Right now our staff is reading a book together called The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice, by Todd Henry. We’re only a couple of chapters in, but so far a lot of the focus has been on the tensions that exist between creating brilliant work and creating consistent work.
Basically, how do we manage the desire to pour everything into an idea and take as much time as necessary to craft and perfect it, versus the requirement to churn out ideas or products consistently on a time table?
I certainly have felt that tension myself. I’ve committed to myself and my readers that I’ll post 4-5 times each week (that’s the consistency part), but I’m not always totally satisfied with the results when I just force myself to churn out a post everyday.
So I thought it might be a good conversation to start thinking about here on the blog. If you are a creative (i.e. your work/hobby involves solving problems, innovating, developing systems, designing, writing, thinking, strategizing, etc.), I’d love to hear your thoughts on this question – How do you manage the tension between wanting to create the best possible work and being expected to produce creative work regularly?
It’s coming.
Can you feel it?
The Big Game, The Superbowl…
The one night each year when even the most perfunctory sports fan will watch NFL football. They will tune in with wide-eyed rapt attention, shushing friends who talk too much, not wanting to miss a single moment…
…of the commercials.
Yes, the largest single-day sporting event in the world each year (95-100 million viewers each year, by some estimates) is so beloved not only for the game itself, but for wave upon wave of subliminal messages, over reaching, and cheap humor.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been very impressed with Superbowl commercials over the last, oh I don’t know, decade or so. Maybe I was just less cynical or more impressionable when I was younger, but I seem to remember less cheap/crude humor and more original, clever ideas in Superbowl commercials. Nowadays it seems like it’s all GoDaddy commercials, unfunny car commercials, and increasingly boorish beer commercials.
Oh, well… There are still a few gems here and there, like this one from last year’s Superbowl, which was subsequently named the best commercial of 2011.
Oh, yeah, and these guys are playing football that night, too.
New York Giants
New England Patriots
Just in case you’re not a football fan, these two teams played an absolutely epic Superbowl back in 2008. The Giants beat the Patriots 17-14 in a huge upset.
Who’s your pick to win this year’s Superbowl?
(Please note: This is not an endorsement of any candidate in the Republican primary. I just think this commercial is awesome.)
Most of us would agree that one of the worst parts about campaign season is all the awful campaign ads. That’s why this election cycle I’m super-thankful for Ron Paul. I learned last time around that political ads don’t necessarily run all over the country, so it’s possible you haven’t seen this one yet if you don’t live in South Carolina. It’s not your typical campaign ad, and I wanted to share it with you because I think it’s so awesomely bad that it goes right back around to awesome again. Let’s see what you think…
Favorite moments:
What do you think? Is this the most awesome campaign ad you’ve ever seen? If not, find your favorite on YouTube and link to it in the comments!
Penny (dog) and Pete (cat)
I have to post on the run this morning, but these two gave me great fodder for a question. They have a love-hate relationship, because it’s mostly love and snuggling. They both have a hate-love relationship with our other cat, Maggie, but that says more about her, really…
So, the question for you to answer in the comments…
Who, or what, do you have either a love-hate relationship or a hate- love relationship with?
This is one of those news pieces that I come across from time to time that just begs for a line by line analysis. Article in black, my commentary in blue…
Wikipedia: The Free (and questionably accurate) Encyclopedia
WASHINGTON, Jan 16, 2012 (AFP) – Free online knowledge site Wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours later this week in protest at draft anti-online piracy legislation before the US Congress, founder Jimmy Wales said Monday on Twitter.
Wait, what?! Is that an appropriate way to protest anti-piracy legislation? Is Wikipedia worried they’ll be prosecuted for online piracy? And if they are, isn’t shutting down for 24 hours like saying, “If you don’t play nice, I’ll take my ball and go home”?
“Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!” Wales said on the microblogging site.
HAHAHA!! Does anyone else think it’s awesome that Jimmy Wales is so oblivious that he doesn’t realize that any teacher worth their salt won’t allow Wikipedia as a source?
“’Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.’ MLK – on Wednesday, Wikipedia demands,” Wales said, citing slain US civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Whoa, trump card! If you’re trying to paint yourself and your billion dollar company as being oppressed, quoting Dr. King is an automatic win. But I feel like I must be missing something here. Can we get a breakdown of what’s going… oh, thanks, next paragraph…
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is currently before the House of Representatives, while the Protect IP Act is the version before the Senate.
Nope, nevermind… Still don’t know what’s going on…
The draft legislation has won the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers and the US Chamber of Commerce.
What else would you expect? The people who create and copyright the original work would like to get paid for it. Yay for capitalism!
But last month, the founders of Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo! and other Internet giants expressed concern over the two drafts, saying in a open letter that they would “give the US government the power to censor the Web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran.”
Ohhhhh… NOW I get why they’re upset. I don’t know if they’re right or not, but if they think the internet might get censored, I can understand why they feel the way they do. Because of course, as we all know, nothing on the internet needs to be censored, and everyone who puts words and pictures and videos on the internet is a little Einstein that everyone should listen to.
“We urge Congress to think hard before changing the regulation that underpins the Internet,” they said. “Let’s not deny the next generation of entrepreneurs and founders the same opportunities that we all had.”
I guess I still don’t understand what this SOPA thing is all about if these companies are worried that it will stifle entrepreneurship.
Wales said Wikipedia would go dark for a full 24 hours in English, saying: “Final details under consideration but consensus seems to be for ’full’ rather than ’soft’ blackout!”
This is just bad writing. I don’t know if Wales said in English that Wikipedia would go dark for 24 hours, or if he said that all the English pages on Wikipedia would go dark for 24 hours. If I can’t understand your protest, then you have just become part of the Occupy movement…
“This is going to be wow. I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!” he said.
This is worse writing. And worse perspective. Does Jimmy Wales think people are going to call their U.S. representative if they can’t access Wikipedia for a day? No! They’re going to make some excuse to their teacher about how their homework got lost on a flash drive or in a flash mob, and turn it in the following day for a modest penalty.
Volunteer-staffed Wikipedia turned 11 years old on January 15th and boasts being the largest encyclopedia in history with more than 20 million articles in 282 languages.
So THAT’S how Jimmy Wales can estimate Wikipedia’s value at $3 billion. He’s not paying anybody for the work they do. Which really makes you wonder – if Wikipedia is worth $3 billion and no one except its founder is getting paid, why are they begging for money on all their pages now?
Have you seen any news lately that just begged for a line-by-line skewering? What do you think about parts of the internet going dark this week?
Periodically, a weekend is so great that I feel like I need to recap it here on the blog. For posterity, and all that… This weekend was (and will continue to be, thanks to the holiday celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) one of those weekends.
Friday
- Trilogy day with the boys. Nothing but three friends sitting on the couch watching all three Jurassic Park movies. Honestly, these are some of my favorite days of the year.
Saturday
- Got up super early to drive Michelle downtown to take a test. Then I was chilling at Starbucks (having decaf because of the Awaken Fast…) when I overheard two women talking about the marathon that was about to start. Marathon! I didn’t even know they ran a Charleston Marathon (it was the second year), and when I learned of it I only had about ten minutes to move my car off King Street, or risk getting stuck there while more than 2000 people ran by. I made it, but then was disappointed when I only saw two people running in costume – a woman dressed as Wonder-Woman, and a man in a lovely green and white hoop skirt.
- Football games:
* Saints v. Niners – I’m not a 49ers fan, but after the Falcons are out of the running, I literally root for “anyone but the Saints.”
* Broncos v. Patriots – Deep down, I don’t think even Tim Tebow’s biggest fans thought the Broncos had a chance in this game. Poor effort by their defense, though…
- It seems like campaign commercials kicked into high gear over the weekend. I’ll be honest with you, early spring and early autumn are my favorite seasons, and campaign season is by far my least favorite. An early -1 to Rick Santorum for being the first candidate I’ve seen to bring up fear of Islam as a campaign issue…
Sunday
- There must be a wave of sickness is running around our church, because we were down several volunteers. We were up on kids, though, which anyone who works in a church will tell you means craziness.
- Football games:
* Texans v. Ravens – Who cares? Neither team will beat the Patriots.
* Giants v. Packers – Biggest surprise of the weekend. Green Bay looked tired, and like they didn’t practice all week.
Monday
- We’re going to Magnolia Plantation with some friends from Michelle’s school. I’m excited about it because it’s a gorgeous place to take pictures. Look for some of those in the coming weeks, unless they turn out crappy…
- After Magnolia Plantation, I’m going fishing with a couple of friends at a new place we discovered last week. When we were there on Thursday afternoon, I caught 4 striped bass in about half an hour, so I’m pretty excited about having more time to fish there today.
- I’m also pretty excited about the new show Alcatraz that starts tonight. It marks the television return of another favorite Lostie, Jorge Garcia. I don’t care what his character’s name is on Alcatraz, I will probably still call him Hurley.
How was your weekend? Any special plans for the holiday today?
Check out yesterday’s Good Mythical Morning, if you have the time. If not, then just skip to about halfway and listen to what Rhett says about working with your hands.
What do you think about what Rhett said? Do you work with your hands, or have a hobby where you do? How important do you think it is for us to work with our hands?
So it turns out that the cliche phrase “it’s as American as baseball and apple pie” is just plain wrong.
Don’t believe me? Check out this article. For those of you who won’t, let me quote it:
English apple pie recipes go back to the time of Chaucer. [A] 1381 recipe lists the ingredients as good apples, good spices, figs, raisins and pears. The cofyn of the recipe is a casing of pastry.
It’s all a lie. Apple pie isn’t really American at all. The earliest recipes were from England, and there are recipes from several other European countries before the U.S. even existed.
So I started thinking, what would that phrase look like if we completed it with true statements? Here are a few that I came up with…
Now it’s your turn. How would you complete the phrase, “It’s as American as baseball and…”? Let us know in the comments!
