Category: Creativity

Thinking in Pictures

Co-creation, Community, Creativity, Smart Bloggers, Social Media

Agency_ecosystem2_2 As my regular readers will know, I am more of a storyteller than a visual artist. But I often find that one of the best ways of expressing my ideas will be in picture form. Unfortunately, my drawing skills are poor. Really poor. So this means finding an alternative way of working.

Where I always try to start is with the story. What is it that I am trying to get across to my audience? What is the starting point and where does the end point lie? What is the journey that we are going to take and what sights and sounds will we encounter along the way? I try to think of it as a train trip — something that has an EXPERIENTIAL element to it.

An essential aspect for me is the metaphor. What is the key theme that I want to apply … and what is the message? How do I build this up along the way? What are the rhythms I want to interject.

And once I have all this, I ask myself — is there some visual that I can use? Where can I find it? How can I bring my story with its key themes together around the visual? Normally I start with a Google image search based around my key messages. If that does not result in a winning image, I often go to Flickr and do the same. But every so often both of these great tools fail me. That is when I take a breath and think about my friends and community. I think blogs and I think Twitter. But rarely do I think Facebook.

However, when I was thinking about this post, I knew that there was an image that I wanted. I just needed to think where it was. And sure enough, I remembered. David Armano generously setup a fan page on Facebook some time ago and saved many of his well-known (and well-used) diagrams to image albums. This is one of them. Be sure to check this great resource next time you get stuck!

Love and Discipline in Creativity

Creativity, Smart Bloggers, Storytelling

I have been in love with notebooks for years. I first started carrying one during my time at university — not for lecture notes — but for important things — ideas and inspiration. You see, I loved writing and reading … and I wanted to be able to capture great thoughts or snippets of quotes wherever I might find them. I spent a great deal of time in the library reading, in the bar and cafe watching, reading, writing (and even knitting), and my notebook became my constant companion. We were hardly ever apart. Really, it was a love affair of sorts.

Over the years, I experimented with types of notebook. There were the desk-style, leatherette varieties (with built-in calculator — whatever that was for!), there was the moleskin, the handmade, the mass produced and the ringbound. There were a range of optional extras … the brushed aluminium mini-brief case, the leather folder, the ballpoints, fountain pens, ratchet pencils, and everything in-between. Each of these artefacts drew me deeper into the world of words. Each sentence that I wrote confirmed my love.

After I had completed the first few notebooks and placed them on my shelf for reference, I realised that I was building a creative diary of my life. Almost like an autobiography of my own (often questionable) creativity. For these notebooks were pre-digital mashups — a tangle of concepts, sources, research, quotes and action points. There were to do lists, recommendations and new connections made. Reading back over these now there is a sense of excitement and fresh innovation … but also some staleness, some pretentious creativity feeding on its own cleverness.

But perhaps more important than the content written in these notebooks was the process and discipline that has served me so well ever since. You see, there is some tangible link between creativity and writing that we know or can sense, but can’t quite define. When I read a brief, I will quickly write my response and leave it, coming back later to see whether my gut instinct was on target. More often than not, this initial reaction can be easily folded back into the overall response generated by my team — and often to great effect. It seems to add a richness to the flavour of our response.

What does this have to do with social media or Web 2.0? My first post for this blog was actually written in a notebook and many of the ideas that I write about come directly from the same place. Often, if I can’t quite figure out a post I will sketch out the linkage between ideas in my notebook before starting to write a post. While it doesn’t work for everyone, it certainly does for me. And it is a wonderful discipline for any writer to employ. And if you want to give the notebook driven approach to creativity a try, The Staufenbergers have a great offer at the moment. There are TWO and only two beautiful handmade notebooks waiting for the person with the most compelling story. Get over there quicksmart!

Blogged with Flock

Time and the Joy of Writing

Creativity

Fountain pens
Originally uploaded by smitha’s project 365

Anyone who has been blogging for some time will know that it is hard work. It is a discipline and requires a level of effort that non-bloggers will have a hard time understanding. But often there is also joy.

Over the last couple of weeks I have started writing more. It just happened. Suddenly I jumped from writing single posts per night to writing two or three or even more posts. Sometimes there was a desire to share a thought or something that I had read … at other times it was for the pure thrill of writing. (At least Typepad allows me to schedule the posts so that they don’t all arrive at the same time.)

But it hasn’t always been this way. In the early days my posts were light on and light weight. Some of them I still remember … but in my memory they are better than they are in hindsight. The thinking is not so clear, the articulation not precise and the energy too easily dissipated. Part of my own discipline has been to engage with the act of writing and the craft of storytelling … and where I mostly go wrong is that I forget the story and focus on the writing. Even now I can manufacture words that hang together impressively but provide only meagre sustenance.

I am sure you have experienced this as well. It is not like you have forgotten how to write well … it is that you have not remembered that the story is as important as the telling. The antidote, of course, is TIME.

Take a look at this great post (one among MANY) by Skellie. Rather than pumping out a rash of posts, consider stopping. Consider re-working and re-thinking. Spend not 30 minutes on your post, but THREE HOURS. Narrow your focus and sharpen your skills. And if you dig deeply you will find a new joy in writing and those hours will fly.

Share it Like You Are Seven

Creativity

100_6092
Originally uploaded by servantofchaos

Want to harness your creativity? Want a change of perspective? Easy. Hand your digital camera over to a child.

Inspired by this post on sharing ideas by Cam Beck … and in preparation for my up-coming talk at InterestingSouth, I wrote this post over at MarketingProfs. It looks at the amazine world of my four year old daughter … and while we share the same spaces — her world is infinitely more magical than mine. Or was … until I saw the pictures.

Interested in Interesting? A Call for Speakers

Creativity

magnifying glass
Originally uploaded by mmlobster

Some of the most fascinating blogs, websites, videos and music accrue their value to us readers due to their intense scrutiny of one particular topic. But it is not just the topic that is of interest, but the passion, storytelling and personality of the people involved (which often also includes a vocal and proliferate community).
A couple of months ago, Russell Davies put together an unconference called Interesting2007. As you can see from the videos, articles and pictures, it was far from the standard advertising/marketing get together — in fact, it was designed to be an event about ideas, passions and, well, interesting things. And from the reports, it seems to have been a great success!

In the wake of this success, Russell’s partner in crime, Emily Reed, is organising Interesting South … to be held here in Sydney, Australia on November 22, 2007. The venue, I believe, is the charming Bondi Pavillion.

NOW … all we need are some "interesting" speakers. So if you are interested in giving us all between 3 and 10 minutes of passion, fill out the form below and send it to Emily by October 25, 2007.

Download speaker_topic.doc

Does Inter-Agency Collaboration Work

Creativity

CoffeeconeIt is a great idea … in theory. Come up with the BIG idea, bring all your agency "partners" together and execute a brilliant, integrated campaign. But does it work? Does it achieve your short term objectives? And perhaps, more importantly, does it achieve the long term strategic objectives that should be driving your brand?

All this and more, I ponder in this post over at MarketingProfs.

Enjoy.

Giving Feedback — If you were not delighted with your experience …

Creativity

One of the posts that consistently generates traffic to this site is this one. It was written in response to a Seth Godin post on the art of Giving Feedback.

Now whether you are a giver or receiver, criticism can be hard to take. You can feel slighted, victimised, angry or insulted. Sometimes the blood rushes to your face, your hands or to your feet … criticism is one of those things that creates an emotional AND physical response.

BUT … it is not just the receiving of criticism that is difficult. Giving it can be challenging too. Even those in positions of power can be clumsy in delivering feedback … So, if you DO have to provide feedback, here are some tips:
1) Be honest but not brutal
2) Don’t embellish or change the message part way through
3) Do it earlier rather than later (don’t wait until things are very bad)

Oh, and on both sides … be gracious under pressure.

I Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust

Creativity

Into Dust
Originally uploaded by TjF Photography

Kristin Gorski has a great post on Billy Collins and his use of animations to accompany personal poetry readings. When an author does a "reading" it can generate a lot of interest — we seek a definitive or authentic interpretation of a text, so we seek out its creator — but often times (I find) that an author’s reading or interpretation will leave me cold.
For example, when I first heard a recording of TS Eliot reading The Waste Land I was astounded. I could not believe how badly it was done — how he rushed at his delivery, how he held off at some points and where he obliterated the rich yet desolate language in a single breath. But despite this … and many years later … I can still hear those words in my head. Is this to do with the extra layering of authenticity over the top of meaning? Was it just my teenage disappointment? (Thanks to Sharon for prompting my memory on this.) If you are interested, you can take a listen to the man himself here.

I have heard others perform TS Eliot’s poetry — and do so in a more compelling manner … and sometimes a writer will hold too tightly to their work, will try to limit the interpretation or contain the meaning. The same can be said of IDEAS. Releasing our ideas, our words and our thoughts into the world can be terrifying … but the only thing that really can hold them back is our own fear.

Oh So Pretty

Creativity

Littledeviantthumb Normally I complain about car companies not being creative enough in their marketing, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this beautifully executed site for Scion (thanks to the good folks at Organic). It is a Tim Burton-esq world in which we grown ups can play with the Scion brand.

It seems like the car companies are really digging into the online world all of a sudden — as Katie points out — Ford’s latest moves are much more impressive than their bold moves of not so long ago. Who says you can’t teach an old dog?

Grid Me

Creativity

Grid lock
Originally uploaded by LawrenceGarwood.

I remember feeling a little bit freaked AND excited when I got the opportunity to design a book. I had always complained about the designs that I had seen, but had never actually been responsible for creating a design from scratch … so I had to learn a lot very quickly. Luckily the editor that I replaced had left some great textbooks … and these introduced me to the ubiquitous grid.

Although it is much maligned, the grid is an invaluable tool for designers … and even more useful for NON-designers. It can provide non-designers with good insight into the methods and techniques that designers can employ to create spatial relationships between visual objects. And this great PDF by Mark Boulton and Khoi Vin brings my love of the grid right back into focus.

Tip of the hat to Lawrence Ardelean over at Three Minds @ Organic.