Accidental Creative

It’s Louisville, NOT Looo-eee-villle

Thanks to everyone from the LGDA (Louisville Graphic Design Assoc.) for a fun event last evening. What a great group - a mix of everything from students to veterans.

If the technology holds up, it looks like I’ll be releasing part of my talk as a podcast next week. (Fingers crossed.) The recorder ran out of steam before I did - key learning: if I must stay within 60 minutes, I can’t be given access to a whiteboard…it’s an impossible task.

Simpsonize me

OK…it’s Friday…just got an e-mail from my friend Steven with a link to an image of himself as a Simpsons character.

I, of course, was dying to know what my Simpsons counterpart would look like. I made my way over to Simpsonizeme.com and you’re looking at the result.

Yeah…I fell for it hook, line and sinker. But as I said…it’s Friday.

If you decide to take the bait, feel free to post your Simpsons alter-egos in the comments. (I wonder what would happen if someone went through the process and their Simpsons character looked just like Homer or Marge…therapy anyone?)

The Connected Interview

Good friend of Accidental Creative (and recent AC interviewee ) Lisa Johnson of Reach Group Consulting (and author of "Don’t Think Pink" and "Mind Your X’s and Y’s") recently interviewed me about the nuances of online communities, podcasting and other new media.

Lisa is doing incredible work in helping organizations understand the dynamics of the new marketplace. Her podcast, The Connected Generation (iTunes | RSS ), is a regular staple in my podcast diet. You can also read her blog through the Reach Group site . 

BIW?

What do you have the potential to be "Best In World" at?  Have you ever thought about it? Maybe you should.

A few years ago I had little oval stickers made up for my team with the initials "BIW" in them. (I realized shortly thereafter  that they had been distibuted, but never explained. It let to some interesting theories about what "BIW" meant…"Baked Indigo Wafers?" "Blogging Infernal Widgets?") 

I don’t want people I work with wasting time doing anything less that what they could be best in the world at. Maybe it doesn’t encompass all of their daily activities, but there should be some strategic plan to get to a place where natural gifts and skills line up with daily activities.

I shudder to think about how many cures for diseases were never discovered because someone decided accountancy was more stable than bio-medicine.

What could you be "Best In World" at and - if you dare - what are you doing to align your life with it? 

Simp-uccino

So…in a fit of techno-lust a few years ago I went out and used my Discover cashback-reward to get one of those pod-based coffee makers for my office. I used all of the normal rationalizations - how much money I’d save over time, how convenient it would be, etc. I loved it. Finally, I could have all of the flavor of pseudo-coffee anytime I wanted it. (I amused myself by cranking it up and glancing through my office blinds to see the reaction to what sounded like an oil drill grinding and spewing in my office.) With the exception of ongoing costs, (those pods are outrageous!), I loved it. For a while.

Over time, my pod-coffee gizmo began to be more trouble than it was worth. The constant cleaning, porting of water back and forth to my office, etc., soon made it less and less convenient. I wanted my caffeine fix NOW, not in ten minutes after cleaning and prepping the machine.  I gradually began to grab coffee at the communal coffee dispenser or on the way to work. (So much for the saved money, huh?)

Now, besides the fact that this story illustrates my laziness and tendency toward convenience, I think that it also illustrates something about how we should approach creating. 

It’s easy for us to adopt new ways of doing things - new systems - and layer them over and over again on top of our old ones. In the quest for the "perfect" way of doing things, we so over-complicate things that we forget why we doing them was important to begin with. What begins with infatuation for a new method becomes tiresome and overbearing. Gradually, we slip toward apathy and lose our heart.

If nothing else is true, I’m convinced of this - simplicity is the key to all things. Being simple in how we approach our thoughts, our life, our work, etc., cultivates our curiosity and keeps us from unnecessary redundancy.

Be simple and maybe you won’t end up with a $100 bookend. 

Simp-uccino

So…in a fit of techno-lust a few years ago I went out and used my Discover cashback-reward to get one of those pod-based coffee makers for my office. I used all of the normal rationalizations - how much money I’d save over time, how convenient it would be, etc. I loved it. Finally, I could have all of the flavor of pseudo-coffee anytime I wanted it. (I amused myself by cranking it up and glancing through my office blinds to see the reaction to what sounded like an oil drill grinding and spewing in my office.) With the exception of ongoing costs, (those pods are outrageous!), I loved it. For a while.

Over time, my pod-coffee gizmo began to be more trouble than it was worth. The constant cleaning, porting of water back and forth to my office, etc., soon made it less and less convenient. I wanted my caffeine fix NOW, not in ten minutes after cleaning and prepping the machine. I gradually began to grab coffee at the communal coffee dispenser or on the way to work. (So much for the saved money, huh?)

Now, besides the fact that this story illustrates my laziness and tendency toward convenience, I think that it also illustrates something about how we should approach creating.

It’s easy for us to adopt new ways of doing things - new systems - and layer them over and over again on top of our old ones. In the quest for the “perfect” way of doing things, we so over-complicate things that we forget why we doing them was important to begin with. What begins with infatuation for a new method becomes tiresome and overbearing. Gradually, we slip toward apathy and lose our heart.

If nothing else is true, I’m convinced of this - simplicity is the key to all things. Being simple in how we approach our thoughts, our life, our work, etc., cultivates our curiosity and keeps us from unnecessary redundancy.

Be simple and maybe you won’t end up with a $100 bookend.

AC Podcast: #71, Rhythm

I’ve got rhythm…I’ve got music…I’ve got…umm…what’s the other thing?

Want to Stifle Your Creativity?

"Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon."
Alexander Pope

We all have had the experience with the person who gives us the annoying "yeah, yeah…" when we’re trying to explain something, right? It seems that they’re not really listening to what we’re saying because they’re already convinced that they know what’s coming next. (Sometimes I’ll slip in an absurd statement just to see if they catch it.)

While this might seem annoying to us as communicators, my guess is that many of us are guilty of this same thing when it comes to creating. We can enter into a "false familiarity" with our methods, our subject matter or the project and miss important details because we’re not really engaging. We’re allowing important information, (stimulus), to slip by because we’re more interested in getting to the novel stuff - the more challenging stuff. The problem here is that we’re restricting  potentially important information from entering our stimulus base. Over time, this will lead to "creative inversion", or the state of putting out more than we’re taking in.

Creativity requires humility. It requires the ability to approach the subject from a posture of learning and openness. Arrogance and over-familiarity will stifle our ability to see what’s really going on and bring it to life. Approach your craft, your role, your team - whatever - with humility and openness to whatever might come next. Then apply your learning to the situation. Getting this backward can lead to frustration and disaster.

Jerry’s Chain

Ever wonder how Jerry Seinfeld gets it all done? LifeHacker has the answer.

Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret [LifeHacker]