Creativity

SpaceX makes landing!

These are the types of things that make me believe that anything is possible. Truly inspiring. I wish I were an engineer, but I’m not. This is one reason why I’m starting to study it (informally, that is). This is straight up Horizons, Carousel of Progress-type stuff. We have a rocket that delivered a payload to the International Space Station and came back to earth, landing on a ship in the ocean.  Unbelievable!

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/08/tech/spacex-historic-rocket-landing-irpt/index.html

I don’t necessarily get direct inspiration or ideas on my projects from this, but to know that someone set out to do something that had never been done before… that’s what inspires me to solve the small problems or conquer the small challenges that I come across.

Well done, Mr. Musk.

Creativity

So, it’s been a while

I let the world interrupt my creative side.  Oops.  I should rephrase.  I let my career get in the way until I figured out how to use my career to express my creative side.  You see, I work in the financial services industry. There’s not a lot of room for creativity in most cases; in fact, some folks have been scolded (even prosecuted!) for being too creative during the first ten years of the 2000’s. Lucky for me that my form of creativity is the good kind.

I’ve been blessed with a couple of opportunities. I was provided the opportunity to earn an education that benefits both my employer and myself. Check. This education has opened my eyes to an entire world (and industry) that isn’t unrelated, but is outside of what I’ve been doing for years. And it’s fascinating. Check check. And while studying, I found ways to make my day-to-day routines more efficient through creativity. Check check check. (Okay, I’m starting to sound like Francis Underwood, so I’ll move on).

Trying to be more efficient (the three “checks” above) got the attention of management, who have asked me to join a team of folks who will redesign a core process, from start to finish, using some pretty cool technology.  What an opportunity!  My challenge through this is to keep the creative juices flowing – but how?

As you can imagine, I’ve read several books by Disney, Imagineering, and other innovative groups. The thing I find fascinating is that while reading books about some of the most creative folks in the world, I found (sort of) a common theme: they all broaden their horizons through seemingly unrelated interests.  Joe Rohde’s Instagram, for example, is fascinating. Not only does he offer great visuals, but he provides great, in-depth background information to accompany them.

There’s also the old-school medium: books.  I’ve only recently started reading some of Seth Godin’s work: particularly Linchpin.  This hit the nail on the head.  If we view our “work” as a form of art – creating for a purpose greater than a paycheck – how great is that? I feel extremely blessed to have the opportunity to quite literally get to create a form of art through new design. This book is the perfect way to jump-start the creative juices.

So there you have it. I’ll be updating more often by sharing different online resources or excerpts from books, etc. If there are folks out there reading this, I hope you benefit from it. It’s a nice outlet. Feel free to drop me a line.

And yes, the giant Vinylmation is still blank. 😀

Creativity

Residency for Not Making Art

“For me, personally, this is my artistic survival.” Shinobu Akimoto is a Japanese visual artist based in Montreal. She is also co-director of Residency for Artists on Hiatus (RFAOH), an online residency in which participants are invited to spend between six and 12 months not making art.

Akimoto founded the project with fellow artist Matthew Evans to explore alternative contexts for artistic activity; to question the role and value of what they see as an increasingly institutionalised art world; and to confront their own disillusion and disconnection from the mainstream art scene.

Article

Creativity

“War and Peace” tortured me: Facebook, email and the neuroscience of always being distracted – Salon.com

Don’t let distractions stifle your creativity:

Dr. Douglas Gentile, a friendly professor at Iowa State University, recently commiserated with me about my pathetic attention span. “It’s me, too, of course,” he said. “When I try to write a paper, I can’t keep from checking my e-mail every five minutes. Even though I know it’s actually making me less productive.” This failing is especially worrying for Gentile because he happens to be one of the world’s leading authorities on the effects of media on the brains of the young. “I know, I know! I know all the research on multitasking. I can tell you absolutely that everyone who thinks they’re good at multitasking is wrong. We know that in fact it’s those who think they’re good at multitasking who are the least productive when they multitask.”

via “War and Peace” tortured me: Facebook, email and the neuroscience of always being distracted – Salon.com.

Creativity, Walt

Five Things I Learned From Hanging Out with a Nine Year Old

When I read this, I couldn’t help but think of Walt Disney’s perpetual curiosity with how things work and his continuous desire to learn and improve.

Each day she approached the game with enthusiasm, eager to learn how to do this thing she didn’t know how to do before.

Adults have a tendency to believe that if they haven’t already learned something, they shouldn’t try. I’m a writer, so it would be an uphill battle to learn advanced calculus. However, with the same enthusiasm and willingness to be taught that a child exhibits (along with a healthy dose of practice), it’s possibly to learn anything.

via Five Things I Learned From Hanging Out with a Nine Year Old.

Creativity

Smart shoes could help the visually impaired

Talk about innovation and problem solving, these shoes could help the visually impaired travel through town! Very clever:

The Lechal shoes – which means “take me along” in Hindi – were originally developed to help navigation for the visually impaired, but applications for fitness and the sighted were quickly realised.

Taking directions from the smartphone, the left or right shoe buzzes when walkers need to turn at a junction or fork, but are also packed with sensors to record distance travelled and calories burned.

Article from The Guardian.

Creativity

Disneyland is Good For You

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In the December 4, 1978, issue of New West, John Hench was interviewed and offered great advice and unique perspectives when it comes to creativity and design.

Regarding Disneyland and its environment, designed to flow like scenes through a script and to draw from the guests own personal experiences:

Walt understood the relation between scene one and scene two, he knew how to identify something and how to hold the identity due to something the Germans call gestalt.  Nothing has an identity of its own until it’s related to something else.  If you can control relation, you can control identity.  …there are some practicing psychiatrists that happen to agree with us, that what we are selling is not escapism but reassurance.

In comparing Disneyland to not only amusement parks, but the outside world:

But here, when we come to a point in the park that we know is a decision point, we put two choices.  We try not to give them seven or eight so that they have to decide in a qualitative way which is the best of those.  You just give them two.  Then we get the guy farther along and he has another choice, but we’re not giving him four to begin with.  We unfold these things, so that they’re normal.

On Main Street:

There was never a Main Street like this one.  But it reminds you of something about yourself that you’ve forgotten about.

And finally, once again, on Disneyland:

The essential message of Disneyland… is that “there is nothing to fear.”  … Look how people who live in cities have to go somewhere in the country for vacation, and when that sense of natural order creeps back into their veins, they are quite different people.  They talk to each other.  When the birds are singing and there are green trees and the sun is coming down, they start to feel open and alive again.  In the cities, we’re threatened.  We don’t talk to people, we don’t believe everything we hear, we don’t look people in the eye – the whole thing is anti-survival.  We don’t trust people.  We find ourselves alone.  If we keep pulling these blinds down and cutting ourselves off, we die a little bit.

The article is very much worth reading.  The insights provided into the design of the park and its environment are truly inspiring.