Creative Panels: Masturbation Disguised as Discussion

Colleen the Socialist, ironically, is not a fan of social media, because she thinks it's still "nascent" and doesn't really have its shit together yet.

"I'm sure the first thing that came out of the Gutenberg press wasn't that great," she said.

"The Bible?" asked the startled moderator.

"No, I'm sure there was a lot of crap before then..."

"No, I think the Bible was the first thing."

- "Creative Destruction: How Advertising Is Swallowing the Creative Class", Hamilton Nolan. 

I love this article. It draws blood, but kind of gently, like a blood drive nurse who's bored with your come-ons and takes a little too much a little too fast.

The ending's great too. Grilled cheese sandwiches aren't the only great sustained legacy of market creativity; it also bequeathed us tacos as we know them, White Strips, and the teenager -- whose merits we can all argue to our sulky inevitable deaths.

Via.

Connecting Things and Copycats

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.

- Steve Jobs, 1996 Wired Interview (via MyEDOL)

"Connecting things" -- behind that is the premise that the full picture was already there; it just needed the lines that connect the dots.

I'm currently reading The Case for Creativity and there's a full chapter about originality and our industry's obsession with it. Being accused of copycatting is often just as condemning as being outright guilty of the act. But it's a lot easier than we think to have the same idea at the same time as another person; examples proliferate in science, technology, art and -- obviously -- in advertising.

Many thinkers have surmised that when it's "time" for something, that idea just appears in the ether, ready and waiting to be claimed by unconnected minds who start thinking in its direction. (Maybe that's why execution is considered a lot more valuable than ideas. On the other hand, artists work fiercely to protect their ideas; in a way, they're the only babies we get to have. But that's another discussion entirely.)

This notion of ideas hanging in the air like ripe fruit resembles a theory biologist Rupert Sheldrake has called "morphic resonance": the notion that once you have an idea, it is that much easier for another human to conceive it -- in the same way that once a rat gets through a maze, the exit is instantly that much easier to find for all other rats in the universe.

We're somehow all psychically connected to a fast-moving energy hive that doesn't care who thought what first; once a thought or a sentiment's there, it's there for the taking. I know this all sounds mystic as hell, but in any case it's interesting to think about.

And if morphic resonance just rubs you wrong, that's okay, too; environment, our shared news streams, technology's "logical next step", the circles we run in and conversations we have all make it more likely two unrelated people will conceive similar ideas at the same time.

Or maybe they really are copying. *Shrugs*

Storytelling Advice from The Economist

Worth remembering, ESPECIALLY if you’re doing cross-media stuff.

Bob Garfield on Creativity + the Ad that First Inspired Him

Creatives young and old have had a love/hate relationship with Bob Garfield, who for the last 25 years has produced his "Ad Review" segment on Advertising Age. (His position on this? On a scale of one to five, few ads are total zeros and few ads are prize fives. Over his whole career the average ad has received about a 3.4, significantly higher than the average true quality of industry television advertising output at large.)

Ad bloggers, whether or not they agree with his arguments, arguably see him as the person who began what they continue today. He's also the author of The Chaos Scenario and co-hosts National Public Radio's "On the Media."

I ran into Bob at the Carlton this weekend, then later Monday in front of the Palais, sporting a decidedly cannois summer hat. (I didn't know at the time, but it was also his birthday.) He thoughtfully agreed to sit and talk at a nearby beach side restaurant -- which we only later discovered is probably the loudest atmospheres in all the land.

Read the rest of this nummy num-num on Yahoo! Scene, for which I'm doing Cannes Lions coverage this year.

Jonah Lehrer at Cannes Lions: The Science of Creativity is Instinctive

Author and Wired editor Jonah Lehrer joined DraftFCB's Director of Strategic Planning Matthew Willcox to discuss the science of creativity, specifically what triggers it and whether it can be honed.

One major problem we have with creativity reveals itself in linguistics: we talk like it's singular, but it's plural. Our job is to think creatively the right way at the right time, applying the appropriate mental tools to the task at hand.

Relaxation Breeds Insight

To understand the different facets of creativity, it helps to know what precedes a moment of insight: alpha waves, closely associated with states of relaxation. Walking to the beach, taking a shower, daydreaming -- doing something you really like doing, in other words -- is what makes it possible for your mind to arrive at what we traditionally understand to be creative epiphanies.

The logic is simple. When we're not relaxed, we're too focused, producing both physical and mental tensions. Tension only restricts and builds upon itself, stifling any semblance of insight before it can even be born.

This is the first key: We assume productivity means we're at our desks, staring at a computer screen. But when you need huge conceptual breakthroughs, get away and bury your toes in the sand, or take a warm shower. Do whatever you must to release your mind from the manacles of the problem.

Read the rest of this nummy num-num at Yahoo! Scene, for which I'm doing Cannes Lions coverage this year.

Brandon Schaeffer's Movie Posters

There’s something to be said about distilling a central theme or idea of a film down to it’s core and translating it into a simple, iconic image. It’s a nice exercise that shows just how limitation can breed possibility and eliminate distraction: by setting yourself a series of self-imposed obstructions, your focus becomes more refined, and communication becomes key.

- Brandon Schaeffer

See more of Brandon's movie posters, as well as a few more of his thoughts, at Escape into Life. (Thanks for the tip, Candace!)

The Passing-Down of Precious Knowledge, and Bringing Divinity Back to Creativity

It's funny about TED Talks: how those of us that haven't had the good fortune to be able to attend have started passing these 18-minute nuggets of insight around.

It's a nice little ritual that feels as precious as sitting in on a Socratic circle: you look forward to the moment, to being with other thirsty people and hearing something that will add nuance to your perspective.

Maybe that's the only way the Meaning of Life™ can be transmitted: petit à petit, in shared and cultivated insights whose essences we must try and hold onto, to internalize and build on, so we can construct the tapestry of our existences beautifully, vividly and with conviction.

I have yet to see a TED Talk that hasn't moved me to either enthusiastic agreement or vehement disagreement. That means every time I watch one, I am learning how to think, flexing muscles that, for many of us, are on autopilot because we've turned most aspects of our daily lives into rituals: the shower, the email-checking, the smalltalk in the breakroom.

The one above is of author Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love. A friend passed it to me a month or so ago but I didn't have the chance to look at it. Then, on Facebook, another friend posted Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice talk. I couldn't swallow the thesis at all, and the discussion that followed kicked off The Ritual: the sharing of other TED talks.

That's how the Gilbert one came back to me. And I'm really glad I didn't miss it this time around, because anyone working in the "creative" capacity -- that is, where you have to improve upon or adapt what's been done before, using only what you manage to wrestle out of your obstinate mind -- needs to hear this.

How she starts:

We've completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked, and that artistry, in the end, will always ultimately lead to anguish. And the question that I want to ask everybody here today is, um, are you guys all cool with that idea? Are you at all comfortable with that?!

She argues that in the realm of creativity, we have to let go of the rationalist idea that it's 100% our responsibility. This notion leads to overinflated egos when something is a success, and, on the darker side of the coin, suicide or the drinking habits for which writers, musicians and ad men are particularly notorious.

Frankly, giving yourself over to "what you were put on this earth to do" shouldn't have to feel as if it's killing you every. Single. Day.

What's her solution? To return to an ancient idea: think of real creativity -- that moment when it's flowing out of you like water, and you need to get it all down superfast OR ELSE DIE -- as a caprice of the divine. Keep showing up for your job, and hopefully your supernatural helper shows up for his.

This is less mysticism than an acknowledgement that creativity is not at all rational. It doesn't come when it's called or work on your timetable. And if you can't find a proper way to put this bitch of a muse into context, she will make you crazy.