Tennis Ball Outift

Rich, Dave and The Ball, originally uploaded by the_wizard?.

I was just sorting out old fancy dress pictures and found this - it's from last year, where we did the 5 Boro Bike Tour (50 miles round New York) dressed as tennis players and a tennis ball.

Has the Internet paralysed your creativity?

I just read some people's notes on Mental Detox Week, most notably, Iain's. Having been pretty much on beaches for 3 months and reading a lot of books about Zen, I have been thinking about this subject a little bit.

I honestly doubt that anyone who uses Facebook, Twitter and IM can do any real creative work at their desk, unless they have elaborate self control strategies.

Let me clarify what I mean by this.

The 2 types of creative process

Synthesis
We might say there are two types of creative work that go on. The first people call synthesis, and it happens whan the brain is in a conscious, thinking mode. For example you have these conversations:

Hey, did you hear about that artist/blogger/kid on YouTube who did XYZ? Why don't we do that, but in some different way using A instead of B, in this new context?

And it turns out to be a great fresh idea for brand PQR.

There is nothing wrong with this, and the reason it works well these days, is because the Internet has given us such a big pool of XYZ, that we can mix it around at quite a superficial level, and it never seems to get played out or tired. People who are good at remembering lots of different things they've seen, or searching for interesting things, will be very good creatives.

Sub-conscious
The other type of creativity, is what Iain called focus. It's definitely a deeper mode of thinking, and here's how it relates to Zen (when did I become such a twat!!!):

No new ideas come from the conscious mind... it can only synthesize images it has already seen. True creativity comes from a state of no-mind, where your thoughts cannot block the unlimited creative potential of your inner being.
Eckharte Toll - The Power of Now

This "state of no-mind" is a state of flow, or being in the zone. The place Ronnie O'Sullivan is when he's doing a 147 or when an artist is working creatively and doesn't have any conscious thoughts. Now, I don't agree about the "no new ideas" thing - it's too tough to argue that anything is a new "idea" rather than a synthesis, but we instinctively know that to create work that's a cut above, we need more of this type of creativity.

When seeking answers, one must quiet the soul in order to hear them.
Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls


Strategies for upping your creative potential

During when I worked at glue, it was just as Facebook status updates became widely used, as well as most people using MSN messenger. At this point I entirely gave up doing any planning thinking work at my desk - I used a pad and pen somewhere quiet, and used my computer to type them up/draw them into PowerPoint. This had the added advantage of making me appear more creative.

If I had an agency, and it had planners or creatives (or similar roles), I would probably insist that they spend at least a third of the time away from their desks. Or something. Anyway I don't have an agency, and if I did it would have animals in it, and not be profitable. But regardless, here is one more smart strategy from Paul Graham:

I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I have a separate laptop on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web. My rule is that I can spend as much time online as I want, as long as I do it on that computer.

He sees this as a strategy of first recognising the problem of wasting loads of time on the Internet:

When I have to sit on the other side of the room to check email or browse the web, I become much more aware of it. Sufficiently aware, in my case at least, that it's hard to spend more than about an hour a day online.

My other thought is about research - doing it first, not as-you-go-along, and doing it properly, with paper, pens and printing things, and annotations. This is so that the stuff can sink into your head, and you can have a flash of inspiration in the shower, or so that you can work on it later away from your computer. I have seen so many junior people in agencies asked to do some research, and come back with just a list of hyperlinks! Bad intern - no job for you.

Jokes aside, I think this is a serious problem for any creative agency right now. What HR or personal strategies are people taking to deal with it? Any good software strategies?

some of my favourite keyboard shortcuts

Apologies for this moderately dorky post (also it's aimed mainly at PC users), but here goes. My computer is my tool for work and sometimes for fun. If it were a pistol, I would be able to reload it really fast.

As it is, I can reformat your Microsoft Excel cells before you can even reach your mouse.

So here are some of my Favourite Keyboard Shortcuts, that are actually useful.

Microsoft Excel - CTRL+1
Bring up the format cells menu palette - where you change the number properties or other properties of cells. This is beyond a doubt the best keyboard shortcut I have ever used.

Microsoft PowerPoint - CTRL+M
Insert new slide. I guess this one feels good because you create another blank canvas with just one keystroke.

Microsoft PowerPoint - CTRl+D
Duplicate selected slide
If you are writing online creative strategy documents, this is a pretty good key.

Generic - WINDOWS KEY+D
Minimise all windows (show desktop). Enough said. PCs have had this for far longer than Exposé has existed.

Generic - CTRL+W
As mac users know, this closes windows. This works in many Windows programs, and it's better than ALT+F4 because it doesn't require you to change your wrist position. Interestingly, using CTRL+Q (quit program) in MS office only works in PowerPoint.

Any more obscure favourites out there?

my new old school stationery

So, I finally decided to take my work as a freelancer seriously, and for this reason, decided that I needed company stationery.

I was going to design headed paper and all that, but then I thought I wanted something a bit different. So I opted to design a wax seal commemorating the inaugural year 2007 for Dead Insect, to use on letters, invoices and estimates.

I got it made at http://www.citycoseals.co.uk/ , just down the road in Hackney. It cost about 25 pounds, the guy hand carved it beautifully. Highly recommended.



Basically, it's brilliant. very indulgent, and very fiddly, and initially you tear all the paper trying to use it. Once I got the hang of it though, it rocked. The smell and texture of sealing wax is beautiful.


you can even see the url perfectly. the whole things is 25mm (one inch) across

I am so obsessed with using it, that I want to send all of you postcards or letters.

Write me with your address, or leave it in the comments, and I will, as soon as I can be bothered, send you a letter or a Moo Postcard (I got a load of these made as Xmas cards, then forgot to send them...!) with a wax seal on it.