Some of the best musicians I know have the most ridiculous music tastes I know (”I don’t know, I just love Céline”). A couple of them rarely even listen to music. They just write it. This “Ignore Everybody” approach helps them make their ideas happen without distraction and self-edit.

Other friends are inspired - they love going to shows, looking at art, reading books, talking perspectives. This outside perspective opens up new directions in themselves they didn’t even know were there.

What about you?

Does consuming ideas - music, art, essays, stories, tweets, talks, articles, and on and on - open your eyes and make you want to make things? Does it make it harder? Or do inspiration and solidarity compliment each other?

CUES published an article of mine yesterday on growing creativity through limitations. Here’s a dose, or you can click through to read the full article:

In 1995 a couple of miffed Danish filmmakers got together and said, “We’re tired of the effects and novelty and plastic pizzazz of Hollywood hijacking the most important thing about film: the story.”

And so they trimmed the fat.

The two Danes were Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, and in 45 minutes they wrote the Dogme 95 Vow of Chastity, a 10-point manifesto that rejected overproduced gimmicks in favor of pure storytelling. The rules include shooting only on location with no props or sets, avoiding added sound or music, using only hand-held cameras, and filming in color with no special lighting (read the whole thing here).

In other words, von Tirier and Vinterburg believed in placing certain limitations on their work and got great results. The first of the dogme films, aka Dogme #1, Vinterberg’s “The Celebration,” demonstrated the beauty of limitation and won the Jury Prize at Cannes, along with loads of other awards.

Like von Trier and Vinterberg, we all need to embrace—and even self-impose—limitations to achieve a deeper creative focus.

Unlike our Scandinavian friends, however, we don’t have to declare all-out stylistic chastity. We can begin sketching our boundaries with a few rough outlines.

» Inside Marketing: Drawing Lines to Color Inside

Thanks very much, Lisa & the CUESers, for the opportunity.

No matter how many…

…fancy productivity tools I try, nothing keeps me on task like a sticky note and a pen.

…rapid prototyping tools I try, nothing moves as quickly paper, tape, and markers.

…keyboards, effects pedals, and recording software options I possess, nothing writes songs like my notebook and guitar.

…social media accounts I have, nothing connects like eye contact.

…points of inspiration I look to, nothing stirs up ideas like quiet.

I wish I’d written this. I know I’ll use it:

The Cult of Done Manifesto, by Bre Pettis and Kio Stark

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.

3. There is no editing stage.

4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.

5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.

6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.

7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.

8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.

9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

11. Destruction is a variant of done.

12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.

13. Done is the engine of more.

(via Behance Team Blog :: Respect for “The Cult of Done Manifesto”)

¡Olé!

Today, while working on a design, I had Twitter, AIM, Google Talk, Google Reader, my email, and a music player open. All at once.

…which inadvertently lead to this:

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a great slice of insight from Cory Doctorow on “Writing in the Age of Distraction.” The article focuses on writing (clearly), but the thoughts are on-point for creative people of all shapes and sizes.

Among his advice,”realtime communication tools are deadly.” Amen, Cory.

He also recommends that you “leave yourself a rough edge:”

When you hit your daily word-goal, stop. Stop even if you’re in the middle of a sentence. Especially if you’re in the middle of a sentence. That way, when you sit down at the keyboard the next day, your first five or ten words are already ordained, so that you get a little push before you begin your work. Knitters leave a bit of yarn sticking out of the day’s knitting so they know where to pick up the next day — they call it the “hint.” Potters leave a rough edge on the wet clay before they wrap it in plastic for the night — it’s hard to build on a smooth edge.

I think I’ll unplug for a while and let my head pull itself together.

Click here to read the full article.

(via Drawn: The Illustration Blog)

”We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

“To be creative is to make something from nothing.
To make something small and harmless into something great and feared.
To be creative is to be brave.”

- Jessica Hagy, “Creative = Brave,” Age of Conversation 2

Hi. I’m working on a series of posts on ideas, and I have three questions for you:

1) How do you spark ideas?

What inspires you? What wakes you up and puts you in your most creative place? Do you have a conversation, doodle, space out, write everything down, go jogging or take a shower?

2) How do you capture ideas?

When ideas happen, how do you grab and retain them? Do you carry a notebook, write on your hand, write on a friend’s hand, leave yourself a voicemail, or use some online tool? What does your knapsack of inspiration look like?

3) How do you implement ideas?

This might be the hardest part. An idea is only a colorful vapor until you do something with it. How do you take your ideas from haze to reality?

You can either respond in the comments, or email me at hi [at] itsjustbrent [dot] com.

I can’t wait to hear from you.

Something I’ve come to realize, but have a hard time wrapping my actions around, is the hardest part about doing a thing of significance is the mental pendulum leading up to that decision. The back and forth, second guessing, and “what-ifs.”

Making the decision - doing it - is easy. You make the call and you operate.

I wouldn’t mind carrying a midget around that constantly reminded: “It’s simpler than you think.”

I finished my Age of Conversation article. It’s titled “The Creative Multiplier,” and is about how new media can change creatives’ perspective on creativity and influence.

And yes, somewhere along the way the advertising industry totally nouned the word “creative.”

In order to get my mind right and have some conversation on the topic, I asked several good friends the following question:

New media has democratized large-scale expression. Because there is now access to tools (like iMovie, GarageBand, digital cameras) and distribution (creating a podcast is free, blogging, youtube, etc), more people can be “writers,” “designers,” “film producers” than ever before.

How do you think this affects creativity, in practice and in perception – both as a job and as a lifestyle and a hobby?

The responses varied a good bit, but were all insightful. Here are some favorites:

Doug Williams from Trabian -

It’s smashed distribution channels and smashed production barriers. So, it’s created kind of an anarchy of creativity. It’s good in the sense that creative people can have their voices heard on the exact same platform successful creatives can have their voices heard.

For some it’s good, for some, they’re just rehashing fart jokes.

The downside is that those barriers held within them revenue streams and profits that allowed companies to assume the risk in developing truly talented individuals.

It also helped filter out the good from the bad – of course, some really good things got filtered out…and the “mainstreaming” of creativity was a downfall to that system. So…in a sense, it’s empowered creatives.

However, it’s removed a fundamental distribution channel designed (although it can be debated how effectively it worked) to reward creative people, put them in front of thousands of people, and to invest in them.

Ches Campbell from SWA Group -

I think the more access we have, the more creativity can take place. Without the tools to do things, we can’t create……the best example for me would be digital cameras and photoshop. I can do all the photo imaging I want on my own in my house, or at a coffee shop or anywhere without having to own a bunch of equipment or going to a studio somewhere. Same with other forms of digital media.

It inspires me to actually go for it and do somethign instead thinking “I should do this,” because I actually have the means to do things

Charlie Trotter from Trabian:

One interesting side-effect I’ve experienced lately is how that affects people who make their living being creative. I can jump on Vimeo or Flickr or LOLZIES! and post my latest fit of creativity to rave reviews. They are pieces I feel good about, am proud of, etc.

When people do those kinds of things for fun, I think we get some really interesting, organic pieces of creative work. But when I try to bring that energy into my professional work, it’s more challenging because now I’m trying to please several different people with several different subjective views.

I wonder how this generation will react to professional pursuits having grown up with the creative enabling social media offers, because many of them will have spent so much time creatively only answering to themselves.

Brad Garland from The Garland Group -

From a business perspective, it allows the small businesses of the world (AKA the mom and pop’s) to compete on a level playing field with any other company, no matter the marketing budget. SmBs have the ability to promote themselves and share and connect with other that they once couldn’t afford before.

For example, our company is essentially created a television station for viewers of the financial services world. Yes, it wouldn’t show up on the top 1000 channels on your cable box but we are able to connect, network, and share with those that are interested in that field. We’ve had over 22K views of our content over the last 3 months and because of that content, it has turned into magazine articles, speaking engagements, consultant jobs, and connecting with people that we would not had the opportunity before.

Cheryl Doerksen from Currency Marketing -

Well on one hand I think that it definitely serves to encourage and stimulate creativity. With such easy access and easy to use tools, people are able to work on their own little projects without feeling the often creativity-constraining pressure of the cost factor. On the other hand one could argue that it begins to dilute creativity because people start to put everything up as ‘creations’ that may or may not have originally been dubbed as something born out of creativity as much as boredom.

As a job I think that more and more people are (or should be) being encouraged to exercise their creativity and access to these things enables that movement and increasing prioritization of the importance of expressing and fostering creativity.

Chad Gowan from All Speeds -

I think it opens up a lot of doors to dabble, maybe effects ones focus on what they really excel in. But another perspective could be that it doesn’t limit people from finding that one niche or the creative outlet that makes them all fuzzy inside.

Daniel Miller from The Leet World -

It sets the talented people apart, content is king. If your content is good, the theory is that it should rise to the top. Thats not always the case (unfortunately), thats what the internet brings to the table.

The flip side to the coin is while making content is cheap, and its a great creative outlet, its hard to get noticed by someone who wants to pay you for your intellectual property. Its like finding a needle in a haystack the size of the Pacific Ocean. And i think alot of people want to say that creating something is a reward in itself.

When you have to work a day job for 9 hours a day, then go home and do a hobby for free it starts to wear on you. It’s a double edged sword.
/end rant

Carter Martin from CM Design -

• Competition is now in theory infinite
• There’s no excuse not to try
• The cream continues to rise to the top, no one is ignorant / ambitious enough to keep cracking away at creative things unless there is some form of audience or they’re making a living off of it.
• Most creativity is spawned from within, but its continuation is for the most part based on the positive or negative reaction of others. Any reaction is reason to continue, but silence kills the spirit.

Thanks to everyone I talked to for your perspectives. I feel lucky and thankful to have smart friends.

Care to weigh in?

Here’s a refreshing quote from Creative Think’s Roger von Oech:

Forgetting what we know — at the appropriate time — can be an important means for gaining insight. Without the ability to forget, our minds remain cluttered with ready-made answers, and we’re not motivated to ask the questions that lead our thinking to new ideas.

Every day, I operate under countless assumptions and self-edits. This is a very efficient way of choking out new ideas.

Thanks for the reminder to wake up and get out of my own way, Roger.