Creativity

  • Most Topular Stories

  • How constraints can build creative inspiration.

    Creative Something
    3 May 2012 | 8:19 am
    In the 1920s a vibrant Dutch painter set out his tools in front of him. Because he was a painter, his tools were limited to canvases, paint, brushes, and a few various painting items. His constraints – these painting tools – were the same constraints that other painters of the time had to deal with. There were, of course, ways to create different types of artwork at the time, but those methods took away from the original purpose of painting. To be creative, the painter would have to do something completely different. But how? This painters name was Piet Mondrian, and his work has become…

  • Manage your energy, not your time

    Creative Mind Institute Blog
    1 Apr 2012 | 7:57 pm
    Manage your energy, not your time: Great article from the harvard business review

  • How to Get Mind "Popping" Ideas

    Creativity
    Michael Michalko
    15 May 2012 | 8:24 am
    The key to creative thinking is knowing how to harvest the proliferation of ideas and thoughts which abound in your subconscious mind.read more

  • Be uncertain of your ideas, but not your purpose.

    Creative Something
    9 May 2012 | 10:16 am
    “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” – Voltaire Feeling certain can be a large burden for creative endeavors. The inventor who goes out in search of what he is confident to be an ideal, perfect machine, is doomed for failure. By being married to his vision of what his invention should be, he doesn’t see the better solution just around the edges. We can see this problem almost every day. We all settle into ideas because we’re so sure they’ll work, and when they don’t work we keep pushing on them, spending countless hours to try and fit our…

  • Little Tips for Making a Big Impact

    Tangible Development
    Vera Dordick
    19 Apr 2012 | 11:28 am
    Last week I started laying out some of Dale Carnegie’s golden principles because even though they’re decades old, the rules are still relevant in today’s digital age. Maybe even more so. So much of our daily communication has gone digital that it’s easy to forget good old people skills are still key in business today. Here are more of Carnegie’s tenets for being a friendlier person: Remember that a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Think about it. Doesn’t it make you feel good when people use your name?  At most events or…
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    Brain Pickings

  • I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail: 17th-Century British “Trick” Poetry Meets Die-Cut Indian Folk Art

    Maria Popova
    15 May 2012 | 7:00 am
    Exquisite storytelling as exquisite artifact. Rarely do I get this excited about the release a book, but then again rarely does “book” fail to capture the artifactual whimsy and singular storytelling genius of a printed work so completely. From the team at Tara Books, who for the past 17 years have been giving voice to marginalized art and literature through a commune of artists, writers, and designers collaborating on remarkable handmade books, comes I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail — a die-cut masterpiece two years in the making, based on a 17th-century British…

  • Animated Anatomy of Shakespearean Insults

    Maria Popova
    15 May 2012 | 6:30 am
    Heartless hinds, fishmongers, and lots of thumb-biting. Nearly two years ago, The Snark Handbook: Insult Edition gave us high-brow verbal sparring lessons with some of literary history’s finest comebacks, taunts, and effronteries. Now, from educator April Gudenrath and the team at TED-Ed comes this primer on Shakespearean insults, which served to unify the audience and to develop relationships between characters in a very short and sharp way. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers…

  • Sex and Punishment: A 4,000-Year History of Judging Desire

    Maria Popova
    15 May 2012 | 6:00 am
    How we went from medieval male marriages to executions to marriage equality. It’s a momentous year for LGBT rights, with Barack Obama’s recent historic endorsement of marriage equality reminding us how far we’ve come since the days of legally punishing sexual orientation — for a grim flashback, we need look no further than computing pioneer Alan Turing, whose centennial we’ll be celebrating next month and who committed suicide shortly after being criminally prosecuted for his homosexuality. Whether bigotry can ever be wholly uprooted from insecure hearts and…

  • René Magritte’s Little-Known Art Deco Sheet Music Covers from the 1920s

    Maria Popova
    14 May 2012 | 7:00 am
    From wallpaper to Golconda by way of Art Deco. Belgian Surrealist artist René Magritte may have carved his place in art history as a master of mind-bending, advertising-influenced imagery at the intersection of aesthetics and philosophy, but he also had a little-known early commercial career like other subsequently famous artists, including Warhol. Young Magritte made rent by working as a draughtsman at a wallpaper factory and designing graphic ephemera, among which were some 40 sheet music covers he produced in the 1920s, nearly two decades before Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover as…

  • 1953 Animated Adaptation of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” The First X-Rated Cartoon in Britain

    Maria Popova
    14 May 2012 | 6:30 am
    A beautifully haunting animated adaptation of the Poe classic. Last week, we marveled at Harry Clarke’s haunting 1919 illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. That same year, Clarke also illustrated Poe’s beloved short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” — but as darkly beautiful as his artwork was, this imaginative 1953 animated adaptation gives Clarke more than a run for his money. Narrated by legendary English actor James Mason, it was the first cartoon to be X-rated in Great Britain under the British Board of Film Censors…
 
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    Explore Create Repeat

  • Getting The Most Out Of Your Summer Interns

    8 May 2012 | 11:15 am
    Like the hordes of students now hunting for a summer job, you were once a fresh-faced youth looking for a chance. You had talent, you had desire, and you had drive. Maybe you were given a shot, or maybe you weren’t. Either way, you’ve made it now and you know how valuable an opportunity can be. Isn’t it time you gave someone a chance - and improved yourself and your business at the same time? Why hire an intern? There are lots of reasons to hire an intern - some better than others. Some see internships as free or inexpensive labour. Others see them as cheap ways to fill in for…

  • Social Promotion for Your Photography Business

    26 Apr 2012 | 11:56 am
    In the age of Instagram, everyone with a Facebook account and an iPhone thinks they’re a photographer. If you’re a professional photographer using social media for self-promotion, you will have to work a bit harder and smarter to differentiate yourself. Here are a few ways to get the most out of your social media experience: Facebook Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site on the Internet. As a result, it can be a photographer’s best friend or worst enemy. Facebook can sometimes make you too accessible. It’s important to keep your brand separate from your personal…

  • Google Photography Prize Announces Finalists

    19 Apr 2012 | 2:12 pm
    The Google Photography Prize has announced it's top ten finalists with their grand prize winner to be determined on April 24th. With categories ranging from fashion to food, entrants were allowed to submit up to eight photographs. These ten finalists will have their work displayed at the Saatchi Gallery in London coinciding with the 'Out of Focus: Photography' exhibition. The grand prize winner will receive a photography travel package alongside an established photography coach. With over 20,000 submissions, Google has highlighted their Google+ platform throughout the contest as a way for…

  • "It's over in terms of film."

    10 Apr 2012 | 4:06 pm
    With a career spanning over 25 years, 50 feature length films as well as commercials and music videos, Phedon Papamichael is an award winning director of photography. This interview focuses on the notion that contemporary high-end camera systems from the likes of RED and ALEXA, combined with the HDSLR revolution will spell the end of 35mm. Papamichael simultaneously warns that the availability of technology may threaten the craft. "I'm really worried about the classic storytelling style," he says, "People need to watch Bergman movies.. Kurosawa movies.. David Lean movies."…

  • ECR Interviews: Edward Linsmier

    2 Apr 2012 | 1:12 pm
    ECR: Having majored in photojournalism, you clearly had a strong inclination toward image arts when you entered university. What brought you to that choice in the first place? Edward: Sometime in early high school I was wandering around a bookstore and saw James Nachtwey's Inferno and it blew me away. Growing up in the 90's, I had heard about AIDS and wars and famines but I never really understood or saw the events through the eyes of the people enduring these tragedies. The statistics became faces and it all became real. I realized the advantages I had in life and how lucky I was. I was a…
 
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    Creative Something

  • Share where you discover creative inspiration.

    15 May 2012 | 8:11 am
    I’ve written before about how inspiration is all around us, but I wanted to try something different with your help. When asked the question: where do you find creative inspiration, what first comes to mind? Now take that idea and find a way to present it, in a photo, a drawing or painting, in a poem, in a short story, or any other way you like to present your ideas. Got it? Now email your answer to information AT creativesomething.net. I’m going to gather and collect responses from Creative Something readers like you and put them into an inspiration gallery here on the site! Your…

  • Be uncertain of your ideas, but not your purpose.

    9 May 2012 | 10:16 am
    “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” – Voltaire Feeling certain can be a large burden for creative endeavors. The inventor who goes out in search of what he is confident to be an ideal, perfect machine, is doomed for failure. By being married to his vision of what his invention should be, he doesn’t see the better solution just around the edges. We can see this problem almost every day. We all settle into ideas because we’re so sure they’ll work, and when they don’t work we keep pushing on them, spending countless hours to try and fit our…

  • Creativity as a process of discovering solutions.

    7 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    “It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?” – Isaac Asimov Have you thought about this before? It’s a simple idea ‒ certainly an obvious one ‒ but many of us tend to forget it as easily as we hear it. Particularly for creative individuals, the obvious solutions that escape us are typically the ones we are trying the hardest to find. But, for whatever reason, we often place barriers between…

  • How constraints can build creative inspiration.

    3 May 2012 | 8:19 am
    In the 1920s a vibrant Dutch painter set out his tools in front of him. Because he was a painter, his tools were limited to canvases, paint, brushes, and a few various painting items. His constraints – these painting tools – were the same constraints that other painters of the time had to deal with. There were, of course, ways to create different types of artwork at the time, but those methods took away from the original purpose of painting. To be creative, the painter would have to do something completely different. But how? This painters name was Piet Mondrian, and his work has become…

  • For creatives, happiness is all in creating.

    1 May 2012 | 8:22 am
    A few days ago I had the opportunity to hear YouTube videographer Devin Graham speak about his creative success. While Devin mentioned how a number of his videos have received more than 5 million views, what really mattered to him wasn’t the level of success he had reached. What mattered to Devin the most was the fact that he was able to work on his projects day-in and day-out. It wasn’t even the pursuit of success that made him enjoy his work, it was the fact that he’s able to do it at all. To quote Devin: “The tools don’t matter, the ideas do.” This struck a…
 
 
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    Creativity

  • Creativity, Persistence and Working Memory

    Art Markman, Ph.D.
    15 May 2012 | 3:38 pm
    On Sunday nights, I play in the horn section of a blues band. Each week, musicians come from all over town to play with us. So, over the course of the night, I get many opportunities to hear people play solos on a variety of instruments. And sometimes, I am just blown away by the quality and creativity of people’s solos. read more

  • How to Get Mind "Popping" Ideas

    Michael Michalko
    15 May 2012 | 8:24 am
    The key to creative thinking is knowing how to harvest the proliferation of ideas and thoughts which abound in your subconscious mind.read more

  • Boredom: The Devil and Divine Discontent

    Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D.
    14 May 2012 | 7:29 pm
    Most of us know what it feels like to be bedeviled by boredom. read more

  • This 8th Grader Wants to Measure Your Cat's IQ

    Jonathan Wai, Ph.D.
    13 May 2012 | 10:08 pm
    How do you measure the intelligence of a cat? This 8th grader has designed a cat IQ test and needs the help of your cat!read more

  • Ancient Aliens, the Collective Unconscious, and the Quest for Meaning

    Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D.
    12 May 2012 | 4:31 pm
    So-called "ancient alien" theorists fervently believe that past extraterrestrial visitations directly influenced and guided human history over the millennia. What is the underlying psychology of such seemingly outlandish convictions?read more
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    Creativity Portal's Live Inspiration Feed

  • Writing Exercise: TOOTH FAIRY

    6 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy? Well, you should. Day 160 writing prompt from The Write-Brain Workbook. Read more...

  • Free Printable Permission Slip: OPEN UP A NEW DOOR DAY

    6 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Excerpted from Permission Slips for Your Heart and Soul by Patricia J. Mosca. Read more...

  • Finding Flow in Everyday Life

    5 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Once we identify the things that get us in a flow state, not only can we take steps to engage in them more often, but also we can work on inserting the essence of those things whenever we are doing other, seemingly nonflow activities. Read more...

  • Creating Time through Flow

    5 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    The perception of time is the quintessential human paradox. We often want to escape ourselves and lose track of time, and yet when we become fully aware of the gift of time, we are more present and in touch. Read more...

  • Timelessness and Authenticity

    5 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    We approach timelessness in the moments when we feel most at home with ourselves. Read more...
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    Creative Every Day

  • Creative Every Day Check-In: May 14 – 20

    Leah
    13 May 2012 | 11:01 pm
    This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities. Join in the Challenge: You can now sign-up for the 2012 Challenge here! Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 5/14/12 - 5/20/12. The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts)…

  • Annabelle’s One Year Slideshow

    Leah
    8 May 2012 | 11:01 pm
    I showed this to family and friends after her party. It's a bit long (17 minutes), but I loved making it (and watching it over and over.)  

  • Guess Whoooo Turned One?

    Leah
    7 May 2012 | 11:01 pm
    My daughter, Annabelle! Here's a whole lot of pictures of the party and the decor that helped us celebrate this big milestone. Enjoy! This party was a labor of love with lots of folks involved. I went with an owl them partly because when I was in labor with Annabelle, I kept seeing little owls in my head. I knew that owls represent wisdom in Greece (Andrew's father is Greek) and that Sophia means wisdom. And I just knew that should be her middle name! I asked my best friend and partner in crafty crime, Judean, to help me out with the party because she is amazingly creative. I sent her…

  • Creative Every Day Check-In: May 7 – 13

    Leah
    6 May 2012 | 11:01 pm
    This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities. Join in the Challenge: You can now sign-up for the 2012 Challenge here! Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 5/7/12 - 5/13/12. The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) or…

  • Creative Every Day Check-In: April 30 – May 6

    Leah
    29 Apr 2012 | 11:01 pm
    This weekly check-in post is a place for Creative Every Day Challenge participants to share their creative activities. Join in the Challenge: You can now sign-up for the 2012 Challenge here! Ways to share: Once you've signed up, you can leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a blog post(s) about your creative activities during the days of 4/30/12 - 5/6/12. The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) or…
 
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    The Art of Non-Conformity

  • The Lesson of Skill Transformation (Also known as “You’re Good at Many Things”)

    Chris Guillebeau
    14 May 2012 | 7:05 am
    One week down, many weeks to go. I’ve met 700 people on the $100 Startup tour so far, and looking forward to seeing many more. This week: Chapel Hill, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, and Denver. Tour dates and cities here. And have I mentioned… THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT! I’m extremely grateful. Continuing the theme of lessons learned, today let’s talk about skills. In short, no matter what you think, you have them. Not only do you have general skills, you have skills that are marketable. You are good at something that can be parlayed into a business model. The thing is, these…

  • The Lesson of Convergence (Also known as “How to Change the World”)

    Chris Guillebeau
    10 May 2012 | 7:00 am
    The book is out, and I’m on the road! The launch party in New York was extremely fun. Last night I was in Boston at the Harvard Coop, and tonight I’m heading down to Washington, DC. We’re hitting a new city almost every day for the next four weeks. Tour dates here. And by the way… THANKS FOR YOUR HELP! It’s going very well so far, and we hope to keep it going for a long time. Order Here on Amazon Order Here on BN.com Order from Your Local Bookstore Over the next month, I’ll be sharing some of the lessons I learned in spending time with all the “unexpected…

  • The $100 Startup Is Live!

    Chris Guillebeau
    8 May 2012 | 6:20 am
    Greetings from midtown Manhattan, where a large amount of coffee is about to be consumed in a corner room at the Doubletree hotel. Today is the day. After three years of research and writing, it’s finally here. The $100 Startup is going out to the world! Hundreds of people from all over the world have helped in the making of this book. It’s their story of freedom and your blueprint for change. The central message of the book is: If you want to create more freedom and security for yourself through a “very small” business, the skills and the money you have are all you…

  • Beginnings, Process, and the Calm Before the Storm

    Chris Guillebeau
    7 May 2012 | 7:00 am
    Greetings from East 42nd Street in New York City. I’m here to begin a new journey as The $100 Startup goes out to the world tomorrow. Here are a few notes on the early beginnings. It all started back in 2009. I had established the blog and began a new way of life: writing for a living. Or mostly, writing because it was what I wanted to do more than anything else. I was traveling a lot, working my way through the middle part of going everywhere. I wrote posts and created products, adapting as I went along. Not everything I wrote was amazing; not everything I published was a mega-hit. I…

  • Professional Listening

    Chris Guillebeau
    3 May 2012 | 12:04 pm
    If you’re trying to figure out what you’re good at, or trying to start a business for the first time, there’s a simple strategy that will help. Start by listening. Pay attention to what people ask you about. Chances are, there’s something you’re good at that other people want to learn. Gary Leff, profiled in my upcoming book, never knew that people would pay money for him to manage their Frequent Flyer accounts… but at least once a day, he books an award for someone and earns a $250 fee. Brett Kelly, also in the book, wasn’t sure that people would pay…
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    Jonathan Fields

  • Ask JF: How Do I Get Attention In a Crowded Field?

    Jonathan Fields
    14 May 2012 | 9:31 am
    I’ve been asked this question by everyone from bloggers to actors, artists to entrepreneurs and corporate aspirants to movement makers. How do I make a mark when it seems everything that can be created, said or done has been created, said or done by someone else? Short answer. No field is too crowded to make a mark when you’re remarkable. Click here to tweet! In fact, the very existence of a robust market filled with competition and a near cacophony of voices is a signpost of demand, which in business, is a good thing as long as you do one big thing… Become the signal,…

  • Broken Open to Greatness: Transforming Tragedy into Triumph

    Jonathan Fields
    8 May 2012 | 10:09 am
    Today’s guest contributor is my friend, Jennifer Boykin, an amazing writer, mentor and creator of the soulful, sassy and simply divine LifeAfterTampons.com. Last March, my daughter Grace should have been twenty. She should be a sophomore in college. She should have come home for the weekend. There should have been a party and mani-pedis and some lame-ass boy or two hanging around waiting around for us to get home so he could drool all over her. But there wasn’t. Because Grace died shortly after her premature birth. And instead of a lifetime of little girl memories, I had 32 minutes…

  • Why I Drool Every Time Forleo Launches (it’s not the product)

    Jonathan Fields
    5 May 2012 | 10:49 am
    Every great entrepreneur or marketer is a student of human behavior. It’s no different with me. I learned to write response-driven copy in part because I wanted to learn how to sell more stuff, but even more because I’m fascinated by the process of influence and action. How can you craft a set of words or images, in print, on screen, on video or audio to move people through a psychological process that triggers a specific behavior? That’s my real fascination. How can I inspire someone to start meditating, eating better, moving their body, embracing a calling, act in the face…

  • Giving Power to Gain Freedom

    Jonathan Fields
    1 May 2012 | 11:29 am
    How do you build and scale a venture or a movement to touch as many lives as possible without blowing apart your own life along the way? This is a question I’ve been working on for years. Exploring models, strategies, ideas and tactics. Through it all, one overriding ideal keeps bubbling up to the top. It’s, at once, ridiculously obvious, but at the same time extraordinarily difficult to execute on. Because it means removing ego from the picture. Inserting faith. And focusing on service, empowerment and exalting relationships. The fastest way to expand your own power, freedom and…

  • How Danielle LaPorte Set the World On Fire

    Jonathan Fields
    20 Apr 2012 | 7:01 am
    “I decided to stop selling and start radiating.” That, from the mouth of highly sought-after speaker, entrepreneur, strategist and author, Danielle LaPorte. The words tumbled out during the filming of an interview for my soon-to-launch web series, Good Life Project TV (don’t ask, more on that soon). We sat facing each other on the floor of the yoga studio I founded in 2001, talking about her killer new book – The Fire Starter Sessions. She was sing-songing her way through a longer answer to a question I’d posed about her success. Wait! I said. You can’t…
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    gapingvoid

  • In praise of the email newsletter format

    Hugh MacLeod
    9 May 2012 | 10:40 am
    [Subscribe to the gapingvoid newsletter here.] This made me very happy– Austin Ray from Mailchimp interviewed me about my “fantastic open rates”. Mailchimp, as you know, is what powers my daily cartoon newsletter. With email newsletters, at least with Mailchimp, the average “open rate” is around 6%-8% i.e. for every hundred people you send out to, six to eight people actually open it and read it, as opposed to just sending it to the trash. Our newsletter is 40%+. That’s amazing. We were impressed to find out that Hugh MacLeod‘s MailChimp campaigns consistently maintain a…

  • Leaving the mainstream…

    Hugh MacLeod
    9 May 2012 | 10:27 am
    This is the latest cartoon to go out in the newsletter. I’m not anti-mainstream; it has its place. That being said, it isn’t for for everyone. And yes, sometimes you have to leave it, to find out who you REALLY are. I can certainly relate…

  • The trouble with big companies…

    Hugh MacLeod
    8 May 2012 | 12:03 pm

  • All three possible answers

    Hugh MacLeod
    8 May 2012 | 11:05 am

  • I hate my life

    Hugh MacLeod
    8 May 2012 | 10:52 am
 
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    Rajesh Setty » Blog

  • 9 Ways to Ensure that You Don’t Get Good Help

    thinksulting@gmail.com (Rajesh Setty)
    11 May 2012 | 1:39 pm
    Here are 9 ways to ensure that you DON’T get good help: 1. You Feel entitled to receive help This is the number one reason most people go wrong. Nobody is entitled for anything. An exception may be with members of your circle of love but other than that you got to earn your way into getting good help. 2. Your timing is Wrong Mediocre help is everywhere and good help will ALWAYS be scarce. This means people who can provide good help are busy. Sometimes they are VERY busy. You catch them on those times and your chances will be slim. 3. You are an opportunity cost rather than an…

  • The 110% Question

    thinksulting@gmail.com (Rajesh Setty)
    10 May 2012 | 1:04 pm
    Giving your 110% to something or the proverbial “walking the extra mile” is generally good. There is one dilemma that comes with it. If you don’t notice it, you may end up putting your energy in the wrong place. The Wrong Question The dilemma or the catch is in situations where you have to stretch and go beyond the call of duty. Let’s take a hypothetical situation where you are bringing your 110% into the game. Unfortunately, the situation is such that your 110% is not sufficient to make things happen. It requires a lot more from you. One option is that you keep giving…

  • The curious case of “Show, Not Tell”

    thinksulting@gmail.com (Rajesh Setty)
    10 May 2012 | 1:22 am
    “Show, not tell” is something that works every time like a charm. This is simply because the burden of proof is no longer in question once you show. Even people who just “tell” know that “show, not tell” is better. The Articulate Incapable A class of people who are “articulate incapable” are creating a new kind of problem for everyone else. Once someone has had a bad experience with one or more “articulate incapable” people, they suspect everyone else. Because they don’t know whether you belong to the class of “articulate…

  • Burden for Some or Blessing for Many?

    thinksulting@gmail.com (Rajesh Setty)
    9 May 2012 | 1:59 am
    Ask anyone a simple question: Do you want to be a 1) burden for some OR 2) blessing for many Rarely will anybody pick the option 1. Nobody wants to be a burden for some. Besides, it would be politically incorrect to pick that choice, don’t you think? So, it is safe to assume that 99.9% of the people will pick option 2. They want to be a blessing for many. In other words, intention-wise, we are all doing good. Majority of the people want to change the world for the better. Then, why do you think we have so many problems? The answer is in the old adage – “knowing is not doing…

  • My job is done!

    thinksulting@gmail.com (Rajesh Setty)
    7 May 2012 | 9:18 pm
    The real problem is not with the problem who don’t get their job done. They will be weeded out sooner than later. The problem comes when people just get their job done AND nothing else, consistently and over a long period of time. Think about it. It seems like unfair to complain about people who get their job done. Why blame them? The birth of mediocrity Mediocrity is not meeting the standards expected. That would be non-performance. Mediocrity takes birth when people choose to do JUST what is required of them. If everyone in a department, takes that approach, the choreographer (the…
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    bad banana blog

  • Reinvention

    Tim Siedell
    19 Apr 2012 | 3:25 pm
    HILLMAN from Hillman Curtis on Vimeo. I was saddened to hear about the recent passing of Hillman Curtis, a true pioneer in the world of design and creativity. In the video above, where you will see a man ravished from the cancer which would eventually kill him, you will also see a man who had the courage and drive to persue his creative calling. Near the end of the video, he tells young designers to "be prepared to reinvent yourself." "Be prepared to go out on a limb, occassionally. And be prepared to do the things that you feel strongly about, that maybe other people…

  • Minimalist Tees

    Tim Siedell
    9 Dec 2011 | 1:21 pm
    Stop thinking about what to wear and start thinking about other, more creative things. That's the message of Minimalist Tees. The following message is printed inside each shirt: "The greatest enemy of innovation is common sense. Thinking that it can’t be done any other way because that’s the way it’s always been done. Common sense says constraints and limitations hold us back, stifling our ability to create. We feel the opposite is true. Constraints unleash creativity that challenge common sense thinking. Those that truly harness creativity are the ones that purposely apply…

  • Threadless Scout Books

    Tim Siedell
    2 Aug 2011 | 11:28 am
    Threadless, the crowdsourcing t-shirt people, and Scout Books, the make-your-own notebook folks, have joined together to offer (you guessed it), crowdsourced notebooks. Each pack of three pocketsized notebooks ($9) will feature a selection of themed designs voted on by the Threadless community. Available August 11, the notebooks are made from 100 percent recycled paper and printed with vegetable ink in Portland, Oregon. Via Cool Hunting.

  • Tsujita Ceiling Installation

    Tim Siedell
    19 Jul 2011 | 8:40 am
    Japanese designer Takeshi Sano used 25,000 wooden sticks to design the ceiling for the Tsujita restaurant in Los Angeles. Inspired by the mystery and beauty of clouds as seen from the IZUMO shrine in Shimane Japan, Sano calculated the focal length between eye line and each drumstick-size wooden stick in order to create a stereoscopic effect. More photos here. Via Contemporist.

  • Twitter Job Hustle

    Tim Siedell
    30 Jun 2011 | 3:12 pm
      Here's how two young creatives in the Netherlands, Bas van de Poel and Daan van Dam, used Twitter to land a prized agency job for the summer. Nice going.
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    Belmont Club

  • The Harder They Fall

    Richard Fernandez
    15 May 2012 | 10:41 pm
    There have been tantalizing hints that Barack Obama’s support is not nearly as strong as MSM suggests. The Chatanoogan reports that “Chattanooga attorney John Wolfe is giving President Obama a run for his money in Arkansas. A new poll by Talk Business-Hendrix College puts Wolfe just seven points behind the President for the upcoming Democratic primary. The poll was taken last Thursday.” John who? John whats-his-name will be the second person nobody has ever heard of who is giving President Obama a run for his money in his own party. The other, CBS News reminds us, is…

  • Name That Tune

    Richard Fernandez
    15 May 2012 | 4:18 pm
    Greek Depositors Withdrew $898 Million From Banks Monday — WSJ Greece on brink of collapse — The Telegraph Greece’s Bank Jog Turns Into A Run: Is Viral Panic Next? — Walter Russell Mead. If the fat lady is about to sing, which of these two tunes is she likely to warble? Choice 1: Greece exits the Eurozone And now, the end is near; And so I face the final curtain. My friend, I’ll say it clear, I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain. Choice 2: Germany rides to the rescue Let me try again; let me try again. Think of all we had before, Let me try once more.

  • Beau Ideal

    Richard Fernandez
    15 May 2012 | 4:15 am
    It used to be the case that the measure of a person’s affection for someone — or some thing — was what he wouldn’t ask of those who loved him.  A man might borrow money from a stranger or go without before asking the woman he professed to love for a loan. Perhaps its most famous literary example was the refusal of Michael “Beau” Geste to ask his aunt Patricia point-blank if she had pawned a family heirloom to pay for their life at the estate.  There were some things one did not ask of those you cared for. But those days of delicacy are long gone. Today…

  • Legends Make Their Own Rules

    Richard Fernandez
    14 May 2012 | 5:24 pm
    Bryan Preston at the Tatler notes that President Obama is off to raise money on Wall Street right after denouncing them as greedy SOBs. The ability of certain politicians to live a caviar lifestyle while remaining true to their proletarian goals is a skill that should excite admiration in all.  Take the new French President Francois Hollande. Hollande, who heads the French Socialist Party,  has three homes on the Riviera, and is living with a beautiful former journalist, Valérie Trierweiler. Hollande is described by the Guardian as ” a moderate, jovial, moped-riding Joe…

  • Setback for the Narrative

    Richard Fernandez
    14 May 2012 | 2:40 pm
    The Democratic Underground is worried that the Sixth Army may not be able to take Stalingrad: “Walker up by 9-points in new WI Recall poll, WI Dems upset with DNC”. Wisconsin was where the Unions were going to demonstrate their invincible power. Maybe that’s not going to happen. Greg Sargent: “Top Wisconsin Democrats are furious with the national party — and the Democratic National Committee in particular — for refusing their request for a major investment in the battle to recall Scott Walker… The failure to put up the money Wisconsin Dems need to…
 
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    Idea Sandbox Brainstorming

  • Get Quality Ideas From a Quantity Of Options

    Paul
    14 May 2012 | 7:23 am
    You’re in your neighborhood bookstore looking for a title about “social media.” Do you immediately buy the first book you see, on the first shelf of the business section? Probably not. You visit a new restaurant for a tasty dinner, do you only read the top menu item and order it – ignoring the rest of the menu? I don’t believe you would. In both situations, before making a decision, you would first review all your options. You’d scan each of the books in the marketing section. You would read the entire menu. Then, from that full selection of offerings, make the best…

  • Three Ps For Better Leading: Pace, Process, Pulse

    Paul
    8 May 2012 | 7:23 am
    One of the characteristics of a great leader–no matter whether that leader is a person, a brand, or a company–is the ability to stay “tuned-in” to the needs of their audience. Is your audience still with you? Do they get where you’re going? Do they have confidence in the direction? Out of college, my first job was at Walt Disney World in Orlando. I was a tour guide at the “Listen To The Land” boat ride at Epcot’s Land Pavilion. I led Guests on a 20-minute journey through farming methods of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It was one of the easiest…

  • Innovation Requires Both Ideas And Action

    Paul
    3 May 2012 | 7:23 am
    Ideas have been getting a bad rap lately. Some say the lack of innovation within organizations isn’t because of a lack of ideas, rather a lack of action. There are too many ideas and not enough implementors. But, ideas need champions to implement them. Just the same way seeds need farmers. A popular recommendation is: Stop generating ideas and start taking action. Stop the brainstorming and get to work. To return to my farm comparison, that would be like declaring: Since crop production (innovation) is down we need more farmers (execution) and fewer seeds (ideas). But that doesn’t…

  • Hitting Your Innovation Target With A Diagram

    Paul
    30 Apr 2012 | 7:23 am
    Compromise gets a bad rap in the United States. Departing with anything less than the biggest, the best, and the most reflects weakness. Yet, since most of us work in an environment where different people come from different backgrounds with differing approaches on how to reach a similar goal – compromise is a reality. There are times when you don’t need to win, but you do need diplomacy. You need “best possible.” To strike a balance. A happy medium. This situation calls for a Target Diagram! This graph is great for plotting something that falls within a realistic range of choices…

  • Compartmentalize: Brainstorm Like a School Lunch Tray

    Paul
    27 Apr 2012 | 7:23 am
    Most brainstorm sessions start with the meeting lead proclaiming, “Okay guys… think out of the box and remember, there are no bad ideas!” We say “there are no bad ideas” before we brainstorm the same way we say “bless you” after someone sneezes. No one is sure why anymore, but it is polite. For sneezing? We used to believe when someone sneezed good spirits left their body. Our quick prayer “God Bless You” put them back. For brainstorming? Saying “there are no bad ideas” is the reminder to not immediately judge and filter out what you may think is a bad idea. Our brains…
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    Lateral Action

  • Seven Powerful Ways to Gain More Confidence in Your Creative Work

    Ali Luke
    8 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    One of the biggest problems creative people face isn’t a lack of time or money. It’s a lack of confidence. If you love writing, drawing, composing, designing, or any other creative activity, you might have started out doing it simply for the pleasure of creating. Once you start looking beyond that – to building an audience, and even making money from your art – a lack of confidence can be crippling. Low confidence might be pretty obvious, when you keep thinking “I’m not good enough” or “No-one will want to read/view/listen to this”. But it…

  • How to Get Your Life Back from Your Smartphone

    Mark McGuinness
    26 Apr 2012 | 7:53 am
    Many of us have love/hate relationships with our smartphones. On the one hand, it’s amazing to have so much media and so many gadgets and connections at our fingertips – news, sports, weather, blog feeds, photos, videos, music, calculators, voice recognition, encyclopedias, dictionaries, rhyming dictionaries, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn… and of course, email. On the other hand, these things are fiendishly addictive, so it can be a bit wearing to have so much media and so many gadgets and connections at our fingertips. Especially email. Photo by inottawa If…

  • Is Your Business Drowning Your Creativity?

    Meagan Visser
    16 Apr 2012 | 11:01 am
    Image by Radhika Bhagwat Are you spending the majority of your time keeping up with business-related tasks rather than creating? Are you lacking the passion you once felt for your business? Is your creative time continually being pushed to the back burner? If you answered ‘yes’ to the above questions, I’m guessing you’re feeling a bit stretched with all the things you need to be doing. Growing a business is tough. For most of us, left-brained business growth activities begin to take over and right-brained creative activities begin to feel hurried and expected rather…

  • How To Tackle The Goal Setting Problem Nobody Talks About

    Andrew Halfacre
    28 Feb 2012 | 2:05 pm
    “I discovered at an early age that all I’ve ever wanted to do is design” Jonathan Ive in his New Year Honours press release (Image by David Blackwell) It makes me want to puke. On reading this you will have had one of two reactions – you’ll either have nodded along because you, too, have always known what you wanted to do and discovered it early. Or it edged you closer to despair because finding your passion is like playing hunt-the-thimble in a game rigged by a particularly perverse game master. Guess what? Yet another post from a celebrity who effortlessly…

  • How to Suffer for Your Art (without Being a Jerk)

    Mark McGuinness
    6 Feb 2012 | 8:14 am
    Drawing by Hugh MacLeod The tortured artist is one of the great cliches of creativity. And like all cliches, it contains a grain of truth. Look at the work of any truly great artist, and you will find suffering is one of the big themes – whether it’s the everyday misery of poverty (Dickens), the pain of unrequited love (Petrarch), the atrocity of war (Picasso), the inhumanity of bureaucracy (Kafka), the pathos of passing time (Hardy), despair in the face of death (Tolstoy), or sheer existential anguish (Plath, Munch). Even apparently trivial forms of popular entertainment, like…
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    Logic+Emotion

  • Social Business: Where It's Been & Where It's Going

    David Armano
    6 May 2012 | 1:56 pm
    "Chasing the past, I stumbled into the future". - T A Sachs I've always been a firm believer that in order to look to the future, we must look back to and fully grasp the past (and the present). Having had several recent engaging conversations with smart people who I respect, I've picked up a hint of exhaustion around usage of the word "social". Could it be that some who saw the "change" coming years ago are weary of having carried that torch for so many years as we move into the heavy lifting? It's natural to want to move to the next thing—but I'm convinced that today we are largely still…

  • Own The Data, Own The Future

    David Armano
    14 Apr 2012 | 11:15 am
    Now that some of the dust is settling around Facebook's massive acquisition of Instagram this past week, we can all take a step back and think about the bigger picture. Yes, Facebook understands the critical role mobile will play in how billions of people interact and communicate but they also understand that interactions, engagement, consumption or whatever you want to call it generates one thing. Data. Facebook wants it. Google wants it. And all businesses will want to understand it. There is huge, big business to be built around all kinds of data. Targeted marketing is the first salvo and…

  • Thoughts on the Future of Social-Digital Agency Services

    David Armano
    7 Apr 2012 | 12:29 pm
    *The above does not reflect actual or estimated market share Now is as good a time as any to be thinking about the future of digital (and social) as defined by those of us who provide services or even products around these. If you work for any agency or consultancy—this article is relevant for you. If you're on the "client side" consider it relevant as well as ultimately it is your business model and needs which dictate the market conditions that affect your partners, vendors and professional service providers. I'm writing this piece from the perspective of having worked at several digital…

  • Thoughts On Altimeter's Digital Influence Report

    David Armano
    21 Mar 2012 | 12:13 pm
    Altimeter's most recent report titled "The Rise of Digital Influence" revolves around the theory and practice of "digital influence". A trend that will not die despite the industry's counter movement against platforms such as Klout and the scores of imitators which have subsequently followed. (Full disclosure, I was interviewed in depth for the report). Altimeter rightfully begins the analysis of "digital influence" by calling out the distinction from how we view influence traditionally and offering a brief definition:"Traditional influence is defined as the act, power, or capacity of causing…

  • Klout Targets Agencies Via "March Madness" Competition

    David Armano
    20 Mar 2012 | 10:33 am
    Klout has dialed up their marketing efforts, this time placing agency individuals in a March Madness bracket style competition they are calling "Agency Insanity".  Critics will scoff at it as another attempt to get individuals to pump up scores, but in actuality the effort is a straight forward marketing initiative aimed at raising awareness, generating buzz and getting Klout to show up in people's social streams. A while back, Klout's founder Joe Fernandez and I discussed something like this as part of a brand initiative and it's interesting to see it in action under a different context.
 
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    Philosophistry

  • Everything is Amazing, Nobody is Happy: How I Became an Indie App Developer

    Phil Dhingra
    1 May 2012 | 3:36 pm
    On March 8th, 2012, I gave my first motivational speech (and my first major talk since 2000). It was delivered to about 150 creative employees at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, and I talked about the relationship between my personal development and my successes in indie app development. Here is a video of the talk: My first story is about Tarot and iPhone app development (starting at 1:46), and my second story is about meditation and 3D Porch (starting at 16:35) This was one of five talks given during Hallmark's annual Trends Week. As you can see from the poster, I received the same billing…

  • Q&A: Is Scrum Good for Creativity?

    Phil Dhingra
    16 Apr 2012 | 4:36 pm
    I recently gave a talk at Hallmark, Inc. about trends, and I casually mentioned how scrum was slowly taking over other industries after it's success in the video game industry. One of the attendees emailed me recently asking if scrum was good for creativity, citing this segment from wikipedia: In 1986, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka described a new tactic that would increase speed and flexibility at the cost of design and quality, based on case studies from manufacturing firms in the automotive, photocopier, restaurants food and printer manufacturers. They called this the holistic or…

  • 7 Reasons Why You Should Try a Hackathon

    Phil Dhingra
    2 Apr 2012 | 10:37 pm
    I just went to my second hackathon in a month, and I'd have to say, I think these are the future. And it's not for the reasons you would expect. It's not that I believe the apps you create in a 24 or 48-hour period are somehow better than a full-blown production cycle. Rather, it's that I've rarely experienced such a high concentration of education, networking, and creativity in a such short period of time. Backgrounder What is a hackathon? A hackathon (also known as a codejam) is where a group of like-minded people agree to spend a day or a weekend making something arbitrary from start to…

  • How I Kept Up With Meditation For an Entire Year

    Phil Dhingra
    20 Feb 2012 | 5:44 pm
    A little over a year ago, I wrote a post titled, "Eight Changes To My Life After Just Four Weeks of Meditation." The post generated a lot of traffic, but many people wanted to how I motivated myself to stick with it. Some even doubted I would stick with it beyond my initial honeymoon. Well, one year and 28 days later, I am proud to say that I've meditated on every single day since I started. All the changes I mentioned in that post have been permanent. What follows are all the stages of self-motivation I went through to install meditation into my daily routine: The Background (1 year before…
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    Creative Liberty

  • Creativity Classic: The Courage to Create, by Rollo May

    Liz Massey
    29 Apr 2012 | 11:18 am
    (This post begins a new series of book reviews of titles that are foundational to understanding the creative process. Some are old, some are new, but all of them provide important insights about bringing one’s ideas to life.) The Book: The Courage to Create, by Rollo May The Takeaway: Fashioned from a series of lectures and essays penned by May, a psychotherapist who was intensely interested in the creative process, this book is a meditation on what it means to be creative. Filled with stories and insights from May’s own career and his work with artists, it is not so much a practical…

  • Surf’s Up, Condensed: Top Creativity Links for April 7, 2012

    Liz Massey
    7 Apr 2012 | 11:47 am
    Photo courtesy of SXC. Want Old Ideas? … Then Keep Talking to Your Friends John Steen provides an amazing summary of research into innovation networks that explains why greater connectivity between “clusters” of interrelated professionals doesn’t necessarily create better ideas. Is Creative Genius Inherent or Learned? « The Artist’s Road Patrick Ross discusses the role of talent and natural genius in creative development. I especially like his framing the issue of mastery in terms of “growth curves.” Here’s a sample of what he’s getting at:…

  • Improving Creative Focus: An Audio Meditation to Facilitate “Flow” States

    Liz Massey
    21 Mar 2012 | 10:59 pm
    Photo courtesy SXC. Today, I present another in my series of audio meditations based upon a series of posts I did last year on focusing techniques for the creative person. The “flow” state, which has been studied by Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and others, is one in which a person’s mental focus is extremely tight, yet it occurs seemingly effortlessly and naturally. This meditation includes a visualization to help you cultivate flow states, and encourage them to happen more often. The segment is based upon my “focus + flow” post, as well as a very helpful set of…

  • Tell Me What You Really Think – Take The Creative Liberty Blog Survey!

    Liz Massey
    9 Mar 2012 | 10:40 pm
    Illustration courtesy SXC. Over the years that I’ve been authoring Creative Liberty blog, I’ve received a lot of helpful and kind comments about the blog. I appreciate your input. So much so, that I’m asking you to help me give you even more of what you like most from this blog. I’ve devised a quick survey that I’m hoping will help me create content that goes right to the heart of what you’re seeking. Whether you read Creative Liberty for the artist interviews, the podcasts, or the link round-ups, you can let me know what your most pressing creative…

  • The Building Blocks of Better Ideas: Vision

    Liz Massey
    17 Feb 2012 | 6:01 pm
    Photo courtesy of SXC.  Today we begin a new series of occasional posts that explore where and how great creative ideas are born. We start with the most basic building block of idea-making: vision, which can be more broadly interpreted to refer to two specific abilities: 1) The ability to observe (see, hear, sense, etc.) the fine details or “little things” that others overlook. 2) The ability to take the broad view and understand the underlying context of a scenario crying out for a better solution. Details, details Tom Kelley from the design consultancy IDEO, in his book…
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    Creativity at Work Blog

  • The Global Creativity Gap

    Linda Naiman
    23 Apr 2012 | 5:27 pm
    The Global Creativity Gap Universal Concern that Creativity is Suffering at Work and School Adobe has just published a global study on creativity. The research shows 8 in 10 people feel that... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Sanjay Gupta taps into both sides of his brain

    Linda Naiman
    18 Apr 2012 | 2:27 pm
    Sanjay Gupta taps into both sides of his brain Sarah Hamsen has written an inspiring interview with Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and a medical reporter for CNN, about his life and work. He writes a... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • How do you sell creativity at work and get people on board?

    Linda Naiman
    12 Apr 2012 | 6:34 pm
    How do you sell creativity at work and get people on board? Creativity at Work Newsletter April 2012 In this issue: How do you sell creativity at work? Upcoming workshops Terra Parzival A critique of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Is the New Science of Creativity Really Science?

    Linda Naiman
    12 Apr 2012 | 5:15 pm
    Is the New Science of Creativity Really Science? Imagine: How Creativity Works Jonah Lehrer has a gift for transforming  the complexities of science into compelling stories. His  latest book explores... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Iain McGilchrist on the Divided Brain

    Linda Naiman
    9 Apr 2012 | 5:30 pm
    Iain McGilchrist on the Divided Brain In this mile-a-minute RSA animation, Iain McGilchrist describes the real differences between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain. It’s not... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
 
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    Creativity Prompt

  • Freebie – Mist-ical Journaling Cards

    Avital
    14 May 2012 | 8:15 am
    Today I am sharing a set of FREE ‘mist-ical’ journaling cards with you guys (for personal use only). I was inspired to make these journaling cards after watching this video tutorial by Jessica Sprague. In this video Jessica teaches how to use Nisa Fiin’s Splendid Fiins digital stencils, called ‘Knock-Outs’. For this set of printable journaling cards I used patterns that I created myself. As I got inspired by Jessica’s video, I will not post a tutorial on how to make a digital stencil. I don’t think it would be fair. If you feel inspired by this…

  • Freebie – Ready? Steady. Click! Journaling Cards

    Avital
    11 May 2012 | 8:11 am
    Today I am sharing a set of FREE ‘Ready? Steady. Click!’ journaling cards with you guys (for personal use only). To download it simply click on the image (or the link) and if it doesn’t work try to right-click on it and opt for the “save target as…” option (it may be phrased a bit differently on different operating systems – but do NOT opt for the “save image as” option, as you will get the low resolution tiny preview image). I hope you like it and have lots and lots and lots of fun with it. Here’s the link to the fabulous Photoshop camera brushes I used. Make…

  • Freebie – ‘Sign Language’ Journaling Spots

    Avital
    9 May 2012 | 8:03 am
    Today I am sharing a set of FREE ‘Sign Language’ journaling spots with you guys (for personal use only). Say it in English. Say it in French. Say it in Hebrew, in German, in Spanish, in Italian, in Chinese, in Japanese, in Portugese, in Arabic, in Urdu. Say it in any language. Just say it! Tell your story. To download it simply click on the image (or the link) and if it doesn’t work try to right-click on it and opt for the “save target as…” option (it may be phrased a bit differently on different operating systems – but do NOT opt for the “save image as” option, as…

  • Freebie – Printable Quote

    Avital
    7 May 2012 | 8:37 am
    Click to download in high resolution – for personal use only. I took this picture on my last vacation to Alaska, in Homer. Oh. My. God. So gorgeous!!! If you like it – spread the word and Back when we were kids creativity came naturally to us. Everything was possible and our prolific imagination was the only limit we knew. Through the years we have grown apart from our inner creative child and along with that – have lost our pristine and utter joy of creation.In this e-book I will pave your way back to your inner creative child, brick by brick.“Unleashing The Creative…

  • Happy National Scrapbooking Day and Cinco de Mayo

    Avital
    5 May 2012 | 8:53 am
    I hope you are doing something creative and|or fun today! A note for my new-ish readers, who are mainly familiar with my free printables - I have a TON of creativity prompts on my blog, including dozens of video tutorials to spark your creative imagination. Feel free to make use of them and also share them with others – only if you feel like it… On a different note, I wanted to give a shout out on a new software|App that was introduced to me. It is called Mind Maple. As its name suggests it’s a mind mapping software|app – which is totally down my alley. I LOVE mind…
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    Moving at the Speed of Creativity

  • Professional Digital Publications Archive Project

    Wesley Fryer
    15 May 2012 | 1:22 am
    This week has already included two major life milestones for me, and one more is coming on Friday: Texas Tech University officially approved the final, corrected version of my dissertation (“Impact Analysis of Phonecasted Lecture Summaries“) for publication in the Texas Digital Library. Today’s notification email indicated I should be ready to wait up to two months for it to be linked and indexed, but that fortunately doesn’t preclude me from directly publishing it now. I passed the oral and written examinations this evening to become an elder in our church. (The…

  • Recent College Grads Wanted More Tech Classes

    Wesley Fryer
    14 May 2012 | 7:52 pm
    If you are a college administrator, please take note. The survey result below means (among other things) you should consider hiring more profs with 21st century digital literacy skills so they can share those skills with students. (Yes, this is also a shameless, self-promotional plug!) …more than half of all students (56 percent) said they wished they had taken more computer and technology classes [as undergraduate students.] Source: “Chasing the American Dream: Recent College Graduates and the Great Recession,” Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. Survey was “a…

  • Advice for a College Graduate

    Wesley Fryer
    14 May 2012 | 10:05 am
    I shared the following thoughts in response to Kevin Corbett‘s post last week, “Your Advice To A New College Graduate?” Remember the plans you have today are unlikely to unfold in exactly the ways you’re anticipating now. Remember networking and personal connections are VITALLY important and they will open up doors for you that you haven’t even thought of now. Be open and flexible as new opportunities arise, but remain focused on not only your goals and dreams, but also the “core” of where you feel centered working and contributing. Remain true to…

  • Block Text Messages / SMS Spam and Phone Calls on Your iPhone

    Sherman Nicodemus
    12 May 2012 | 10:54 pm
    This is a guest blog post by Sherman Nicodemus.  My teenage daughter recently started receiving annoying text messages on her iPhone from another student at her school. This isn’t a case of bullying: Apparently this particular student likes to send “group SMS messages” like some folks send spam email. In this post I’ll describe how we are using the $12 app mCleaner to block that specific number, and are NOT paying a monthly fee to a cellular provider for this functionality. To use mCleaner, your iPhone must be jailbroken so you can install it from Cydia. mCleaner…

  • Thank a Teacher [VIDEO]

    Wesley Fryer
    10 May 2012 | 6:34 pm
    This video made my day. Check it out and pass it on. I serendipitously found this video using the free ShowYou app for iPad this afternoon at the conclusion of my “iPad Apps for Business Productivity” workshop. I really like how the app highlights videos shared by people you follow on Twitter and Facebook. It is so powerful to access content curated by other people we follow! If you register for the app, you can follow me on ShowYou. This video reminds me of an assignment I gave to my college students in 2005 when I started teaching university-level technology integration courses…
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    getFreshMinds.com | Ideas so fresh--they should be slapped!

  • From the Horse's Mouth: Why new products fail.

    Katie Konrath
    14 May 2012 | 8:24 am
    Without a doubt, San Francisco is one of the most innovative places on earth.  But when I was there, I found myself irresistably drawn to a place that has actually shunned innovation for its premier product - and provided me with a fascinating lesson on how even the best innovation can fail. The Boudin Bakery, the bakery that makes the delicious sourdough on Fishermans' Wharf, has been using the same sourdough starter since it opened in 1849.  In fact, keeping this original "mother dough" was so important that bakery owner Louise Boudin risked her life to save it during the Great San…

  • What ideas do you automatically SQUASH?

    Katie Konrath
    6 Apr 2012 | 8:00 am
    "There are no bad ideas" is always the first thing everyone will tell you when you're learning how to be creative.  No matter how outlandish, or dangerous, or downright impractical - every idea has value in an idea-generation session. That's because even a bad idea has something in it that made it pop up in your head. So, instead of dismissing a bad idea, you throw yourself at it like you want to know everything you possibly can about it.  What prompted the idea? What's the benefit?  Who does it benefit? What do you like about this idea?  What would make this idea work for you? Once…

  • Lateral Thinking leads to Underwater Hockey

    Katie Konrath
    1 Feb 2012 | 4:43 pm
    Photo courtesy of the SF Sea Lions and the MN Loons. Taken by Adam Lau. This past weekend, I spent 3 days playing in an underwater hockey tournament as a member of one of the Minnesota Loons teams. “What in the world is underwater hockey???” you’re probably wondering. Right? I don’t blame you – it’s right up there with cheese rolling and ferret legging as one of the world’s weirdest sporting events! Underwater hockey is a game where two teams of six battle on the floor of a pool to knock a hockey puck into a goal.  The hockey puck is weighted so it stays on the bottom –…

  • Using Improv to Innovate (Review of a PDMA Event)

    Katie Konrath
    18 Jan 2012 | 5:37 pm
    I just got back from a really interesting PDMA event (Improv for Innovation) on how to use improvisational skills to enhance brainstorming sessions. Improvisation has a very strong connection to creative thinking because both require people to think in an open-minded "building" fashion. In Improv, actors depend on the phrase "yes, and" to keep the action going.  "yes, and" means that they have to build off whatever the actor before them said or did - not matter what it was!  So if the previous actor jumped off a cliff, or lost a leg, the next actor has to keep going in that direction - or…

  • Win: The Innovator's DNA

    Katie Konrath
    24 Oct 2011 | 8:36 am
    Today, my interview of Clayton Christensen, one of the leading authors on innovation, goes live as the cover story of the November Personal Branding Magazine (click for sample).  In the interview, I questioned Clayton about the qualities of an innovator, how people can learn to be more innovative, and how they can demonstrate their innovative skills to others. The Innovator's DNA is a really interesting book.  The three authors - Clayton Christensen Jeffrey Dyer, and Hal Gregersen - studied innovative leaders and surveyed thousands of executives to identify what makes a person truly…
 
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    Libre Living

  • dear doubt. I’m doing it anyway

    lindsey
    15 May 2012 | 6:16 am
    No related posts.

  • new york in short + grabbing the lizard brain by the jugular

    lindsey
    8 May 2012 | 6:53 am
    MY FLYING MANTRA I’m not the only one petrified to fly. Anxiety runs in my family. My aunt once leapt from her seat to stand near the closing door to the plane cabin, so she could take what felt like her last breaths. “Mam, we need you to take your seat NOW.’ ‘I know, I know, I just need to breathe.’ When she got to the Mexican resort she was staying at she spent just one night—the stress of being there, in that new place, completely maxed out her nervous system. I’ve got so many stress buster tools up my sleeve that if they were cards I could beat…

  • what to do if you don’t want your life to get even better. 12 proven tactics. (a life coaching manual)

    lindsey
    24 Apr 2012 | 7:28 am
    1. Do not listen to your gut. Intuition is for suckers. The scientists that back it up are probably closeted new agers. 2. Let everyone else around you take the blame. It’s much easier than realizing every situation represents a choice. Remember: Ignorance is bliss. 3. First thing in the morning, tune into the biggest, most sensational news items of the day. TV, radio, online, blogs, social media—dive into all of it. Having a mess of anxiety-inducing thoughts in your head must be cooler than feeling calm and strong. The majority is never wrong. 4. Ignore your heart. Pay more attention to…

  • the pinball effect: how to stop smacking up against life and move towards your dharma

    lindsey
    17 Apr 2012 | 7:35 am
    Bam! I ricocheted off the wrong career path. Again. Whammo! I recoiled from a relationship with the wrong man. Again. Kerblang! I curled away from a potential future ‘friend’ who actually wanted to be a mentee. Again. Zing! I escaped the oh-so-wrong-for-me networking group just before the hefty membership fees kicked in. Again. THEN: HEADING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION Oh, I have done a lot of heading in the wrong direction. And yup, I’ve learned from it. But there came a time when I wanted to just be done with the latching on and then rifting away carrying a hole where what once was used to…

  • illumination station: what are you waiting for?

    lindsey
    10 Apr 2012 | 7:42 am
    The blessing from your parents? A sign from above? The weather to turn? Everything to line up exactly right, with the money already coming in, clients on waiting lists, and marketing happening by rapid word-of-mouth? This I love: Sometimes we need to take the leap before we grow the wings to fly. Invitation: Consider this: What you want to do is what you’re meant for. Everything you dream of, set as a sincere, heart-full goal, is already coming towards you—with the same dedication you have as you move towards it. I’m not talking about hot cars and pricey shoes. This is a…
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    My Creativity Blog

  • Creativity Devotional – On the Lookout

    Terry Holliday
    4 May 2012 | 2:00 am
    The False Mirror by Magritte To be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.  ~Rene Magritte Thoughts: Finding ways to inspire art students can be a challenge for an art teacher. I try to come up with interesting projects for the students to do but at times I feel as if the creativity well has run dry. When I feel that way I usually look for inspiration in another artist’s work. Studying  the work of others gives me a different perspective.  I find it helpful to look at art done in a…

  • 2012 Art Contest for High School and College Students

    Terry Holliday
    27 Apr 2012 | 3:53 am
    I got an email the other day about the Creative Outlook Magazine Cover Contest. The contest is open to high school and college students in the United States. You submit your entry online and viewers get to vote for the winner. The deadline is September 1, 2012. I think it is important to get your entry in early to give people time to vote. Here is the link to all the information you will need: 2012 Cover Contest. There are specific requirements for the images sizes that you upload so be sure you follow all the guidelines. There is a $250 prize along with making the cover of the magazine.

  • Creativity and Essential Oils

    Terry Holliday
    26 Apr 2012 | 5:19 pm
    I am very interested in learning about essential oils. My daughter uses essential oils in her home quite often for various purposes. These purposes range from helping an upset stomach, disinfecting a counter top, enhancing a person’s mood, and even keeping bugs away.  Essential oils have many uses. Smelling essential oils can trigger your brain to feel more relaxed or more energized. This phenomenon is fascinating to me. I have used peppermint essential oil to help me when I feel really tired and sluggish. I just smell it and after a few minutes I feel amazingly better. I…

  • Creating the Sound of Rain

    Terry Holliday
    24 Apr 2012 | 9:07 am
    My uncle sent this video to me the other day. I just had to share it.  How creative! Enjoy! I love the sound of rain.

  • Congressional Art Competition

    Terry Holliday
    12 Apr 2012 | 3:22 pm
    Marissa's Painting My students have been working for the past two weeks on art work for the Congressional Art Competition. The theme of the contest this year is “Honoring America’s Brave Military Men and Women”.  I gave the students nine full days to work on this project and also several weekends. I will deliver the art work to the office of U. S. Representative Bill Flores in Bryan, Texas. The work will be judged and the winning high school student work will hang in the Capitol for an entire year. I know there will be an incredible amount of competition for the honor…
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    Creative Freelancer Blog

  • Networking Tips for Freelancers

    Alisa Bonsignore
    15 May 2012 | 8:46 am
    From Business Networking to Social Networking Let me cut right to the chase: you’re coming to the Creative Freelancer Conference to meet people. Sure, you think you’re coming to CFC for business advice, or tax tips. You’re not. You’re coming to CFC because of the amazing people who also attend this conference. They’re the ones who will form your network, your tribe, your motivational kick-in-the-butt team who will help you through the changes in your business. You want to meet them, right? Guess what? They want to meet you. Yes, you: the one who wants to sit in the back of the room…

  • How can you differentiate yourself?

    Ilise Benun
    14 May 2012 | 2:25 pm
    There are an awful lot of people out there who do what you do, right? So how do you (first) find what's different about you and (second) highlight it for your prospects and clients so they can choose you? That's a question I answered recently on the "The Lab,"Agency Access' Blog. Here's an excerpt.... It may sound paradoxical, but to find what’s different about you, start by looking at your target market. What do they need that you have? What do they value that you provide? Your points of differentiation spring from your answers to these questions. This can be in a variety of realms,…

  • What smart phone do you use?

    Damien Golden
    11 May 2012 | 6:01 am
    I'm a designer trying to sync and stay connected to my other Apple products. Currently I have an Android and it's pretty good. iPhone, Samsung, etc - what do you suggest? I am ready for a new smart phone and was thinking the iPhone, but I am not so sure. The more research I do, looks like there may be some better options than the new iPhone with faster service, downloads, compatibility. I'd love to know what other creatives are using and why? Give your opinion here in the comments or on the Creative Freelancer Conference LinkedIn Group.

  • Marketing Q&A: How to approach a referral

    Ilise Benun
    10 May 2012 | 5:47 am
    Lately, I've been offering a new a la carte service of email mentoring -- which is essentially answering marketing questions without a full consultation. (If you're interested in that, email me at ilise@marketing-mentor.com). Here's one I got this week: Question One of my clients recommended me to another really good prospect that I would love to work with. They have my information and need a designer but haven't called. I asked my client if she was comfortable giving me the contact's information so I may reach out to them myself. She did, now what? Answer This is essentially a question about…

  • CFC: Don't just sit there! Participate

    Ilise Benun
    8 May 2012 | 8:20 am
    I notice that most people come to their first Creative Freelancer Conference because they're enticed by the speaker lineup and all the best practices they will learn to grow their business. But they come back year after year (this June 21-22 in Boston is our 5th!) because of the interaction with the other freelancers. And we try to foster as much interaction as possible. (There's not a lot of sitting back and listening here.) We're trying a few new things this year that I'm hoping you will want to participate in. We need everyone who’s there to join in the conversation. Share what you know.
 
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    igeekforcreativity on Collected

  • Go Creative.

    16 May 2012 | 3:22 am
    #poem #poetry #inspirations I wish we could flow/ as oceans tide,/ swelling with joy at our/ pulse to unfurl. I feel we should roll/ as planets turn,/ dark days and seasons held/ level with light. I sense we can grow/ as mountains rise/ from stresses that set them./ Rock steady. Free. I intend to go/ [...]

  • Time to Re-Work Work

    15 May 2012 | 1:00 pm
    “This insanity has to stop. Our bosses are deleting resources from the human capital pool without replenishing them.” Sara Robinson, Salon Continue reading

  • Attacking Assumptions to Innovate

    15 May 2012 | 10:00 am
    Open thinking between the worlds of science and business has created the first car that folds in the middle to minimize the amount of space it takes up. The Hiriko (which means “city car” in Basque) was developed at MIT’s Media Lab as part of the Smart Cities Project and the two-seater car is finally a reality after four years of development. It is ready for a pilot launch in Balboa, Spain this year. Continue reading

  • Defy Expectations – Be Your Own Truth

    15 May 2012 | 9:30 am
    Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of our core conversation, “Extraordinary Women Change the World.” In our last post, Shann Vander Leek shared her journey of finding the goddess within her own self. Today, one of my (Angela’s) very own heroines, Desiree Adaway, challenges us to defy expectations and be our own truth. You are not your wound, your weakness, or your resume. You are not your pain. You are not your job. You are not your income, your parents, your children, your partner, your community, or your circumstances.  Sometimes we have too much…

  • Defy Expectations – Be Your Own Truth

    15 May 2012 | 9:30 am
    Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of our core conversation, “Extraordinary Women Change the World.” In our last post, Shann Vander Leek shared her journey of finding the goddess within her own self. Today, one of my (Angela’s) very own heroines, Desiree Adaway, challenges us to defy expectations and be our own truth. You are not your wound, your weakness, or your resume. You are not your pain. You are not your job. You are not your income, your parents, your children, your partner, your community, or your circumstances.  Sometimes we have too much…
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    SA Creatives

  • Is Instagram killing Photography ?

    SACN
    15 May 2012 | 1:34 am
    I’ve had this question asked so many times lately, by fellow photographers that I dream about it. I  finally got myself a fancy pants phone and got the answer… I think.     What is Instagram? For those of you who don’t know what Instagram is, it’s a photo sharing platform that works hand in hand with your iPhone or Android phone. You are able to take pictures, edit them a little, upload them and share with the Instagram community, Tumbler, Twitter and the Foursquare world. The filters used to edit pictures are very much inspired by retro styled images. The platform…

  • Platypus Productions helps create heaven in India

    SACN
    10 May 2012 | 8:05 am
    Platypus Productions recently travelled to India to help create the afterlife for a series of 16 adverts for IDEA Cellular, one of largest country, with traffic in excess of a billion minutes a day. Directed byaward-winning Indian director Amit Sharma from Chrome Pictures, the ads feature award-winning Bollywood superstar Abhishek Bakchan, best known for Dhoom 2, the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2006 and one of the top ten of all timeAbhishek is married to former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, who also starred in Dhoom 2, Mistress of Spices, and The Pink Panther 2. “In a Western context,…

  • Photographer drives from Athens to Cape Town

    SACN
    10 May 2012 | 1:12 am
    Firstly, who is Chris Dot and what do you do for a living? Well, I am a photographer, born and raised in Athens / Greece, a very lucky individual living off what I love most, photography. The past year I have been working with a television show called “Reportage without frontiers” for the Greek national television. What inspired you to take the journey from  Athens to  Cape town? The journey itself was planned by a Greek  N.G.O. called Green Project. It was the second trip in a series of crossings, the first one was from Athens to Beijing and the second one was Athens to Cape…

  • Cape Town photographer challenges the copyright on Elton John’s song Nikita

    SACN
    8 May 2012 | 5:06 am
    I wrote that famous Elton John song, Nikita! Guy Hobbs, a photographer from Cape Town, has recently filed court proceedings based on copyright infringement in a US District Court against Sir Elton John, Bernie Taupin (Sir Elton’s song writing partner and lyricist) and their company Big Pig Music. “Hobbs claims that the lyrics of a song that he wrote, entitled Natasha, was copied in Sir Elton John’s song Nikita. Hobbs claims that the lyrics of his song were sent to a number of music publishers, including Big Pig Music, in 1984. He received no feedback from the music companies and…

  • An intro to Pinhole photography

    SACN
    8 May 2012 | 1:55 am
    By Nadia Jansen van Vuuren. Pinhole photography is lensless photography where by  photos are created by light falling onto light sensitive film. The simple camera consists of a lightproof box, film and a pinhole. The light passes through the hole and an image is formed in the camera. The pinhole is simply an extremely small hole, made with the tip of a pin pierced through thick aluminum foil for example a drinks can. The apeture is determined by the pinhole size. The  camera consists thus of a fixed apeture. A smaller hole will create photos in sharper focus. The shutter of the pinhole…
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    The Creative Mind

  • Too Noisy To Hear Myself Think

    Douglas Eby
    14 May 2012 | 10:04 pm
    Do you use music for creative work? Do you get distracted by noise? In one of my interviews with psychologist and author Susan Perry, PhD, she commented that a writer she knew chose a fresh CD for each novel she wrote. “A few people told me things like that,” Perry remarked. “They’ll choose particular music for a particular project, and by putting that music on, they put themselves into — it’s not hypnotic exactly, but into where their brain gets used to moving from hearing that music, to working on that particular project. “That’s the purpose…

  • Doubting and Creating

    Douglas Eby
    11 May 2012 | 7:49 pm
    “I really have that worry that I’ll wake up in the morning and think, ‘Oh God. I’m such a fraud, and they’ll find me out.’ I doubt myself a lot.” Those are comments by one of my favorite actors, Emily Blunt, who interestingly continued, “And maybe that’s a good thing, because I think it would be limiting to have discovered my whole bag of tricks by now. Hopefully I will always be afraid of being a fraud, because then you never stop trying.” That is from a magazine interview about her movie “The Devil Wears Prada,” which also quotes one of her co-stars…

  • “Think Outside the Box” and Other Metaphors of Creativity

    Douglas Eby
    7 May 2012 | 7:46 pm
    An article in Fast Company magazine notes the advice by consultants to “think outside the box” is “about as cliched as it gets,” according to Jesse Sheidlower, editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary. The origin of the ubiquitous phrase, the article says, “is generally attributed to consultants in the 1970s and 1980s who tried to make clients feel inadequate by drawing nine dots on a piece of paper and asking them to connect the dots without lifting their pen, using only four lines. “(Hint: You have to think outside the — oh, you…

  • Helping A New Generation Nurture Creative Thinking and Innovation

    Douglas Eby
    3 May 2012 | 8:24 pm
    “Only one set of skills can ensure this generation’s economic future – the capacity for innovation.” That quote comes from the website of the new book “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People That Will Change The World” by Tony Wagner, which declares that nurturing creative thinking is crucial and that “only one set of skills can ensure this generation’s economic future: the capacity for innovation.” The book asks, “What do the best schools and colleges do to teach the skills of innovation? What are some of the most…

  • Susan Biali and Nancy Andreasen on Nurturing Our Creative Nature

    Douglas Eby
    30 Apr 2012 | 8:55 pm
    In her post “A Little Weird? Prone to Depression? Blame Your Creative Brain,” Susan Biali, M.D. writes about a friend of hers turning her on to “The Creative Brain” by psychiatrist and neuroscientist Nancy C. Andreasen. Biali says, “If you’re a creative sort, this book will make you feel blissfully normal in your strangeness. “It was pretty much one big sigh of happy relief and recognition for me.” She goes on to include some of her favorite highlights of the book, with comments. Here are a few excerpts: 1) “We cannot afford to waste human gifts.
 
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    Cruzine

  • [Really] Hot Fashion Photography

    Paul Viluda
    16 May 2012 | 4:14 am
    Well, what can say … today’s photography collection is dedicated to anyone who loves fashion, photography and beautiful women. Not sure if it’s because I am a guy, but today’s collection belongs to my favorite ones published here on Cruzine. My colleagues did a good job gathering these 30 amazing fashion related photos. Seriously, highlighting just few of them wouldn’t make sense as all of them are special … and a must-see. Enjoy it! marianna by Joanna Kustra Illuminantion by Joanna Kustra In thoughts of YOU by Joanna Kustra LAURE DE SAGAZAN by Laurent…

  • Daily Inspirations no. 425

    Peter Olexa
    16 May 2012 | 3:46 am
    You may look forward another cool set full of creative inspirations. Let’s start right away … we do not want to loose our precious time, right?! If you’re currious what’s hot in the photography section my answer is … make sure to check the very first and the very last photo. To be concrete I am speaking about the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park photography and Blue stones by Guido Montanes. In the illustraitons section my top choice is no doubt the Androgyny / SQUINT by Lesja Chernish. I am really into this style. Now, let’s get back to more traditional…

  • Inspiring Fantasy Illustrations

    Paul Viluda
    15 May 2012 | 3:42 am
    It seems you guys enjoyed the last fantasy illustrations collection we published here on Cruzine A LOT. To extinguish your thirst after fantasy art we decided to do another one. In today’s collection you may expect artists’ creativity unleashed resulting in many hot art pieces. My personal favorites is the Animus by ManiakS, The moth by Elda and Blessings of Nature by Jumboshrimp. Ok, won’t waste your time anymore … enjoy this collection and of course get inspired .). Magic the Gathering: Visara the Dreadful by Cryptcrawler Magic the Gathering: Vault Skirge by…

  • Daily Inspirations no. 424

    Peter Olexa
    15 May 2012 | 3:21 am
    Okey guys, there are new inspirations coming … now focus! :) There are several fashion related photos available in today’s photo section … the one I like is called MaxFowles Fall 2012 by Adam Rindy. Very sexy. The other powerful one is the green mamba snake portrait photo. Before we’ll leave this section, I got another one that needs your attention … check the two owls in love. Isn’t that cute?! Of course you may expect very creative artworks in the illustrations section as well. This time, most of my attention goes to Pinups by Steve Scott. It’s been…

  • HOT FREEBIE – Vector City Skylines and Monuments

    Peter Olexa
    14 May 2012 | 3:31 am
    Yes, that’s right … after keeping you waiting so long, it’s about time to publish another cool vector set you may use for personal as well as for commercial purposes. It should be already clear from the title … today’s vectors are going to be about city skylines and monuments. Make sure to download – you never know when you could need something like that in your designs. Of course it’s not that hard to create these by yourself … by why loosing time when you may use something which already out there. Enjoy! Download Vector Set
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    Positive Paintings and Therapies by Ilona Svetluska

  • Mayan awakening meditation

    Ilona Svetluska
    23 Apr 2012 | 2:44 am
    Mayan awakening meditationDo you feel disconnected from the others?Do you feel lonely in the midst of the crowd?Do you feel powerless and fearful regarding the year 2012 threats?Try this easy meditation to align yourself with the universe and make a quantum jump in awareness:Imagine an "8" symbol - its center in your heart and its ends in the top of your head and the other in the base chakra (private area). Breath in and out slowly and observe the energy circulating within the "8" symbol.Continue for 5-10 minutes and repeat this exercise once or twice a day.Happy quantum jump!All the best,…

  • Love or Above Therapies Offer

    Ilona Svetluska
    20 Mar 2012 | 2:30 am
    Lately, I have been using very powerful tools developed by Christie Marie Sheldon in her program Love or Above.I am amazed by its effectiveness and how it can change one´s life smoothly and efficiently. You can learn a lot about it on her web site or on youtube. If you prefer a closer approach and feel more comfortable to have a therapy in Europe, feel free to contact me and we can meet in person or over skype to raise your vibrations on the level of Love or above! It is there where everything works easily and all dreams come true: )If you…

  • A Wake-Up Call! You are far more than your body

    Ilona Svetluska
    1 Mar 2012 | 1:13 am
    Feel lately unmotivated, tired, frustrated?Perhaps it is time to wake up and explore another part of your life – the spiritual.Whatever it is that brings you joy of knowing that you are not just the body. Make a wish to attract situations where you realize that. Hold the wish for 60 secs. Rejoice of the fact that your life is getting a real meaning and that you are approaching the reason why you are here.Try yoga, meditations, concentration on the breath. When you breathe out, all unnecessary leaves you. If you wish to be helpful to the world, imagine the planet wrapped in a golden cloud.

  • Feel like a Fool!?

    Ilona Svetluska
    29 Feb 2012 | 1:12 am
    I do feel like a Fool – with every step I take, I am leaving the past behind and facing the future adventures. Having nothing to hold on, I reveal innocence, purity and trust. I follow the river of Life and jump into the unknown.In the tarot The Fool symbolizes the beginning of a journey. He sets off to explore without knowing what lies ahead. He isn’t a fool in the sense of a buffoon, rather one who proceeds on an adventure in spite of his lack of experience. To confront the unknown; the accumulation of knowledge; transformation from ignorance to wisdom; moving from one place to another,…

  • Make your inner Goddess alive!

    Ilona Svetluska
    28 Feb 2012 | 5:30 am
    Sit down comfortably and breathe deeply. Place one hand on your heart and the other on the belly.Invite your inner goddess to manifest freely and entirely in your life. She has been waiting for this moment since long. She is ready to help you let go of old grief, wounds and assist you in forgiving everyone including yourself.She will now heal your body, mind and soul. Also your relationships and outer world.Let her in and become one with her!For more info about Ilona Svetluska and positive paintings, please visithttps://sites.google.com/site/ilonasvetluskaa/
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    Tangible Development

  • Area’s Success Breeds Success

    Vera Dordick
    8 May 2012 | 8:27 am
    New York’s Tech Valley is a great place for women to live and work, and we’re very honored that the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber gave us the chance to highlight that in the May issue of VISIONS. Check out the reasons the area is ripe with opportunity in our “Viewpoint.” While you’re at it, please read about the seven very accomplished women who are being honored as Women of Excellence by the Women’s Business Council in June. These multifaceted and amazing women epitomize success in Tech Valley! By the way, don’t miss your chance to meet and learn…

  • Our Creativity is Suffering

    Vera Dordick
    25 Apr 2012 | 7:47 am
    Work and school are stifling the world’s creativity.  At least that’s what people are saying, according to a study commissioned by Adobe on the State of Creativity.  They surveyed 5,000 adults, 1,000 per country, in the US, UK, Germany, France, and Japan. Three-fourths of us believe work pressures us to be productive, not creative, and that we’re not living up to our creative potential. Check out the Adobe infographic on this Global Creativity Gap. It’s a sad state of affairs.

  • Little Tips for Making a Big Impact

    Vera Dordick
    19 Apr 2012 | 11:28 am
    Last week I started laying out some of Dale Carnegie’s golden principles because even though they’re decades old, the rules are still relevant in today’s digital age. Maybe even more so. So much of our daily communication has gone digital that it’s easy to forget good old people skills are still key in business today. Here are more of Carnegie’s tenets for being a friendlier person: Remember that a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Think about it. Doesn’t it make you feel good when people use your name?  At most events or…

  • Old Rules for a New Age

    Vera Dordick
    4 Apr 2012 | 8:36 am
    Many years ago, I took a Dale Carnegie course. For me, it was one of the best things I could have done at the time.  It was so helpful, in fact, I went on to work as a graduate assistant in courses. One of the items you receive is “The Golden Book,” a little pocket folder that enumerates the principles he put forth in his books. I came across my copy the other day — I’ve hung onto that little gem for 20 years. As I read through it, I started to look at how his rules for life are still so relevant, especially for business and networking in the digital age. So, I thought I’d…

  • Life is Like Fiction

    Vera Dordick
    22 Mar 2012 | 2:32 pm
    You might feel a pang of guilt when you flip open your Kindle and dive into some fiction instead of the latest business best-seller. Don’t. It turns out that the descriptive prose you’re reading is as good as having the experience yourself – at least as far as your brain is concerned. And that’s a great thing for creativity. MRI studies have shown that when you read descriptive prose that involves texture, those areas of your brain go into action, just as if you were doing the touching. Same thing goes for smell and motion. Read about kicking a ball or grasping a book and the…
 
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    Revive Your Creativity

  • Painting the Movies with Andree Wallin

    Michael
    15 May 2012 | 4:51 am
    Hey creative folks, I’m excited to share an interview with one of my favorite artists. Andrée Wallin is immensely talented, and he shares with us his approach to art and storytelling. Let’s jump right in. As a way of introduction, could you tell us are where you’re from and what you’re profession is? I’m from a small village in the middle of nowhere in Sweden called Norberg and I work as a concept artist and mattepainter for the commercial and TV/film industry. You have several impressive projects and clients that you’ve worked with over the years. How did you…

  • How Do You Find Time for Creativity?

    Michael
    10 May 2012 | 6:11 am
    Maybe, just maybe, you don’t have much going on in your life. If so, adding time for creativity would be a breeze. But more likely, you’re busy. Really busy. Our culture values “busy-ness,” and it’s almost embarrassing to admit you have free time available. It’s as if we’re worried that having moments of quiet and refection shows that we have less value. Obviously, if we were more important, we’d have more important stuff to do, right? And we wonder why people get stressed out. I understand that you’re busy, and I desperately hope you can…

  • What Instagram Can Teach Us about Starting Small

    Michael
    8 May 2012 | 6:25 am
    Instagram did it, and Facebook bought the company for a billion dollars. Facebook did it, and they’re kind of a big deal now. (After all, they had a billion lying around to buy Instagram.) I’m sure countless others did it, as well. They started small. Not just because they didn’t have a ton of money to start off with a bang, but because they wanted to carefully test how people would react in limited numbers. Did they like the service? Would the program work the way it was supposed to? Would people find new, unexpected ways to use the program? The99Percent.com recently…

  • Signs That You’re Desperate for a Creative Outlet

    Michael
    3 May 2012 | 6:30 am
    Are you a creative person? You may be much more creative than you realize – especially if you haven’t given yourself the opportunity to try out a variety of art forms. We’ve been discussing writing in particular as a form of creativity simply because it’s the art form I most relate to, but people are wired very differently. Thank God. Just in the process of creating this blog, I had the chance to rely on the artistic abilities of others. I’ve realized that I have very little design or photography skills – and both abilities are essential to creating a…

  • 16 Tips to Keep Your Motivation Strong

    Michael
    1 May 2012 | 6:11 am
    How do you keep your excitement up for a creative project once the “new” phase has worn off? This question was posed by one of the site’s readers, and I really had to give it some thought. The list of ideas I came up with is far from exhaustive, so please share any of your tips in the comment section below We’re going to look specifically at writing today, but in the coming weeks we’ll be talking more about motivation for a variety of art forms. Write What You Love Creativity is hard enough as it is. Don’t use your creative project time to engage a project…
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    CREATIVE LOT

  • Fan Fiction is Good For Us

    Daedalus Howell
    11 May 2012 | 3:13 pm
    Wired Magazine’s Clive Thompson has a great an interesting piece about the utility of fan fiction and its relationship to the concept of paracosms – imaginary realms replete with their own well-imagined geographies, flora and fauna, which often belie certain psychological dispositions on the part of their inventors. As Thompson writes: “Paracosms are the fantasy worlds that many dreamy, imaginative kids like to invent when they’re young. Some of history’s most creative adults had engaged in ‘worldplay’ as children. The Brontë siblings, in one famous example,…

  • Do Deadlines Kill Creativity?

    Daedalus Howell
    6 May 2012 | 12:08 am
    Do deadlines make you more creative? Marketplace commentator Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School and co-author of The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, doesn’t think so. According to her research, professionals are 45% less likely to “come up with a new idea or solve a complex problem” when on extreme deadlines. Worse yet, your creative energies are apparently sapped for an additional two or more days due to a sort of deadline “hangover.” Listen here. Amabile suggests avoiding the…

  • Writing Tips from Ian McEwan: Read and Avoid Creative Writing Programs

    Daedalus Howell
    28 Apr 2012 | 4:32 pm
    In this interesting interview with author Ian McEwan (Atonement, Solar), the Booker Prize-winning novelist offers advice to aspiring writers: READ. The admonishment comes after he roundly dismisses undergraduate writing programs as “a vehicle for mass ignorance” and “deathly,” which, having attended one myself, I’m in complete concurrence. McEwan’s observation (like his books) has a bit of a twist beneath the surface. He doesn’t recommend new writers to read simply to immerse themselves in the world of words so much as a means of evading undue influence from those one has yet to…

  • 5 Best Writing Prompt Sites

    Daedalus Howell
    23 Apr 2012 | 3:31 pm
    What prompted this? Inspiration cures writer's block – writing prompts are like vitamins for your creative immune system. For creative writers, often the hardest words to find are the first. Fortunately, there are a litany of sites dedicated to writing prompts. For those who need a refresher, writing prompts are those pithy, literary starter breads that posit a point of creative meditation and goad you to explore it with words, words, words. Below are 5 of the best writing prompt sites you can use to fan the flames when you’ve got creative burnout. 1. Writing Prompts via Tumblr Luke…

  • How to Be Creative by Failing

    Daedalus Howell
    18 Apr 2012 | 6:02 pm
    Imagine: How Creativity Works author Jonah Lehrer discusses the creative process, failure and how American schools are creativity assassins with Big Think’s Jason Gots. Via Jonathan Fowler and Elizabeth Rodd at BigThink.
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