365QOD- Day1420

Creativity vs. Creating

"There is no difference between them."- a silly belief

I believe that one of the highest forms of thought is to create something new.  It is by definition being creative.  It is when you conceive a new idea, product, etc.  The end product of this process is in your mind.  And this is where the danger is: it could stay there.

Creating is something different.  It is the action version of creativity.  You had to create the idea BUT in addition you took action to build it.  It is the extra step of taking action that makes Creating a higher form of Creativity.

Today's question is:
"Do you create of are you just creative?"

365QOD- Day1389

Compliance

"We are a nation of compliers"- my words

As an educator of 18+ years I believe that we rarely test the level of learning that a student reaches.  We test for compliance.  A student is suppose to "memorize" the material and the correct sequence of steps needed to get the desired result. 

A true test is to be given some information and then you are to use it to produce a new outcome that is original.  You are not solving someone else's problem but solving your own problem.  

There is a revolution that is taking place around us.  It is a 3D makers revolution.  People are going to be able to construct new "things' as they think of them.  There will be less of a need to "memorize and regurgitate"  Either you can produce or you will not be successful.

Today's question is:
"Are you a producer?"

365QOD- Day1385

Communities

"Information can be downloaded and illegally shared.  Communities are the next wave.  Relationships can not be replicated, downloaded, copied, and have a real value"- Steve Fox on Eventual Millionaire

This statement was an eye opener.  Lately I have been working on creating information products.  So this statement made me stop in my tracks and rethink my strategy.

I believe that Steve is trying to teach us that we need to build a community first.  By giving away free products and growing your group then one can create a trust relationship.  This relationship can over time become a bridge to selling your products to the world and group.

The community does not eliminate people downloading, copying, and redistributing your products without paying BUT it gives you a fan base of support.

Today's question is:
"Do you have a community?"

365QOD- Day1368

Crazy Cool

"I need an android app that is the same as garage band."- my need

Several years ago I got addicted to creating songs with GarageBand.  GarageBand is a really cool program that is standard for apple products but it is not available for sale on Windows and android platform   Believe me I have searched for many years.

So today I did a search and came across Music Maker Jam.  It is the first app that I can say I love and it is close to GarageBand.  It allows me to create music without being able to play an instrument by using loops and placing them strategically to create a song.  

This capability has allowed me to create songs and enjoy them.  Nothing like making a song that sounds great and having others say that it is good.  It is creativity at its rawest.  There is something about music that makes it different than painting or writing.  People can quickly judge it whether it is good or not.

One thing that I do not like about the app is that it gives you four styles of music for free but then each additional style is over $3.  That is a rip off.  So I am not completely pleased but understand that they need to make money.  $3+ seems like such a high price per download.

Today's question is:
"What tools are you missing that you would love to have?"

365QOD- Day1367

Reusable

"What can I do with this empty milk gallon jug?- my question to myself

I recently read an article in Entrepreneur that shows how Coke ran an experiment.  They funded a contest in which  and people came up with 16 different re-purposing of a 16 oz coke bottle by simply changing the top.  Brilliant!

Who cares?

Well, I am not a tree hugger.  But when you can do good then why not.  If a coke bottle can be re-purposed as a spray bottle by simply changing the top then that bottle does not get thrown away and gets to be used over and over again.  Why not!

I believe that milk jugs are one of those things that we buy and then toss.  Hopefully, the city has a recycling program and it does not go strictly to a trash dump.

I would love to tell you that I have come up with a brilliant solution.  I have not.  If you have one then let me know...

Today's question is:
"What household items that we trhow away can re re-purposed?"

365QOD- Day1335

Creativity is Dead

"I do not know what to eat."- an uninspired person

I love to make up dishes on the fly.  All I have to do is look inside a fridge and I can create a dish.  So for me cooking is not hard.  It is pleasurable.

When I hear that people throw out maybe a third of the foods that they buy I have to believe that they are not creative.  Why would someone get in their car, drive a while, stand in line, wait for the waiter, wait for the meal and then quickly eat their food?  As someone who has been in the kitchens of some fancy restaurants, I can tell you that their cleanliness is not the best either.

To me the creative process is such that I am proud of most things I prepare.  I tend to eat better and healthier foods by preparing them myself.  I know what I put in vs. what the restaurant put in them.

So what is the answer for the creatively challenged?

Well IBM has the Watson super computer.  It has beat chess  and jeopardy champions.  So if you tell Watson what you have in your fridge it will kick out 100 recipes of what you can make with those ingredients.  It actually can produce more but they limit it to 100.  10 seemed too low and 1000 seemed too big.

So if you need an idea of what to cook and can not creatively come up with one, Watson can suggest 100 ideas. It made me think of what else we can do with

Today's question is:
"Do you need the brute force of  asupercomputer to overcome a creativity challenge?" 

365QOD- Day1315

Creating an Algorithm

"Can I predict the winners next week and do better the following week?"- My question

I have been watching the NFL season more regularly this year than past.  In the past I tended to get focused on the games when it was getting closer to the playoffs.  This year I am starting early.

In the office a few of us decided to play for bragging rights to who got most games correct.  We did not want to play for money but for bragging rights.  So week 2 we all picked our winners and on Tuesday one of us was the clear winner.

Being a mathematician I decided to see if I can get a hold of some data to improve my predictions.  I used the Yahoo sports website to get some data. Note that the ESPN website has incredible amount of data but I thought that the amount of data was overkill.

So I dumped the data in a spreadsheet and assigned weights to different aspects of the game.  I then determined a total score for each team and can easily pick which team did better based on the weight for each aspect of the game.

My goal is to continuously tweak the weights in order to improve my algorithm.  Wish me luck!

Today's question is:
"Do you ever create prediction algorithms?"

365QOD- Day1218

Painting Window Screens

“Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas”- Donatella Versace

Every six weeks in Galveston the galleries host an art walk.  It is very cool to just walk around different galleries that are clumped together within a few blocks.  Often times the artist is there and one can have a conversation with them.

The other day while walking around an item caught my eye.  It was a window screen above a doorway.  The window screen was very old.  The wood had a worn personality.  But the screen pulled you in.

The screen had an image painted on it.  The image was of longhorn bull skulls.  The skulls were very bright white while the old screen was dark black.   This made the picture stand out even more.

In another section of the same gallery I noticed another unique piece.  It was an old kitchen cabinet door that was painted with some island scene.  Just like the screen, it pulled you in.

Both of these types of art pieces were very creative.  But more than that they offered a re-use of an old item with a bit of creativity.  The conflict of the old with the new paint job made the items very creative.  After all, they captured my attention for a while.

Today’s question is:

“What ideas are you entertaining that are in conflict?”

365QOD- Day1148

Walking Around an Art Fair

"Wow!"- my expression

Today I spent the afternoon with friends. We went to an art fair inside Houston's biggest park.  No one had to twist my arm too long.

It was a beautiful day to walk around from stand to stand and admire the quality of work that most people produced.  It was no surprise to hear me say wow! because many of the artist truly deserved a longer look.

A few pieces resonated with me specifically.  The first one was a chair made out of wood.  I love chair design and even bought a book that has several hundreds of chair models in it.  But this chair was very cool and made with different types of woods and polished to perfection. www.sublinerockers.com

Second artist's work involved Japanese characters.  I have seen Japanese characters written beautifully  in black ink on white paper.  It looks like an art piece just within the character.  This artist took it to the next level. He created three dimensional characters of bronze, chrome, and stainless steel.  Beautiful!  www.Caseyhorn.com

I could easily write a unique paragraph for probably 100 of the artist there.  The point is that the art moved me.  It showed me how creative some people can be and how wonderful it was to share their passion for a bit of time.

Today's question is:
"Do you appreciate art?"

  

365QOD- Day1132

Sketching on a Cup

“What about using the cup?’- my thought

Recently I finished a book on Leonardo Da Vinci .  He was a pretty creative guy.  Leonardo had notebooks full of sketches and notes.  He studied things.

Recently I noticed that I have stopped sketching.  I used to go to meetings and in my notebook or on meeting agenda I would sketch something.  I would doodle, sketch a person in the meeting, etc.

I have decided to make my work a bit more public.  I decided to start using a single 16 oz Styrofoam cup to capture my sketches.  Maybe at the end of the day I would create a mini video or pictures  of  what I sketched on the cup.    

I need to play with different pens that could produce a controllable sketch.  Notice I said pen and not pencil.  I am a firm believer that there is no imperfection and need for erasing in sketching but simply adding detail and texture.

Today’s question is:

“What would you sketch on your cup?”

365QOD- Day1099

Modular Design

"Project Christine is a computer that can be assembled and upgraded quickly, without technical knowledge, by plugging a series of plastic modules containing its components into a central dock"- Razer company's idea

Many years ago I used to teach an A+ certification course.  In this course we would teach the student hardware and software concepts in the design of computers.  It was a cool class that I wish I had taken when I was starting college.

On the first day of the course I would describe how a computer was designed internally.  I would sketch the internals and tell a story of how the modular design can be thought through from power supply to drives.  Shortly after walking through it, I would ask several volunteers to repeat the story.

After the lecture part, one to one and a half hours, I would walk the students to a lab and had each one of them completely disassemble a computer down to empty case.  The students were instructed that they could not leave  to go home until the computer was put together and running. Amazingly, 100% of the students succeeded.

What is neat about Razer's computer design is that it is even more modular than most computers.  But Project Christine takes this concept to an extreme.  The plastic modules simply snap into a back plane that has a power and communication bus. Wow!  You do not even have to take the computer apart.

Today's question is:
"What you work on that can be reduced into modules?"

365QOD- Day1095

Designing an App

“What should I build an app for?”- a good question

According to Gary Vaynerchuk, a social media expert, most people’s cell phones contain three types of apps:”

1.    Social Networking, which tells you that people are interested in other people

2.    Entertainment, including games and music apps, which tells you that people want to escape

3.    Utility, including maps, notepads, organizers, and weight loss management systems, which tells you that people value service.”

So lets take the three ideas: Social Networking, Entertainment, and Utility and play with them.  Suppose we would create an app that combines Social Networking and Entertainment.  In other words it could be a game that we learn about other people in a small friends circle by posing a statement that is true about someone in the group that people would figure out who it is.

How about combining Social Networking and Utility?  A group weight loss program that allows you to see what everyone is doing would fit that niche. 

Suppose we chose Entertainment and Utility.  We could have a map of all of the stars in a particular city at one time by using their social presence information.  For those who love to track their stars this will allow them to try to meet their stars if they are interested.

The point of this exercise is to show you that one can generate many new ideas by combining features of what people already use.  You can see quickly how one can come up with several app ideas that might just take off.  The app might be the next Facebook.  You don’t think so!  Who would have thought that 10 years ago Facebook would take off? 

Today’s question is:

“What app would you design?”

365QOD- Day1093

Twisted

"Unexpected!"- my reaction

Recently I went into Marcus Ashley gallery in Lake Tahoe.  I love walking into galleries to see if there are type of works I have never seen.  This gallery did not disappoint.  I saw the works of Andrew Gonzalez and Steve Barton.

Andrew's work was ghostly black and white images.  They pulled you in because they were unlike anything I have seen before.  Amazing images in black/brown and white.

Steve's work stood out differently.  The art was OK by itself.  BUT what he did with the art was everything.  The canvas was twisted onto a wooden structure.  Amazing 3D effect.  The images combined with the frame pulled you in.

I would have never created a twisted canvas.  Most canvases are flat and the art fools the eye into a 3D look.  Steve twisted the given and created a niche.  He did not settle for the norm that we all expect.

Today's question is:
"What is else flat that should be twisted?

365QOD- Day1073

Use of Solitude

"In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone."- Rollo May

I have no fear of being alone.  It is not in my nature that I have to have people around me.  But I am no hermit.  I can be an extrovert or an introvert.

When there is no one around then I become very productive.  The idea of constructive solitude is how I recharge.  Sitting around on a vacation drains me unless I am doing something creative.  The quality of my life is highly dependent on my perceived level of creativity.

I believe that the secret is in having a plan.  Usually I know what I need to bring with me to fulfill a specific goal and how long it will take me to do it.  If my time is planned then I have less of a temptation to do something wasteful.  This not to say that do not break my plan but that I work at sticking to it. 

Today's question is:

"Do you fear being alone?"

365QOD- Day1039

How to Tell Stories- Level3

"The ultimate level: Storyteller"- my interpretation of a figure in the book Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi.

Top,third, level in telling stories is to become a Storyteller(S).

First requirement of being classified as Storyteller is to Create Demand(CD).  After a while on not abusing the trust that readers have entrusted you with, your audience will grow.  But to create demand you have to continue learning and developing in order to share your growth.  The demand will not be there if you talk about the same topic every day.  If you did that it sounds like preaching instead of sharing something cool with your audience.

As you continue to learn and develop you will start to differentiate yourself.  The second requirement of this third level is Differentiates(D).  If you sound like someone else then you do not sound like yourself.  It is easy to fall in this trap.  It is easy and lazy thinking.  Read others but think for yourself and provide that difference as the reason for your audience to want to hear your thoughts.  Remember that is everyone is thinking the same thoughts then no one is thinking.

Last requirement of the third level is to Creates Evangelists(CE).  This is when the audience snowballs your efforts and you experience step change levels in audience numbers.  The audience invites others to become members of the audience.  You then have Evangelists.

At this level the intersection is so large between these three requirements that it is hard to tell whether you are creating demand, differentiating, or creating evangelists.  Or all three at the same time.   As an equation, S=function of(CD,D, CE)

As a review, the equations for the three levels are:
                                                         CD= T +CD+ GG
                                                         TL= CT ^ MD ^ EF
                                                          S=function of(CD,D, CE)

So where am I?  I believe that I am somewhere in the Thought Leader level.    But now I realize that I need to improve my differentiation, creating demand, and hopefully convincing evangelists to help me.

Today's question is:
"How good of a storyteller are you?"

365QOD- Day1038

How to Tell Stories- Level2

"I want to be a leader..a thought leader"- my words

In post Day1037 we talked about Content Awareness as being the first level of telling stories.  This level is all about establishing trust(T), being found(BF), and generating greatness(GG).  In this post we will move on to level two.

Level two is when a blog creator becomes a Thought Leader(TL).

The first requirement to becoming a Thought Leader is to Create Trust(CT).  In level one we established trust and on this level we are creating trust.  What is the difference?  Either you have trust or you don't?  I believe that the difference rests in the time frame.  People will give you initially invest in you a small level of trust.  If they feel like you deserve it they will increase and the bond will become stronger.  I believe that if you have written without abusing this trust for a while, maybe 6 months to a year, you will reach the CT level.

Second requirement of being thought of as a TL is to start to Meet Demand(MD).  Your audience will get used to your publishing schedule and pretty soon you will be synchronized.  If you publish monthly they will know.  If you publish weekly they will tune in weekly.  Daily publishing is a challenging but in my opinion it is worth it.

The third requirement for level two is to become an Efficient Funnel(EF).  I believe that most people are too busy to dedicate themselves to following anyone.  They will sporadically read your work as long as you are able to help they learn something new quickly.  They do not want to be sold to and have to read a book every time they show up to your blog.  Short and sweet.  With that said, I have started writing slightly longer posts this year.  Why?  I noticed that the longer ones expressed my ideas better and lead to larger audience.  But be careful!  Key word here is Efficient.

Unlike level one where you had to move from trust to being found to generating greatness, level two works best as an intersection of these requirements.  I will model intersection as ^.

As an equation level two can be modeled as:
                                                                    TL= CT ^ MD ^ EF

Today's question is:
"Do you want to influence your audience's thoughts?"

365QOD- Day1037

How to Tell Stories- Level1

"Tell me a story about myself when I was young"- my daughter's typical urging

The other day I was flipping through a bunch of books.  One of them was a book called Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi.  In the book I saw a figure that tried to explain story telling as having three levels.  Immediately it made me think of my blog.  I will try to illustrate it by using my blog as an example in this and next two posts.

The first level in blog storytelling is Content Awareness.

When starting to tell stories to an unknown audience the first requirement for Content Awareness is Trust(T).  You have to create the trust necessary for people to believe what you are telling them is the truth.  As you know, it is very hard to build trust over time with people and extremely easy to loose it in a moment or post.  So write what you believe and be truthful.

Second requirement is to Be Found(BF).  So what if you are creating very good trustworthy content if no one can find you.  You have to be able to pull new visitors continuously in order for you to want to continue telling your stories.  If you are a blog leader with no followers, you are simply wasting time writing. At every opportunity tell people about your blog and invite them to come and check it out.

I believe that over time you will reach the third requirement: Generate Greatness(GG).  I can definitely tell you that I am still not happy with my writing level.  I know I can write much much better if I spent more time planning, writing, and editing.  My compromise to me is to write daily with passion and do the editing at the end of the year when I put the book together.

SO the equation is:
                                CA= T + BF + GG

Today's question is:
"How do you generate awareness of your content?"

365QOD- Day958

Sparks

" Expressed in plain English, this means that a single moment of insight is the result of thinking that happens before it--often, the authors state, due to reorganizing or restructuring the elements of a situation or problem. This echoes the favored Fast Company definition of creativity, that it's finding the connections between seemingly unrelated things."- Drake Barr in Fast Company article Creativity is Just Persistence, and Science Can Prove it

According to John Kounios of Drexel University and Mark Beeman of Northwestern University, "although the experience of insight is sudden and can seem disconnected from the immediately preceding thought, these studies show that insight is the culmination of a series of brain states and processes operating at different time scales."

The words series of brain states caught my interest.  This holds true for me.  I usually have to be thinking about something for a while before I get to the aha moment. So in a sense when I am thinking about a topic I am moving from one state to another until I get to the creative state.

Now notice the second portion of the quote, " at different time scales".  In other words, these states can be close or far apart in terms of time.  If we spend more time thinking about something then the states seem close to one another.  So the spark does not seem so big but if the states are somewhat apart then the jump seemed big enough to be defined as an aha moment.

These two pieces together tell us that by being persistent to work on something for a while we will get to the creative state.  The only unknown is time.

Today's question is:
"Do you know how to be persistent to move though different brain states quickly?"

365QOD- Day938

How does it feel to hold it?

"There is nothing like the feeling of seeing your child for the first time."- my words

I remember the birth of my two children, Stefani and Milan, as if it was yesterday.  Both births were special and both came early in the morning. Then the hard part of parenting begins.

The other day when my third book got published I felt like I had given birth to another child. Now the parenting begins.  If no one knows the book exists then does it truly matter that it was written?

Right after my third book was published I revised my ETF book and got a proof copy to review and correct.  My fourth book arrived yesterday and I could not but glow add a new parent.  But again,  the hard pats of editing, publishing, and nurturing are not done. 

Today's question is:
"Do you nurture your products or just sell them?"

365QOD- Day861

"Overnight sensation" - an oxymoron

When I read a story about an overnight sensation I am doubtful that it is true.  This was the case the other day.

I noticed a story about a mathematician who published a solution to a difficult problem dealing with prime numbers that many great mathematicians failed to solve.

Dr. Zhang graduated with a doctorate but failed to get an academic position.  He worked as an accountant and in a Subway.  His life does not follow in a traditional path of a great mathematician.

The article also said something else that made me think.  It claimed that when one examines his work it is not that he was inspired and that it had a spark of greatness.  The article claimed that his work showed great persistence in applying existing methods and that other mathematicians failed to apply.  In other words he outworked them while they waited to be inspired.

It is a great story that illustrates that sometimes we might just need to persevere through our work instead of looking for a spark of genius.

Today's question is:
"Can you outwork most of your coworkers?"