Years ago – thirty-two to be exact – I walked into NIKE’s Research & Development facility in Exeter, New Hampshire. The old brick building, constructed in the days when New England was the site of a shoe manufacturing industry, seemed alive as bright, young people buzzed around, trying to design better athletic footwear.
There on the wall I saw a placard – doubtlessly motivational – which seemed to describe the scene.
Self-important perhaps, but surely inspirational. In fact, a couple of those folks went on to become President of the company.
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.*