Accidental Creative

Podcasts For The Creative Mind

We’re excited to announce that Accidental Creative has formed a partnership with Le Méridien. [Virtual champagne cork pop...] We have just launched a new website dedicated to delivering Podcasts for the Creative Mind - a series of interviews with Le Méridien’s LM100 members.

LM100 is a group of cultural innovators who define and enrich the guest experience at Le Méridien. The group comprises a global array of visionaries, from painters to photographers, musicians to designers, chefs to architects. In this special series of podcasts, they share their passions.

We’ll be discussing this more over the coming weeks and will be featuring some of the podcasts on the AC site.

Preservation Hall

IF you’re in New Orleans and IF you have a few hours to stand in line and IF you want to hear some of the most incredible music you will ever hear, you MUST make the effort to visit Preservation Hall. We had a private show last night. I still have chills.

It beats the “I went to Bourbon Street and only heard John Mellencamp cover band” blues.

New Orleans

So…I’ve been on radio silence for a few weeks. Many of you know that I was on vacation until very recently. This week…

I’m in New Orleans with 312 other crazy people partnering with Habitat for Humanity in building homes for displaced New Orleans residents.

Yesterday we took a tour of the entire region by bus. In spite of images and advance warning, I was not prepared for what I saw. Many parts of the greater New Orleans area are still in devastation. It looks like someone dropped a nuclear bomb (a few days ago.) Entire neighborhoods were flattened and haven’t been touched in three years.

Here are a few random tidbits from the bus tour:

• New Orleans Parish is 185 square miles. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 145 of them were covered with water. Lots of water. Rich and poor alike had their homes completely destroyed.
• The 1.5 million residents of the New Orleans region had less than 24 hours warning to evacuate. When many Houston residents tried to evacuate they went 12 miles in that amount of time.
• There is nothing French about the French Quarter. It was built by the Spanish. Hmm.
• Before Katrina, there were over 3,000 hospital beds in New Orleans Parish. Today there are less than 500.
• Before Katrina, the population of New Orleans was a little over 600,000. After, it’s under 300,000.
• Over 5,000 children were separated from their parents during the Katrina aftermath. The last children were not reunited until March ‘06 - nearly seven months later.
• Until 1805 you couldn’t live in New Orleans unless you were Catholic.
• 320,000,000 trees died in the storm.
• 100,000 homes flooded in the New Orleans metro area.

I’ll be posting more throughout the week…the work is fun but so are the random things I’m capturing…

Trolls

This was my favorite moment in Seattle. We took a wrong turn, (actually…several of them…) and ended up at the base of a street called Troll Avenue. We decided to turn onto it, and when we arrived at the top, the above sculpture greeted us. Jennie tossed me her camera and I grabbed a quick shot.

It was unexpected, cool and memorable. (And we almost got into a…well…”creative accident” as I was taking the shot…)

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 . 

No One Sets Out To Be A Smooth Jazz Musician

Dave sends us this tidbit from the Onion. Ever wonder how little decisions can lead to big mistakes? Here’s a comical  retrospective of one jazz musician’s tumble into commercial viability. (Fake, of course. C’mon…it’s the Onion!)

"Cover bands don’t change the world", but they do make riding in an elevator a little more pleasant.

No One Sets Out To Be A Smooth Jazz Musician [The Onion]

Link Roundup

It’s been a busy week here in AC world, but here are a few gems I managed to stumble across:

37 Signals on Stefan Sagmeister - Can design make you happy? (And giddy?) [37 Signals.com]
Pop Songs Threaten Nursery Rhymes - Maybe "cover bands" can change the world. [Agenda, Inc.]
My War On Clutter - Merlin Mann’s clutter-post-mortem. (The comments are great.) [43folders.com]
Chris Glass - Amazing design, writing, photography. [ChrisGlass.com]

GTD Dojo

Business 2.0 has a great story this month on David Allen . For those who are "geeked-up" on all things GTD, ("Getting Things Done"), the article provides much of the back-story on David’s life and career and where he sees the company going. There are a few productivty tidbits tossed in as well for those willing to dig a bit.

In case you missed it, we recently interviewed David for the Accidental Creative podcast. (The interview is currently out on David’s podcast feed as well.)

Article: "The Master of Geting Things Done" (Business 2.0)

Stimulus Finding

One of the regulars in my podcast diet is Cool Hunting. The latest episode is a profile of Lori Nix , whose art must be seen to be believed. I am always amazed at the extent some artists go to in order to realize their vision. Semantics are critical and vision is everything.

Cool Hunting - Lori Nix