Endless pursuit of the perfect tool with a perfected set of skills can get in the way of actually doing good work. Make something, and your skills will automatically improve simply by using them. Constant evaluation of artistic processes other people may have employed can similarly impede our ability to actually see what those artists are trying to do creatively.
Read MoreTHE GRAMMAR OF THINGS
Grammar should be thought of as a series of rules that enable ideas to exist with as minimal impediment as possible. Notice that I’m not asserting that grammar should insure proper or correct usage; that would be an entirely subjective assertion. Reading dialogue, slang, or other forms of vernacular require deep understanding of grammar so that the reader can keep track of what’s being said. Put another way, the most powerful way to break a rule is for the breaker to fully understand what is being broken in the first place. Without understanding how things work, excellence can only happen by accident.
Read MoreAN IMPROMPTU MEETING IS LIKE A POP UP TORNADO
Meetings are not the same as one-on-one or small group F2F conversations. They look similar, but they’re not. And to think: a moment ago you were fully focused on a project commanding your full attention!
Read MoreCAN UNICORNS SWIM?
One of the reasons strong creative work becomes memorable is that it strictly follows its own internal logic. Things that appear to abide by a set of rules and standards not only make sense but tend to stay in mind. To extend my original question, we are not surprised to hear that unicorns can fly. Magical creature: sure, makes sense. But swim? Interesting. I’ve never considered that before.
Read MoreUNKNOWN SPACES
The thing about creative excellence is that it’s always an undiscovered country. You know it’s out there, you know it’s real, you’ve seen plenty of evidence. Maps to reach it, however, often stop at the edge of the world.
Read MoreMY SOCIAL MEDIA DISAFFECTION
For people who try to live their lives in creative spaces, the trivialization imposed by a steady diet of social media has the effect of dissolving yet one more support in the foundations that enable sustained focus. That’s effectively like allowing thieves inside our mental castles in broad daylight: who can tell the thieves from the masses of other roving thoughts crowding the main hall of our consciousness?
Read MoreSHIELDS UP!
Artists and accountants are not always motivated by the same forces, but there are often more crossover forces between artists and accountants than first glance might suggest. Clearly this is a matter more about aesthetics; I cannot fathom a life in accounting, but I’m sure glad I know a good one when I need her to sort things out. Success for artists, accountants, and everyone else too, is often a function of figuring out how to get something completely done.
Read MoreCONVERGENCE
Convergence suggests that many seemingly novel ideas are probably similar to solutions developed for entirely difference circumstances. What works here….will probably work there, too. That’s a profound insight if you spend your life doing creative work. Rather than re-invent the wheel, consider how that well proven device might enable you to discover someplace entirely uncharted.
Read MoreTHE AMATEUR MOVE
The amateur move is to abandon a project when it’s hard to know how to complete it well. The amateur move is to say you don’t know how to find a conclusion, how to find more energy to finish a long simmering project, how to cut out parts that you know, deep down, simply gotta go.
Read MoreWHY GOV’T MEDIA BEHAVES DIFFERENTLY THAN COMMERCIAL MEDIA
No matter how vital the message, dull messaging all but guarantees that a viewer will change what’s playing. For government media, that means balancing info the public may need to know against production design that holds audience attention.
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