If you’re in Dallas bring yourself to one of these shindigs, all happening in the next several days:

When? August 15th (tomorrow), 8:30am - 10:30am
Where? Buzzbrews, 4154 N Central Expy, Dallas, TX 75204
Why? Because a morning of good coffee, good conversation, creativity, inspiration, and ideas makes the rest of your Friday taste better.
Elsewhere? If you’re not in Dallas, check the Likemind site to see if there’s a meetup near you.

When? August 15th (tomorrow too), 9:00am - 3:00pm
Where? Mokah Coffee Bar, 2803 Taylor St. Dallas, TX 75226
Why? Come for a laid-back coworking environment where you can work and hobnob with other local creatives. It’ll give you work-from-home-types a reason to put on pants and use your larynx.
Elsewhere? Like Likemind, Jelly happens all over the U.S. And if there’s not one near you, why not start one?

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When? Monday, August 18th, 6:00pm to 8:30pm
Where? IMC², 12404 Park Central, Suite 400, Dallas, TX 75251
Why? HFI’s Andrew Schall will show you how to improve the usability of your designs with eye-tracking. Also, there’s a free meal, which doesn’t hurt. This is a reservation-only event, so grab a spot here.

Come hang. It’ll be a good one.

Yesterday, in the middle of good conversation, a friend challenged me on a few key talking points. “Oh come on, that’s not true,” she said four different times. Alright then, let’s settle this.

Q: Was the Atari game “E.T.” so terrible that they ended up burying millions of them in the desert?

A: Yes it was and yes they did. Snopes says this:

The sheer awfulness of the finished product was unprecedented…Atari, stuck with millions of games and consoles that were largely unsellable at any price, sent fourteen truckloads of merchandise from their plant in El Paso, Texas, to be dumped in a city landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico in late September 1983.

Q: Do people have a “milk-line,” like cats and pigs, along which any third nipple is located?

A: Little gross. Little weird. But lotta true. eMedicine says:

Supernumerary nipples are located along the embryonic milk line…In humans, the embryonic milk line extends bilaterally from a point slightly beyond the axillae on the arms, down the chest and the abdomen toward the groin.

Q: Do armadillos carry leprosy?

A: They are unclean. Michigan State University says:

Wild armadillos have been known to be infected with the bacterium that causes leprosy (Hansen’s disease).

But here’s the silver lining:

The only cases of transmission from armadillos to humans have occurred in rare incidents in which people ate undercooked armadillo meat.

Q: Are Daddy Long Legs unbelievably poisonous, but unable to bite us because of their tiny little mouths?

A: Oops, this one’s not true. University of California Riverside’s entomology department says this:

They do not have venom glands, fangs or any other mechanism for chemically subduing their food. Therefore, they do not have poison and, by the powers of logic, cannot be poisonous from venom. Some have defensive secretions that might be poisonous to small animals if ingested. So, for these daddy-long-legs, the tale is clearly false.

So, friend, you’re 1 for 4. Not bad. But still, I hope you learned your lesson.

ps: In retrospect, that was a nerdy conversation.

(Updated 6/13, a few hours after publishing)

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?

Last week my friend Terrell Meek wrote an inspired post on feeling happy more often through a “Recipe for Little Happiness.”

Here’s her first ingredient:

Recognize what makes me feel good. I take the time to register my emotions so that I don’t pass by a moment of happiness unnoticed. This sounds absurd, but we’ve all ruined a perfectly good moment by worrying about future events. The classic example is the feeling of dread you may get on Sunday evenings as you start to think about work the next day. This practice also helps me identify what it is that actually makes me happy, which keeps me from repeatedly doing things only because I think they should make me happy.

Click here to read the rest of it. Her perspective has already made my week better.

A few months ago, in a conversation about the role of design, my friend and co-worker Brandon Ferguson laid it out like this:

[Designers are] both working to build and for the system, and simultaneously subverting it. They’re the mouth pieces, and the destroyers.

I kind of love that. So much potential in the artful communication of messages.

And that’s why we love Brandon.

One time my buddy Charlie and I were on a roadtrip, and he was documenting the whole thing on video. There was a point in the trip, I think early one morning, he flipped the camera onto me. I was suddenly very conscious of my actions, my facial expression, my tone. I got awkward.

“Sorry, I have nothing entertaining to say,” I said.

“You don’t have to be entertaining, you just have to be real,” he said back.

I think that was a good call.

Shari Storm is blogging about motherhood and business and how those two worlds are more related than you might think. She’s a hilarious and insightful writer (and I don’t even have kids).

She’s also working on a book. If the book is as good a read as the blog, I can think of four or five mommas offhand who I’m forwarding it to / getting it as a gift for.

So hurry up, Shari. America is waiting.

Check her out here:
http://thenewmba.blogspot.com/