I’m not a regular listener of This American Life (with Ira Glass), but his radio show clearly resonates with many people.  I came across this interview with Glass somewhere in my information streams and I found it quite intriguing.

Watch this video clip and then we’ll discuss it after:

This clip is part of a series of videos  where he discusses the creative process and how to develop your skills as a writer or storyteller.  Glass makes the excellent point about the importance of taste:  the ability to discern good quality work from poor quality work.  He plays some of his earlier radio work and dissects it briefly during this video.  He’s critical of his older work, even after eight years of working in radio (he’s been in the field for much, much longer, I think).  I think that anyone who’s trying to improve their work over time feels the same way about their older work.

He brings up another excellent point that many of us don’t recognize.  The process of honing your craft and producing sub-standard work is OK.  In fact, it’s normal, as long as two things hold true:

• you’re trying hard
• you recognize that your work doesn’t meet your own high standards

This is where the importance of taste is invaluable.  If you are able to judge the quality of your work reasonably fairly and realize that it’s not where you want it to be, then that’s OK.  The process of despising your own work is normal, according to Glass.  It’s a natural stage of the process of creative development.  Glass counsels the viewer to have some patience with themselves and realize this is going to happen to most creative people.  Dedication, coupled with the ability to evaluate the quality of your work against high standards, can carry you through if you can just keep trying.

I don’t know about you, but I felt a bit better about myself and my writing after I watched this video.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Taste defines when it does not trick
• Captions on the front of digital photos
• Thinking Inside The Brain – Episode 1
• Malcolm Gladwell and spaghetti sauce
• A video on creativity, fulfillment, and flow

Here’s a thought about creativity and innovation:

I had a raspberry flavored beer for the first time while on my trip to the Netherlands (not necessarily the one that I have pictured to the left).  It was delicious – I’d never tasted anything like it in my life.  It was like carbonated raspberry juice without any trace of beer taste.  We do not have fruit-flavored beers in my part of the world unless it’s a microbrewery product or else it’s an import.  Our beers usually taste like… well, what we think beer tastes like in Canada.

If I was a brewer or marketer and I really, really liked this beverage, I’d be asking a ton of questions about this beer:  who makes it, where is it made, who drinks it, are there any other beers like it, etc.

This is one of the values of travel, either for business or for pleasure:  discovering new things either by chance or on purpose.  You can’t help but discover new things while traveling in a foreign country.

In my readings, and my own practical experience, on creativity and innovation you really need to expose yourself to new things to help generate better new ideas.  By nature I’m a creature of habit in many ways.  However, I try to learn new things, experiment with doing old things differently (ex:  cleaning a room, organizing books or files, driving from point A to B, etc.)

One of the problems that I have with trying to be efficient all the time is that when you arrive at the best or optimal solution you assume that it will always be the optimal solution.  When other conditions change, sometimes there’s a new optimal solution.  Or, in the case of travel, sometimes you discover something new that changes your way of thinking about what’s best, efficient, or optimal.

If I hadn’t come on this trip and tried a different beverage, I wouldn’t have written this post.

Food for thought.

Image by MontageMan

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Thoughts about travel at the start of a trip
• Malcolm Gladwell and spaghetti sauce
• Book Review – Stimulated ! – Andrew Pek and Jeannine McGlade
• Is creativity in danger of becoming the new Web 2.0?

I’m starting a new creative pursuit whereby I take photos with funny, useful, or otherwise interesting captions.  Right now I’m storing them on TwitPic right here.

The idea is most definitely inspired by “cartoons on the back of business cards” creator Hugh MacLeod and his Gaping Void blog.  Here’s a sample of a recent cartoon by Hugh.

The great thing, for me, about this idea is that it requires no artistic talent at all.

My goal is to make this a daily exercise.

P.S.  So far Hugh shows no signs of wanting to sue me for idea infringement, which is a good sign.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• In review – How To Be Creative by Hugh MacLeod
• The best bloggers are world builders
• Thoughts from Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid.com
• How to start 2010 by doing better work
• Kickstarting your creative infrastructure in a Web 2.0 world

Once again I try my hand at short video.  The results are a bit better this time (I think). 

This video post is about problem solving and creative thinking.

I hope you find this interesting – would love to hear any feedback that you have in the comments section.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Looking for a new challenge?
• The importance of good taste
• Lessons learned from breaking into your own car
• Captions on the front of digital photos
• Malcolm Gladwell and spaghetti sauce

Here’s another link to another TED video.  This one is about spaghetti sauce types, as presented by Malcolm Gladwell.  Interesting listening, as always.

I’ve categorized this entry under creativity because I think there’s a valid point here about creativity and innovation.  Sometimes new ideas come from careful analysis of existing data or else from asking the right questions.  It’s a good story.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• A video on creativity, fulfillment, and flow
• Book Review – Stimulated ! – Andrew Pek and Jeannine McGlade
• Is creativity in danger of becoming the new Web 2.0?
• Links to posts about the Duncan Watts article in Fast Company
• Book Reviews (times two) – May 17 2010

Taken from a 2004 TED talk, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about flow, creativity and happiness.  I’ve written about Csikszentmihalyi before:  his work is fascinating and illuminating.  I reviewed his book Flow here.

Here’s the video:  it’s definitely worth checking out.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Malcolm Gladwell and spaghetti sauce
• Book Review – Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• A good justification for amateur content creation
• Are you a sequential or random-access doer?
• Where do you get your energy?

Do something good today.  Make good choices.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Where the words come from
• Three posts on reading plus a bonus tip
• Thoughts from Skellie of Skelliewag.org
• Thoughts from Jonathan Fields Career Renegade
• Just Write Blog Carnival entries

Writer Elizabeth Gilbert spoke at the 2009 TED event on the source of creativity and inspiration.  Her view is that writers and artists need to think of creativity as originating from somewhere other than themselves in order to stay sane, particularly when they become successful and then feel pressure to create equally worthy work.

Here’s the video of her talk:

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, the writers at Black Sun Journal wrote a scathing critique of Gilbert’s TED talk.  In short, their view is that creativity comes straight from the human brain and stop kidding around about divine inspiration.

If Black Sun Journal had been a tad more civil I’d find their ideas more palatable.  However, when you watch Gilbert’s talk it seems pretty clear, at least in the beginning, that she’s willing delude herself, or at least invent a psychological construct that helps her deal with the pressure to perform, especially when expectations are high.

It seems to me that the situation that she describes with writers and artists can equally apply to CEOs, priests, policemen, doctors, etc.  Isn’t this really all about controlling your thoughts and emotions to the point where they don’t mar your actions?

What do you think?

EDIT: at Lateral Action, Mark McGuinness wrote a great post that continues the conversation about this creativity topic.

EDIT: as you will see in the comments section, the writer of Black Sun Journal and I discuss the topic in more detail.  We both clarified each other’s views on the topic.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• The importance of good taste
• Captions on the front of digital photos
• Thinking Inside The Brain – Episode 1
• Malcolm Gladwell and spaghetti sauce
• A video on creativity, fulfillment, and flow

I maintain a Del.icio.us account (markdykeman) where I’m tracking blog posts, websites, etc. for long term storage.

If you’re ever looking for more ideas, you can check out anything that I’ve tagged under creativity.

Lots of other good stuff under the other tags, including blogging, writing, etc.

Feel free to join my network there!

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• The importance of good taste
• Captions on the front of digital photos
• Thinking Inside The Brain – Episode 1
• Malcolm Gladwell and spaghetti sauce
• A video on creativity, fulfillment, and flow

Author Gregg Fraley, whose book Jack’s Notebook has been reviewed here at Broadcasting Brain, is organizing a very interesting project called the Peregrine Panel.  He refers to it as an “emerging social media research giant”.  Here’s a post (one of several) where he describes the Peregrine Panel in more detail.

Here’s a note from Gregg’s blog concerning The Peregrine Panel:

Regarding participating in The Peregrine Panel: If you are new to this, simply follow @greggfraley2 in Twitter. If you are one of those already following @greggfraley2 because you want to be part of the consumer-ideator panel a request: recruit more followers for the panel! The formal process, which will begin in a few weeks, includes taking a thinking styles assessment and filling out a profile form. The potential panelists will be notified using Twitter.

Why become a Peregrine Panelist? Three key reasons: 1.) panelists will participate in ground breaking research and product development efforts, it will be stimulating and fun, 2.) compensation will take the form of actual payments for some projects, “spiffs” and discounts for others, some will be “volunteer” (such as generating ideas for non-profits) and, panelists can “earn” actual shares in the company.  10% of the company shares are behind held out for panelists. This is unprecedented in consumer research and it’s a real opportunity for panelists to do well, if the company does well. Finally, 3.) Panelists will be assessed for thinking styles and will receive creativity training on various aspects of new product development and idea generation. This presents a great opportunity for younger people in particular looking for resume-building skills and experiences.

Obviously it’s very early days, but this looks like a really interesting creative endeavor.  If you’re looking for a new challenge of some kind, why not check it out?  Gregg is looking for at least 1000 partners for this initiative.  I’m quite interested to see what happens with this!

Note:  there is some talk of ownership, finances, etc. in these blog posts.  As the project is still in its infancy stages, take everything with a grain of salt – things can always change.  I think you should approach this as a creative/networking/intellectual challenge and plan to derive benefit from that – anything else is just gravy, as they say.

Other posts that you might enjoy reading:

• Thinking Inside The Brain – Episode 1
• The importance of good taste
• Lessons learned from breaking into your own car
• Captions on the front of digital photos
• Malcolm Gladwell and spaghetti sauce