses and putting them on heart-shaped boxes. </warningtag></li><li><warningtag>﻿While Richard Cadbury didn’t actually patent the heart-shaped box, it’s widely believed that he was the first to produce one.</warningtag><warningtag> </warningtag></li></ul>

The First Valentine's Day Box of Chocolates

The Cadbury chocolate boxes grew increasingly elaborate until the outbreak of World War II, when sugar was rationed and Valentine’s Day celebrations were scaled down. But Victorian-era Cadbury boxes still exist, and many are treasured family heirlooms or valuable items prized by collectors.

Valentine's Day and WW2

food

Food

history

History

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

How Chocolate Became a Valentine's Day Staple

Divergence and convergence describe the two fundamental stages of the creative process.<ul><li>Divergence refers to opening up your senses and taking in information from the outside world. For example, the start of a new project.</li></ul> <ul><li>Convergence refers to shutting off sources of distraction and narrowing your focus to arrive at an end result. It's about drawing conclusions.</li></ul> Together, these two stages form the backbone of creative work. Using a simple framework can help to purposefully design your environment to support each state of mind.

Divergence and convergence

Divergence and convergence are fundamental to the creative process. <ul><li>Writers diverge by collecting raw material and sketching out potential characters and researching historical facts. They converge by making outlines, laying out plot points, and writing the first draft.</li><li>Engineers diverge by researching possible solutions and testing the boundaries of the problem. They converge by deciding on a particular approach, designing the implementation details, and starting to build.</li></ul> You can use this simple framework to tell you which state of mind you should be in at a particular point of a project.

Know your modes

<ul><li>Stroll through a library or bookstore to see what books draw your attention</li><li>Browse online communities for unusual ideas</li><li>Watch movies or documentaries on provocative topics</li><li>Subscribe to email newsletters, YouTube channels, or podcasts outside your usual listening habits</li><li>Peruse your notes on various topics even if they don’t seem directly related</li><li>Grab a drink or coffee with a friend from another field who might have a different way of looking at a problem you’re facing</li><li>Walk around a new neighbourhood or city and absorb the sights and sounds</li></ul>

Ways to purposefully diverge

<ul><li>Decide on a particular deliverable you will produce by a specific time, then discard any information that’s not strictly necessary</li><li>Set a deadline and promise to deliver a draft to someone who will hold you accountable</li><li>Make an outline with the step-by-step sequence of points you want to cover</li><li>Chunk related tasks within your project into clear groups</li><li>Prioritise your tasks from most to least important</li><li>Give yourself defined periods to make progress</li><li>Stop researching and focus on summarising your current notes.</li></ul>

Ways you can purposefully converge

No creative work is ever truly finished. A final product or deliverable doesn't mean it is the end. It's just one iteration. The final product of one round of convergence can be used to gather outside feedback as a starting point for the next round of divergence.

End with the beginning in mind

How do we know when it’s time to stop taking in new information and start putting it to use? In this short article, I will show you how.

productivity

Productivity

philosophy

Philosophy

problemsolving

Problem Solving

creativity

Creativity

Divergence and Convergence: The Two Fundamental Stages of the Creative Process

Failure is embarrassing and demoralizing, but don’t let it stop you. Be willing to accept the situation and learn from it. So when you fail, ask yourself: Knowing what you know now, what will you do differently in the future?Remember the rule, the more you can embrace change, the more resilient you become towards future challenges.

Failure is not the end. It’s a lesson for your future self

Honor your identity and perspective, сreate content that you like, first of all. And do it for yourself first, be passionate about what you do, and people will follow you. For example, as all our designers are individuals, we always choose projects based on the skills and desires of each team member.

Be yourself, always

It’s trite but practice and produce high-quality work. It’s what will get you noticed and make you stand out from all your competitors in a crowded field. So never stop learning, and remember that professionalism has no limits.

Be best at what you do

Trust your gut and follow curiosity. It will allow you to discover things about yourself, your desires, and the world around you. Don’t settle. Chase what you love. And remember, every chapter in your story will add up. None of it is a waste of time.

Nothing is a waste of time

A desire to be taken seriously early in our career can often inhibit us, but experienced designers remember how important it is to play, as well. The more joy you put into a project, the more joy comes out. Don’t try to be too serious. Deep into the project and fill it with emotions.

Stay playful

Pablo Picasso famously stated, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” When you’ve been in the creative industry long enough, you come to realize that motivation won’t be there all the time. You have to try and make an effort to create something beautiful.

Stop waiting for a muse

This is about getting experience at the beginning of your journey. Make the most of your internship. Be on time, work hard, be available and be flexible — ready to try new things. This is where you’re earning your reputation in the industry you’ve got your eyes on.

Internships and volunteering

A quality portfolio is a window onto your talent, professionalism, and self-awareness — bloated portfolios dilute your best work. Hasty portfolios with spelling errors will be ignored — and the standard for self-presentation has never been higher.

Keep your portfolio up to date

People who stand still stagnate. Forward progression is everything if you are to develop a long-lasting career. Radical shifts in career or projects that initially seem too challenging can be terrifying, but the stock cliche — we regret what we didn’t do in life, not what we did — holds pretty true for creatives looking back on their careers.

Take risks with your career

Education, training, and logic are essential skills, but our instincts often provide the magic. The better we get at listening to our inner voice, the better we can harness the power of our instincts. And if you suspect something’s wrong with your design but don’t know what it is, take it apart and start again.

Trust your instincts

Whether you're just starting or already have experience, we share the biggest creative career lessons to help you navigate your journey.

career

Career

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

10 Lessons to Help You Build a Successful Creative Career

You may want to create an online course or write an article but find it difficult to generate ideas. If you feel stuck, the Zwicky box is a practical approach to creating many unique ideas by breaking the problem into categories, adding value to each category, and combining these values.

Boost your creativity with a systematic approach

Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky was a prolific 20th-century scientist. He wrote over three hundred articles, ten books, held fifty patents, developed jets and rocket propulsion systems, and discovered dark matter. He found over a hundred supernovae, and coined the term "supernova". He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1973 for his work in astronomy and also received the Medal for Freedom in 1949 for his innovation. His secret sauce for his creativity, problem-solving and ideation is the Zwicky Box (or “morphological analysis”).

The man behind the Zwicky method

Zwicky stated that his method could increase the efficiency of our brains 100 times. He believed that if we could "free ourselves from our pedestrian patterns of thought and learn to think morphologically, the future could be shaped by our images." When it comes to solving problems, our brains often jump to familiar solutions. For example, if your phone is low on power, charge it. But we often stop when we have a few solutions. Only when all possible solutions are exhausted can we find diverse answers and select the best possible solution.

Increasing the efficiency of your brain x 100

<ol><li>Define your categories. Take a similar existing solution, list each part, then turn it into a category.</li><li>Add the values. If you have difficulty in creating values, try looking for inspiration from existing solutions,</li><li>Create unique combinations. Pick from each category and link the values together. Continue to create these combinations even if you don't see anything valuable at first.</li></ol> If you have a Zwicky box with five categories, and each category contains five values, you can have 3125 unique combinations. From there, you can pick one or two high quality, innovative ideas.

How to create your own Zwicky box

The Zwicky box can be applied to everyday life, for example:<ul><li>Creativity. You can use the Zwicky box from story planning to content creation.</li><li>Innovation. You can use it for market innovation, business model creation, product development, and prototyping.</li><li>Decision making. Use the Zwicky box to help with strategising, financial modelling, and daily decision making.</li><li>Brainstorming in a team. Everyone on the team can contribute to creating and filling the Zwicky box.</li></ul>

Using the Zwicky box in your everyday life

It can be hard to generate good ideas. The Zwicky box is a simple and effective way to create many unique ideas.

The Zwicky box: a powerful method for problem solving and creativity

Most of us are uncomfortable with the idea of broadcasting our salary. We're not supposed to discuss that with our office neighbors. The assumed reason is that if everybody knew what everybody got paid, then all hell would break loose.
There'd be arguments, there'd be fights, there might even be a few people who quit. But what if secrecy is actually the reason for all that strife? And what would happen if we removed that secrecy? It turns out that pay transparency -- sharing salaries openly across a company -- makes for a better workplace for both the employee and for the organization.

The Salary Sharing Taboo

When people don't know how their pay compares to their peers, they're more likely to feel underpaid and maybe even discriminated against.
For companies, pay secrecy is actually a way to save a lot of money. Keeping salaries secret leads to what economists call "information asymmetry." This is a situation where, in a negotiation, one party has loads more information than the other. And in hiring or promotion or annual raise discussions, an employer can use that secrecy to save a lot of money. Imagine how much better you could negotiate for a raise if you knew everybody's salary.

Keeping The Salaries Secret

<ul><li>Economists warn that information asymmetry can cause markets to go awry.</li><li>Information asymmetry makes it easier to ignore the discrimination that's already present in the market today (the gender wage gap between men and women).</li></ul>

The Dangers of Information Asymmetry

Letting people know what you make might feel uncomfortable, but isn't it less uncomfortable than always wondering if you're being discriminated against? Openness remains the best way to ensure fairness, and pay transparency does that. 
That's why entrepreneurial leaders and corporate leaders have been experimenting with sharing salaries for years. And studies show that, when people know how they're being paid and how that pay compares to their peers', they're more likely to work hard to improve their performance, more likely to be engaged, and they're less likely to quit.

Openness Ensures Fairness

It's not one size fits all. Some post their salaries for all to see. Some only keep it inside the company. Some post the formula for calculating pay, and others post the pay levels and affix everybody to that level. So you don't have to make signs for all of your employees to wear around the office. And you don't have to be the only one wearing a sign that you made at home. But we can all take greater steps towards pay transparency.

Pay Transparency Takes a Lot of Forms

How much do you get paid? How does it compare to the people you work with? You should know, and so should they, says management researcher David Burkus. In this talk, Burkus questions our cultural assumptions around keeping salaries secret and makes a compelling case for why sharing them could benefit employees, organizations and society. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more. Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate Follow TED news on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tednews Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksDirector

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

humanresources

Human Resources

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

How much do you get paid? How does it compare to the people you work with? You should know, and so should they, says management researcher David Burkus. In this talk, Burkus questions our cultural assumptions around keeping salaries secret and makes a compelling case for why sharing them could benefit employees, organizations and society.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

Follow TED news on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tednews
Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

Subscribe to our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDtalksDirector

The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You're welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know.

TED's videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy: https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/our-policies-terms/ted-talks-usage-policy. For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com

Why you should know how much your coworkers get paid | David Burkus

Your product’s success is dependent on and defined by metrics. Metrics are a lens into your product’s health and performance. Defining your metrics, therefore, should be as intrinsic to your product development process as defining requirements.In fact, metrics are one of the most frequently asked product manager interview questions: How would you define the success metric for feature X?

Metrics Matter

You can start to see that this very simple model can be applied in any number of ways:&nbsp;<ul><li>Defining success metrics for a new product&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Determining a new feature’s success and impact&nbsp;</li><li>Re-vamping metrics for an existing product&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Fielding interview questions about metrics.</li></ul>

A Mental Model for Metrics

The GAME framework is a 4-step process that can define metrics for any feature or product.&nbsp;<ol><li>Articulate Your Goals: Always start by defining your goals for your product.</li><li>List the Actions That Matter: Define your user actions, or more precisely, all the actions you want your users to take within your product.</li><li>Define Your Metrics: You are now ready to turn each desired user action (qualitative) into a measurable, trackable value (quantitative).</li><li>Evaluate your Metrics: The most important evaluation you need to make is the functional usefulness of the metric.</li></ol>

The GAME Framework

Metrics matter. Your product’s success is dependent on and defined by metrics. Metrics are a lens into your product’s health and performance. Defining your metrics, therefore, should be as intrinsic..

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

4 Steps to Defining GREAT Metrics for ANY Product

<ul><li>The Enneagram test is a popular quiz to find out our specific personality type. It has nine different ‘Enneagram Types’.</li><li>Most personality quizzes try to sum up a person in various simplified slots, and are not 100 percent accurate.</li><li>One gets to know about their inclinations, likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, which can help improve relationships and make better career choices.</li></ul>

The Enneagram Test

<ol><li>The Reformer: an idealist, or a perfectionist.</li><li>The Helper: The warm, friendly type who is of a helpful nature.</li><li>The Achiever: Ambitious and charming.</li><li>The Individualist: Sensitive, emotionally honest and self-conscious.</li><li>The Investigator: Inventive, innovative and intense.</li><li>The Loyalist: Committed, cooperative and defensive.</li><li>The Enthusiast: Extroverted, spontaneous and impulsive.</li><li>The Challenger: Powerful, dominating and temperamental.</li><li>The Peacemaker: Easy-going, accepting, supportive and complacent.</li></ol>

The Nine Enneagram Types

Everyone's been talking about this personality test. Find out how it can change the way you live your life.

Understand yourself and those around you.

How Chocolate Became a Valentine's Day Staple

Divergence and Convergence: The Two Fundamental Stages of the Creative Process

10 Lessons to Help You Build a Successful Creative Career

The Zwicky box: a powerful method for problem solving and creativity

Why you should know how much your coworkers get paid | David Burkus

Bernard Porter