New Blog Design

cropped-dreamstime_m_945842342.jpgYou may have noticed that the design of this blog has changed.  I wanted to share a few thoughts about why and ask for your thoughts and response to the change.
I recently attended an authors’ conference in DC hosted by my publisher, Berrett-Koehler.  I left that conference inspired in many ways.  You can read more about that in a blog I will publish later this week.  One of the things that struck me is that I should increase my efforts to center my decisions, my writing, and my actions around my purpose.  My purpose is to inspire positive change.
When it comes to art, I am most unsophisticated, but every now and then I encounter an image that holds my attention.  When I first encountered the above image I was attracted by the colors.  Then I noticed that the image was a person’s head.  As I put these two thoughts together, I imagined a mind that was being inspired, that was seeing in a new way and was therefore able to do new things.  For me, this image captured the notion of inspiring positive change.  I hope that it will help to remind me of my purpose and that it might also inspire you to make positive change and inspire it in others.
As your read future entries on this blog, it is my hope that you read with both your heart and mind and that the words inspire in you the desire to inspire positive change in others.
I’d love to hear what you think about the image, the design change and/or any other thoughts you have on inspiring positive change.  I am grateful for all the comments and ideas you have shared with me in the past.

8 comments on “New Blog Design

  1. Hi Robert
    I hope you take this feedback in the way it is intended but this current blog / web site design looks very dated and doesn’t do your amazing thoughts and ideas justice. You are a little limited with what you can do as you are using a basic WordPress.com set up for the web site but you could either buy your own domain name and use that with a better theme that WordPress.com allow or install WordPress on your own web hosting somewhere and use one from a much wider range of themes. I’d be more than happy to help you over email etc if you want to really try and inspire people from the moment they land on your site?
    All the best

      1. I like how you brought the image into the website! It’s currently my laptops background 🙂

  2. I totally agree that I was drawn to the image by the colors but I also like the flow of the brush strokes. There is just something unique about how I perceive them. In all honesty, your blog posts (no matter what the form) help me to go deeper into an issue — to think more about the “why or how.” Whether you are sharing a story, an experience, or research, you present options for us to consider how each of us can make a positive difference. Personally, I like pictures as they add another dimension to the conversation. Thanks for challenging me and others to inspire positive change!

  3. I tend not to pay much attention to images unless they are referenced in the text, or otherwise support the message in the text. The images are not a distraction either. As an aside, I tend to be artistically uninspired as well, but I think I see a bird (a dove maybe) and a skyline in the black of what would be the person’s hair.

  4. I’ve started a few local gyms and I always took the name and logo of those small businesses very serious. For the reasons you stated that I want the look, feel and function to match and remind me of my purpose. I went regularly to the Detroit Institute of Arts for Inspiration. My first gym was called CrossFit North Industry and our slogan was “Let Your Work Speak For Itself”. Our logo was of a welder pounding out the name of our gym. It always reminded me not to bash other gyms or talk to much about our services but to simply focus on showing what we can do for our clients. Another gym business that also turned into a consulting business for other gym/franchise owners was called Weapon X Fitness Lab. The name and logo (this one of a hulked out, half man/half wolverine squatting big weight) was designed to call attention to our focus on high performance in athletics and business. Our slogan was, “Dedicate. Educate. Mutate.” I’ve always enjoyed the process of using names and images to help myself and potential consumers focus on the idea of the service or product I want to offer.
    On that let me say this. I’ve followed this blog for I think two years now, watched many videos of yours, heard you teach live multiple times and read your first book (Deep Change) as well as your most recent (The Positive Organization). My personal experience and the biggest reason I come back again and again is that I feel you’ve mastered the art of asking authentic, thought provoking questions. What you do with the process of finding the right question and seeking the answer is probably more valuable to me than sometimes the answers themselves. I try to use this process of 1. finding the right question and 2. searching deeply in every major aspect of my life. Reading these blogs gives me more opportunities to practice and reminds me to use them in other areas of my life.
    So for that reason I actually really LIKE your website! Its very clean and simple. It gives me every opportunity to be reflective and not get distracted by lots of words, images or ads. I get the opportunity to get lost in my own mind by whats presented to me in the words you write, stories you tell and introspective questions you ask. Similar to a simply decorated church vs an ornate cathedral. There are lots of websites that like to talk about the things you do and I feel like they like to scream at me for my attention. Here with your website I feel like I’m being spoken to by you vs being yelled at to draw my attention or to get me to do something.
    I think that piece of art is beautiful and now that you’ve shared why it spoke to you, I also am inclined to see what you see when I look at it. I think it would be very meaningful to bring into your website, blog, emails, book cover etc. It doesn’t cry out loudly. It matches the look, feel and function of what you do and your purpose. It makes me think about light and experience flooding my mind and creating something more intelligent.
    Thanks for another opportunity to reflect and think deeply.

  5. Hi Robert
    Images do add an energetic charge to one’s message if the image has a certain charge for you too. When that is the case, in my experience, it will resonate for your readers.
    Image or no image, you are such a wonderful inspiration to me and I offer you my deep gratitude for just being who you are.
    Thank you.

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