Category Archives: Imagination

The Haunting-The Manor Murders

Spooky entrance to haunted neighborhood by the bay. Adobe Stock

It seemed tranquil enough at first sight. It also appeared quite spooky. The residents didn’t seem to mind, after all they were used to it. It was the outsider who would occasionally visit their neighborhood by the sea. It was the outsider who got queasy when he set foot in the neighborhood. It was the outsider who wouldn’t return from whence he came. It could be the outsider who might become a permanent resident if he didn’t end up dead.

You see, the residents were very selective as to whom they invited into their little neighborhood by the bay. It didn’t matter to them that it was haunted. That just added a bit of allure to the area. No, it wasn’t the Twilight Zone. It was just a little haunted neighborhood by the bay.

By what or from whom is it haunted you might ask? There have been rumors scattered around for years but nobody knows for sure. Seems like around the late 19th Century, a shipwreck happened upon the shores of what would become this little neighborhood.

The wreck was the result of a horrendous storm that destroyed the ship and caused the crew to abandon her. As the storm ravaged on, some of the crew was lost at sea with only a handful of them surviving and eventually making it to shore.

Once there, the remaining crew found refuge in an old abandoned shack from where they would ride out the storm.

As the story/rumor goes, the fledgling crew mates did what they could to survive but kept a low profile in the neighborhood. All appeared to be going okay for the neighborhood until about one year later.

That was the year, in fact the exact day, a year later when another massive storm hit the area and completely wiped out many in this shoreline populace. Including the house in which lived the crew mates. The house still stood but the crew was gone.

No signs of anyone, anywhere. No belongings, no nothing. They just vanished.

THREE YEARS LATER

One night as a couple of the residents were out for a stroll, one noticed a distant light coming from one of the houses on the edge of the neighborhood. As they got closer they discovered the light was emanating from the long abandoned house that was vacated after the bad storm several years prior. But how could that be; no one had been living there since the previous and only occupants from the ship wreck and they had completely vanished after the storm hit. They were all thought dead.

Through a bit of trepidation and curiosity, the couple decided to investigate and moved closer to the house. Because the house had been abandoned after the storm and not been kept up, it was in a state of disrepair and looked dilapidated. Nevertheless, the couple nervously managed to walk up to the front steps near the entrance. Then they froze as if they had encountered an invisible wall. They couldn’t move. The only thing they felt was cold, extreme cold as if from a meat storage locker.

Although they stood there frozen in place, they could still see their surroundings but it was as if time itself had stopped. That’s when they saw it. Slowly but ever so gradually the front door began to open. As they stood there they felt the expectation of finally seeing someone answering the door, albeit under very strange circumstances. But as the door creaked open, they saw no one. An empty space in the entrance way.

What to make of this? They didn’t know what to think. Or do. How long would they remain frozen in place?

It seemed like it was just a blink, a millisecond in time before they found themselves inside the house standing unfrozen in the entranceway. Though they could move, they did not. They just stared at one another as if to silently ask “what do we do now?”. They were in total darkness except for a tiny light at the end of the hallway. This couldn’t be the light they saw from outside. That one, they surmised, must have come from the upstairs. But how? Were these lamps, candles set ablaze. There had been no electricity turned on since the storm hit and as far as they knew, the house was abandoned.

Or was it? How were the lights on? Even if the light source was a candle, it would have to be lit. Like it or not, further investigation was in order.

So the couple slowly made their way toward the flickering light at the end of the hall and just as they approached it they suddenly felt immense cold, as if they had walked into a freezer. It was just like they’d experienced when they reached the front door.

Simultaneously at that point the light flickered out and they were standing in complete darkness. But for a moment. There, just a few steps away and up what appeared to be a staircase, flickered another light as if beckoning them up the staircase. Interestingly the cold seemed to immediately dissipate when they began walking upstairs.

But as soon as they approached the light it moved. It was as if someone or something was leading them somewhere and holding the light as they traversed the curving, spiral staircase. Even in this twilight setting they could see no one. The light seemed to be moving on its own, always staying just slightly ahead of the couple.

When they finally arrived at the top of the stairs, they discovered open air, no rooms or walls, save for one partly dilapidated door that lead to an empty, what was left of a bedroom.

The light was still flickering but just barely, given the slight evening breeze from the adjoining bay.

The couple just stood there, frozen, afraid to step anywhere for fear of the timbers giving way. It was at this moment that they felt an uncontrollable sense of movement like they were being pushed toward the large opening on the bay side of the house.

Haunted castle at night, with glowing ghostly figures drifting through the misty air outside. Adobe Stock

There was nothing here but open air and a drop of about 300 feet down to the rocks below. No one could survive that fall. But why were they standing there now, right on the precipice of falling to their death?

They were once again standing there in total darkness. No sound except for the uneasy beating of their hearts. Their pulse raced, blood pressure climbing and anxiety rising to new heights.

Could they have outstayed their uninvited welcome? Did someone want them dead? Who the hell was behind these flickering lights? Was this a convoluted prank or sick joke? In any event they were more than ready to take their leave.

Because of their unsure footing they slowly started backing away from the open air portion of the storm-torn wall and began to turn around and walk out.

That’s when they heard it; a scraggly old voice that sounded more like a whisper.

“Where are you going? You can’t leave now, the party’s just begun. Besides you just got here,” voiced something quite invisible to their eyes. As they were still trying to adjust their eyesight in the dark, a candlelight appeared right in front of them, seemingly floating in mid-air.

There was no one present. This time, though, instead of a rush of very cold air they felt only a slight chill. As if a door had simply opened to the night air.

“Who’s there?” blurted out the man. No one answered.“ I said, ‘who’s there? Show yourself or at least speak and answer me.”

Silence.

Finally, the man turned to his lady friend and urged, “come on, let’s get the hell out of here.”

They began to walk but the flickering light stayed just in front of them, floating in mid-air. Whenever they turned, it turned. Always in front.

When the couple reached out in front of them to see if they would feel anything, all they felt was air; nothing.

“I don’t know who or what you are but we’re leaving; we’ve had enough,” said the man. Just then the light seemed to move out of their way as if to let them by. As the couple made their way out of this “semi death trap” their way out was lit by another floating light.

They made their way safely down the stairwell and into the foyer and out the door. Once outside they stopped and just looked at each other. Totally perplexed but relieved they would now be on their way back home in the neighborhood.

An eerie haunted mansion with shadowy figures peering out of the windows in the night. Adobe Stock

While the couple was walking away, the door gradually closed and the soft sound of quiet laughter could be heard from within the house.

Then a distant voice, “you think they’ll be back?” “Oh, I’m sure of it,” said another voice. “And we’ll be ready.”

***************

Over the course of the next few weeks, the couple queried several of their friends in the neighborhood and told them of their encounter in the apparently abandoned house at the end of the block overseeing the bay. Not one person they talked to knew anything about the house and had understood it had long been empty, that no-one had lived there since before the storm hit.

After one such neighborly conversation, the couple returned to their abode where they had been residing for just the past six months. As they discussed with each other their various conversations with their neighbors, they agreed that something was amiss. No one knew anything and/or no one was talking.The couple suspected their neighbors knew more than they were letting on.

During these last few weeks the conversations with their neighbors did reveal circumstances about the shipwreck over a year ago and that some survivors did make it onshore to seek cover from the storm. It was at this time that the survivors sought refuge in the old house at the end of the neighborhood. This fact was confirmed by the neighbors who recalled that time. After that, however, no one could recall anything. On this topic the neighborhood grew silent.

As the couple thought back on their eerie encounter inside the house, they began to wonder if they hadn’t experienced the presence of the survivors in ghostly form. They didn’t really believe in that sort of thing but at this point it seemed a viable explanation. Or one very elaborate hoax. But why? And, what’s with the neighborhood acting clueless?

One thing was sure: The couple wouldn’t get any clarification from their neighbors. They’d have to further investigate on their own. So, by mid morning the next day the couple set out to walk down the neighborhood “streets” – if you could call dirty, muddy avenues streets – to end up at the old house on the edge of the neighborhood overlooking the bay. They anticipated a different experience that time of the morning in contrast to their initial visit late at night.

Before they even got near the house, they thought it was extremely odd that the neighborhood was so quiet. There wasn’t a soul stirring, no dogs barking, nobody out for a morning jog. There was . . . no life at all present. It was as if everyone and everything had died.

As the couple approached the house, the hairs on the back of their necks rose up and a genuine sense of anxiety increased within them. When they got to the front door, they stopped cold. They heard voices, although somewhat muted, coming from inside. It sounded like a gathering of people were having some sort of meeting. They knocked, politely of course, but no one answered. Then the door creaked open ever so slightly so they cautiously opened it and stepped in. There was no one inside and no noise whatsoever. What happened to all those voices? Where had they gone?

As they stood there in the foyer, seeing nothing, they heard a voice very distinctly say, ” Welcome. Nice to see you again. We’re having a little get-together of the neighborhood and discussing future plans for the area. Won’t you come in and join us?”. The couple hadn’t moved but said, “uh, sure, we’d love to join you.”

As they both continued walking into what appeared to be nothingness, the man let out an agonizing groan and immediately dropped to his knees. His wife, looking on with startled amazement, gasped as she saw a huge silver sword driven into her husband’s abdomen. Not knowing what to do at that instant, she started to kneel down beside him when he let out an horrific scream as another silver, razor-sharp sword was being thrust into his back, killing him instantly. As he fell to his side, she tried to embrace him but looked up at where she thought someone stood above her and yelled out, “Why in God’s name have you done this? What did we ever do to you?”.

The invisible voice soon took shape, as did the rest of the characters in the room, and remarked “We want to welcome you two into our neighborhood. Our neighborhood of ghostly beings, our disembodied souls who still want to live and rejoice.”

As the woman muttered, “but I don’t understand; why did you have to kill my husband?” “Simple,” the ghost said; “you need to be dead before you can enter into our neighborhood.” Just then the woman muttered in disbelief, “but I’m not dead.” Upon hearing that, the rest of the gathering shouted back to her, “Yet, deary, but you soon will be.”

Looking upon them with mystified horror, the woman, still bending down beside her dead husband, started to say something when everything went black. No noise, no voices, no feeling. She was numb except for an unknown sense of disembodiment. Turns out she hadn’t felt when her head left her body as it rolled down the floor in the foyer. She subsequently collapsed right beside her dead husband, blood spilling profusely from her body.

The “main ghostly figure” proudly announced to the group, “Behold, the newest members of our neighborhood. We shall call them Joe and Karen, such a sweet couple.” The group responded with an energetic round of applause. One of the ghost members added, “they will make such a nice contribution to our neighborhood.”

And with that the applause continued, thundering down the hallway into the misty night air. The Manor by the bay had done its job. The neighborhood would grow quiet again. Until the next time . . .

The neighborhood by the bay and its ghostly appearance at night is quiet for now.
Adobe Stock

For other stories of mystery and the macabre, check out my collection at ideasnmore.net/gallery

We All Need a Little Spark of Creativity.

Adobe Stock

A few weeks ago I read a piece from the New York Times about a man who cultivated his creativity at a young age. While we all may not echo his circumstances, we can sure learn from them. Every one of us needs a little spark of creativity now and then to make life a wee bit more interesting . . . And fun.

*****

Last May, my father-in-law showed up at my house with a child-size drum set in his trunk. That might make some parents shudder, but I was thrilled. I was a drummer when I was younger, with a set just like this one, and now my 7-year-old son could follow in my footsteps.

I’ve learned two things in the year since. First, you can’t force your kids to like the things you like; my son has probably played those drums for 15 minutes total. More important, though, I learned that I wasn’t a former drummer. I’m still a drummer. Even though I hadn’t engaged that part of my brain in years, my trips downstairs to do laundry now usually include a few minutes bashing on that little drum set. I’m not making beautiful music — just ask my neighbors — but I’m having a great time. Every little session leaves me feeling energized.

That spark of creativity is something my colleagues at Well, The Times’s personal health and wellness section, think everyone could use more of. Starting tomorrow, they’ve got a five-day challenge that aims to help readers nurture their creative side. I spoke with Elizabeth Passarella, the writer behind the project, to learn more.

After years away from the drums, I’ve been shocked by how good it feels to make music. Why is that?

What you feel is what many of us feel when we do something creative: giddy and inspired. Whether you do something more traditionally creative, like draw or play music, or riff on a recipe because you were out of an ingredient, it gives you a little boost. And there is plenty of research that links creativity to happiness and better moods.

Some people reading this are gifted painters and musicians, I’m sure. But others would probably say that they don’t have much artistic talent. What would you say to them?

You are all creative in some way. There’s a definition of creativity that researchers use: generating something novel that is also useful. That could be the score to a movie. It could also be, as one expert told me, a brilliant solution to keeping your dog out of a certain area of your house. Or making up a weird game to play with your toddler.

Basically, anybody can be creative at any time.

Yes. And it might come more naturally to some of us. But it’s a skill you can practice and grow. Several researchers I spoke to emphasized how curiosity — just being open to something new or asking questions — is a hallmark of being creative. We can all nurture that.

[Note:: I have an avid curiosity and a sometimes warped sense of humor].

Part of the goal here, I know, is to help people actually get over the hump and do a creative new thing. How does that happen?

Every day, we give you a short exercise that’s a warm-up for your brain. Kind of like a stretch. And we tell you the aspect of creative thinking that it’s demonstrating, some of which you probably already do but just don’t realize. For example, having constraints when you are problem-solving can improve your solutions. It’s why I write snappier articles when my editors give me word counts (which they always do). On the day we talk about constraints, we’ll ask you to write a poem using only certain words we provide. I love that challenge. You’ll see one of my poems as an example. Be nice.

I’m sure your poetry is just as good as my drumming. Before this project, did you consider yourself a creative person?

[Note: I agree with what he says; I’ve been an advertising creative director, copywriter, and currently a freelance writer]

Absolutely. I’m a journalist, I write books and I have no other employable skills. Writing is the only job I’ve ever had, so honestly, learning techniques to get out of a rut and knowing I can grow my own creativity feels like I’ve gained a little job security. (Haha, just kidding. There’s no job security in writing.) But in all seriousness, before reporting this story, I would have said that creativity always alights on you, like a muse. I learned that, no, you can work at it. That makes me excited and hopeful.

I hope all you creative and soon-to-be creatives get something from this article. After all, a part of creativity is sharing about creativity. Have fun, guys!

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.

By Tom Wright-Piersanti, an editor on The Morning.

A Few Quotes to Feed Your Soul.

When executing advertising, it’s best to think of yourself as an uninvited guest in the living room of a prospect who has the magical power to make you disappear instantly. — John O’Toole, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself. — David Ogilvy, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Creative imagination — the lamp that lit the world — can light our lives.– Alex F. Osborn, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes. — Philip Dusenberry, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world, it will come through the expression of your own personality, that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature. — Bruce Barton, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

The soft stuff is always harder than the hard stuff. — Roger A. Enrico, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Let us blaze new trails. Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art and good writing can be good selling. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Creative people thrive in environments that stimulate and reward original thinking — where freedom is valued and controls are kept to a minimum. — Keith Reinhard, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything. — David Ogilvy, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Know what the client wants, know what the client needs, and know how to cause the client to want what the client needs. — Keith Reinhard, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Anyone who thinks that people can be fooled or pushed around has an inaccurate and pretty low estimate of people — and he won’t do very well in advertising. — Leo Burnett, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for selected short stories and personal insights on life and its detours.

Creativity Without Productivity?

Though I’m not sure where I first read this post, I believe its author is a designer named Noah Kay. It intrigued me so I thought I’d pass it on to my fellow creatives, and those who want to be.

I’ve always considered myself a “creative person”. I’ve always been into art, always had a deep appreciation for it. Paintings, drawings, sculpture, music, writings, movies, games, you name it. I have a distinct appreciation for all of them and the uniqueness for what each can accomplish only in their own medium. Eventually design was tacked onto that list and became seriously entrenched in the idea of doing it for a living. And now that’s what I do. I’m a designer, for my real life job, right now in this timeline.

I feel like there’s something I need to create. Something I need to make on almost this instinctual level, but nothing really seems to really hit this imaginary mark I seem to have created for myself.

Looking back I feel like so many outlets for my creativity throughout my life have been rooted in some sort of need for productivity surrounding work or potential work: Highschool and college classes giving out artistic or design related assignments, pursuits for the prospect of getting a specific type of job, or to potentially expand my skills of a job I already have.

I told myself that I want to “get back to making things just for me” about a year ago now, since I was in a “creative rut” for a good 3 years beforehand. Well, less of a rut and more of a prison.

My previous job would leave me so exhausted that the idea of coming home and working on endeavors that didn’t melt my brain was not in the cards. Brain was out of gas. But because I wanted out of my then job, I forced myself to other things. But many of those things were for the purpose of getting a different job or furthering my career: Working for non-profits, honing my skills in After Effects to be able to add that extra bullet point on my resume, working on my portfolio endlessly to make it feel like something I both don’t hate and recruiters don’t hate.

I didn’t entirely hate what I was doing since I had a bit more creative freedom in choosing and executing on these projects, but there was still this veneer of “these things need to make me hirable”. That same veneer was on school projects made through the relatively narrow framework we’re taught in design school. The same veneer was on the extremely restricted world of haphazard corporate design that suffocated me for almost 3 years.

What drew me to design in the first place was the artistic side, which has been beaten out of so much of what we see today. I’ve always loved looking through old design history books, looking at techniques and pieces from non-European designers, seeing how people crack and break that Unimark-crafted framework that has been beaten into us by both big money and Eurocentric dominance influencing design curriculum.

This is the first time in my life that I don’t desperately want to leave my job, I don’t have any mandated assignments to finish, I don’t have any mandated guidelines to follow. And honestly I think that’s why I’m feeling this way because to be honest, I’ve never done my design work like this before. Photography has always kind of been my “fuck around and find out” medium of choice, but applying that same mode of thinking to a form of creativity which I have done my entire life in the exact opposite way is…more difficult.

I think that’s why I’ve been trying other things I haven’t done before too, like this whole “writing” thing I’ve been doing sporadically or even making a couple of YouTube videos that I hope people never see. Mentally breaking that restriction of “will making this get me a job” as the primary motive for whether I go pursuing a project or not. This general sense of aimlessness has me throwing darts at the proverbial dartboard to see if trying something else completely unrelated will tick that box I’m desperately trying to erase.

I tell other people things like this in regards to creativity all the time, “if you like it and you want to try it then fuck it dude, ball out. go nuts. see what happens.” and I really need to start taking my own advice here.

I don’t need to know why, I don’t need to rationalize it, I don’t need to be “productive”, I just need to make.

Where this fellow is a designer, I’m a writer with design instincts. I can relate to a lot of what he says, especially the corporate aspect.

To my readers, I hope you get something out of this as well.

Transition: At What Stage Are You?

We all go through it at one time or another in our life. For some of us, more times than we may realize. I’ve been going through a major one now for the past three years; and one before that; and one before that, and, well, you get the idea.

I recently attended a webinar hosted by my friend Peleg Top dealing with transition and creativity. Borrowing some from what Peleg presented, “Transitions can be subtle or can shake us to our core. Unless we have the tools to navigate through these challenging periods, we may find ourselves stuck and unable to move forward.

“For most of us, facing change and transition comes with much fear and anxiety. We tend to overthink the process, worrying about the unknown future and in that space we tend to forget that change has great potential for growth, innovation, and renewal. It involves developing a mindset that values flexibility, open-mindedness, and a willingness to step out of comfort zones.”

In his TED talk The Secret to Mastering Life’s Biggest Transitions, Bruce Feiler identifies three stages that represent the emotional and psychological journey we go through when we face significant changes.

This framework can apply to different types of transitions, like career changes, relationship changes, relocating to a new place, or even coping with loss.

The first stage is the long goodbye

This stage has a mix of emotions, including denial, sadness, anger, and confusion. This is a time of reflection on your experiences, your identity, the roles you played, and the expectations that will no longer be part of your life.

The key to navigating this stage is acceptance and allowing oneself to grieve for what is being lost, recognizing it as a necessary step for moving forward.

The second stage is the messy middle

This is the phase where the old has been left behind, but the new has not yet fully taken shape. This is the stage where we often encounter confusion, doubt, and questioning.

You may struggle with your sense of self, not knowing exactly who you are in the absence of the roles and identities you’ve left behind. This is a time of experimentation, making mistakes, learning, and gradually gaining clarity.

The messy middle requires patience, resilience, and the willingness to embrace the unknown as an crucial part of the transition process.

The third stage is called The New Beginning

This stage has a renewed sense of purpose, clarity, and optimism. You start to establish new routines, form new relationships, and fully engage with your new reality.

This stage is a time of growth, accomplishment, and excitement for the future. This stage  requires an open heart and mind, as well as the courage to step into the unknown with confidence.

I think I must still have one foot in the Messy Middle and the other foot in the New Beginning. However, it’s not uncommon for us to feel a presence in all three.

Next up in the webinar was a discussion of values and its two types, namely Life and Operational. Life values are those we have for the long term, what we want out of life. Operational values are those we have to attain our long term values. These traits help us get through the transitions we encounter. My three main ones are adaptability, curiosity and creativity.

From a list of about thirty or more Operational values, we were asked to pick six that resonate with us. My six: Flexibility, Competency, Honesty, Humor, Creativity and Discipline. I then narrowed these down to three that meant the most to me, namely Honesty, Humor and Creativity. Out of these, I chose Creativity, which really resonates with me.

My six Life values are: Happiness, Health, Family, Wealth, Wisdom and Fellowship. The three meaning the most to me are Happiness, Health and Fellowship, with Happiness being the one truly resonating with me.

Creativity is very important to me because it resonates with my internal being. It can lead to better times. Happiness can happen by way of creativity and flexibility. I need to further explore how best I can attain true happiness.

Borrowing again from Peleg’s webinar about creativity’s role in transition, Creativity can support us in every stage of change, offering comfort in the Long Goodbye, guidance in the Messy Middle, and celebration in the New Beginning.

Creativity has the potential  to become your true guide, Peleg says, lighting the way forward as you step into the unknown, ready for change, growing stronger and more adaptable with every transition.

So no matter what stage of change you are meeting yourself in these days, Peleg suggests your creativity is a powerful ally in this journey. Your creativity can build bridges over obstacles, turning challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation.

He concludes by saying that as you embrace your creativity as your guide, you will discover that within you lies the power to face any change, to navigate through any transition, and to emerge on the other side ready to paint the canvas of your life with the vibrant colors of your newfound insights.

Without creativity my life would be truly without merit. When I tap into my creativity, it’s like I’m tapping into my seventh sense, a new form of being. It helps me on my life’s journey to become more than I can on my own. It’s a living, breathing, vital part of my soul. It’s up to me to keep it alive.

How is creativity playing a part in your life? Have you embraced it as a vital partner?

 

Note: This post was previously published in Joe’s Journey.

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out various creative selections from ideasnmore.net.

Jolan tru!

Kick Start Your Creativity

Some times we all need a kick in the pants to get our creative juices to start flowing. Perhaps the attachments in this post will help in that regard. I wrote these years ago in preparation for some speaking engagements. Given their nature, I’d bet they’re still valid today.

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from ideasnmore.net.

Jolan tru!

 

It’s that time of the month again . . .

. . . when we see and read what others have said that made an impact. May these quotes bring about an impact for you as well. Enjoy!

 

All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ― Thomas Alva Edison

Nothing comes merely by thinking about it. — John Wanamaker, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief. – Gerry Spence

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. – George Washington Carver

Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature—all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won. – Twyla Tharp

Chaos is the only thing that honestly wants you to grow. The only friend who really helps you be creative. — Dan Wieden, member Advertising Hall of Fame

What we are doing is satisfying the American public. That’s our job. I always say we have to give most of the people what they want most of the time. That’s what they expect from us. — William Paley, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Advertising is what you do when you can’t go see somebody. That’s all it is. — Fairfax Cone, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. – Arthur C. Clarke

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from ideasnmore.net.

Jolan tru!

At the Intersection of Curiosity and Creativity

Seems like I’ve run across a number of articles over the past month or so dealing with a variety of topics in the realm of creativity. This posting is no different, and, yet, it is, uh, different. While many may find it difficult to define what creativity is, many will no doubt have an easy time knowing about curiosity. While everyone is curious, not everyone sees themselves as creative. Well, maybe this post will alter your perspective.

An article I recently came across by Helge Tennø discusses what happens at the intersection of creativity and curiosity, and what doesn’t happen.

He states the reason we struggle to come up with original ideas is not for a lack of creativity but a lack of curiosity.

“Every year we go into the same room with the same information and the same questions .. what do you think happens? Every year we come out with the same ideas” — frustrated workshop facilitator.

Creativity is limited to what we already know, it is only the re-combination of available information and experience. Creativity is not magic, it doesn’t produce ideas out of thin air.

In addition, most competitors think the same way, because they use the same methods and the same questions to find the same insights.

Outperforming your competition is not as much about who is the most creative or who has the deepest data. It’s as much about who can see something nobody else can.

Currently the trend is to apply a lot of data to buy our way out of this problem. Hoping that the machine will magically see connections our human brains can’t.

But machines are only reflections of our own values, ideas and biases. If we are staring down one rabbit hole the machine will only help us dig deeper.

We should therefore redesign our creative workshops. From combining information into ideas, to exploring questions we need to ask and information we don’t have.

There is a simple way to unlock this behavior: just ask “what has to be true for x to be true”, where x is your strategy, an existing product, something you are already doing .. anything.

One of the most productive ways to learn something new is experimentation.

The purpose of an experiment is not to confirm that you are correct (sometimes it is), but it should most often be used to surprise you.

To help you learn something that you didn’t know two minutes prior.

And the way to do that is to reduce the cost of an experiment to almost zero (because if experiments are expensive the organization will more likely prioritize experiments confirming their existing knowledge).

“The real measure of success is the number of experiments that can be crowded into 24 hours.” — Thomas Alva Edison

With cheap and fast experiments the company can explore hypotheses and assumptions they never tested before, learn new things, capture new insights, venture into new areas.

With their new learnings they can combine both information they never had before with questions they never asked before.

“Researchers suggest it is uncertainty, or when you think you know something then discover you don’t, that leads to curiosity and learning outcomes.” — Celeste Kidd, assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.

In short:

We only know what we know, and we know very little. (But we know a lot more than we think we do.)

We need to shift our focus from creativity to insights and questions. And experimentation is a low hanging fruit and one of the fastest tracks we can use to get us there.

Recommended places to start your experimentation journey:

(4). Experimentation works, Stefan H. Thomke

(5). How managers can build a culture of experimentation, Frank V. Cespedes and Neil Hoyne

(6). Why Business Schools Need to Teach Experimentation, by Elizabeth R. Tenney, Elaine Costa, and Ruchi M. Watson

(7). Get Comfortable Breaking Your Product, Rik Higham

 

While I agree with most of what the author states, creativity should always embrace insights and questions. Creativity is not borne out of thin air but rather from the insights and experiences we have within us. Curiosity can definitely spur on creativity and vice versa.

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!

From Rod Serling to Frank Lloyd Wright

Here they are again, quotes for November this time. As usual they represent a variety of viewpoints from various folks, some better known than others. Enjoy!

 

The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time. — Rod Serling

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance. — Bruce Barton, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Advertising promotes that divine discontent which makes people strive to improve their economic status. — Ralph Starr Butler, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Brands that keep us invisible to appease anti-LGBTQ activists … are missing a future generation of consumers and employees who demand that brands include LGBTQ people and other diverse communities in authentic and organic ways. — Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD’s president and CEO, as quoted by MediaPost Communications

It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one. — Alex Osborne, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Violence does not spring from a vacuum. It’s born out of other men’s violence. It gets nurtured and it grows in a soil of prejudice and of hate and of bigotry. ~Rod Serling

Fun without sell gets nowhere, but sell without fun tends to become obnoxious. — Leo Burnett, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

An important idea not communicated persuasively is like having no idea at all. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

When we are too timid to risk failure, we reduce the opportunities to succeed. And we eliminate the chance to learn. — Keith Reinhard, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

An idea is salvation by imagination. – Frank Lloyd Wright

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!

If Opinions Can Live In A Silo, Can Creativity?

Over the past few weeks I’ve shared several articles on trending topics in advertising and marketing and what they say or imply about creativity. This week’s blog is really no different. This time around I came across an opinion piece I thought interesting and, yes, I wanted to share their view.

Ernie Schenck argues that creatives must put their politics and biases aside to tap into their full potential. This is obviously easier said than done. Is that realistic, you might ask? Doubtful, you might say. Well, in either case, what say you? After you read this blog, let me know your thoughts.

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Recently, I (Ernie) came across a post on LinkedIn in which the author claimed to have sworn off news for three years. Wait, what? Three years of no news? No Chicago Tribune or New York Times or San Francisco Chronicle. Three years without Fox or Morning Brew or MSNBC or NPR or Politico. No nothing. For three years.

Crazy, right?

Who pulls the plug on the news? Madness. If a bus in California went off a cliff last night, if another one of Elon Musk’s rockets blew up trying to land on its feet, if a few thousand people got their stomachs pumped after an encounter with a bean burrito at Chipotle, well, we’d need to know that. Wouldn’t we?

We might, but the evidence is pretty solid that our brains might not. As any neuroscientist will tell you, the human brain is neuroplastic. That means it has a tendency to change the way it thinks according to the ideas and attitudes that surround it.

If those ideas and attitudes are positive, then the brain sees things through a positive lens. Subject it to a steady diet of negative stuff, and bingo: suddenly, it starts seeing everything, and I mean everything, through a dark lens that can influence how you perceive your family, your friends, the people you work with and—if you’re in a creative field, this is the scary part—your creative ability.

But it’s possible something might be smothering your creative powers even more than the Debbie Downer we call the news. Something so insidious, it could be sucking the creative energy out of you at this very moment, and you’d never even suspect it. Even worse, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it unless we’re ready to loosen our grip on our opinions.

Why is that?

Creativity has to be unbound. It has to be free to go here and go there, uninfluenced by anything that could keep it from pursuing a particular path. If I believe Republicans are hateful, narrow-minded mouth breathers, if I believe that Democrats are elitist, holier-than-thou snobs, if I’m absolutely dug in on the idea that television is only screwy, branded entertainment and social media is rotting our brains, then the scope of my thinking is limited. We might think we can put our personal biases in a box. We might think we can keep them from seeping into our work. And maybe some of us can. But most of us? Not likely.

Creativity has to be unbound. It has to be free to go here and go there, uninfluenced by anything that could keep it from pursuing a particular path.

When you’re a creative director, you see this all the time. A team comes in. They’ve got some ideas they want to run by you. As they go through the work, you can’t help but think: OK, just like I don’t want to see the strategy bleeding through, I don’t want to see that East Coast intelligentsia thing bleeding through either. The same way I don’t want to see that red state thing if you’re in, say, Texas. In both cases, opinion leaks into the work. It skews things. It forces you to miss paths, blinded by your biases. And that’s a problem.

What this suggests is that the most creatively liberated people are the ones who don’t have a stubborn point of view on anything. It’s called “intellectual humility,” the willingness to recognize that knowledge is fallible and that no one possesses absolute understanding of any subject or issue. When you’re intellectually fluid, anything is possible.

Dogs and cats are both great. Red is as good as blue or purple or chartreuse. Vanilla? Pistachio? Praline fudge? Yes. Yes. And yes. You’re open to anything, so you’re open to any ideas—no matter how odd or quirky or misshapen—that might bubble up into your consciousness. In theory at least, you cannot be your most openminded, creatively untethered self unless you can truly empathize with other perspectives.

Few people are capable of this, as you can imagine, and creatives are no different. We think dogs are cool and cats are freaks. Beyoncé rules, and Sheeran is overrated. Steak is good, and tofu is, well, what was it our mothers used to say? If you can’t say something nice…

All that said, maybe you can convince me that I’m wrong about all of this. Maybe you can stuff your opinions away so that they won’t send your work off in one direction or another. Maybe you can do that. And I promise, I’ll try to remain open to the possibility that you could be right. But I don’t believe it. 

Ernie Schenck is a freelance writer, a creative director and a regular contributor to CA’s Advertising column.

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To begin with, I’m not sure that opinions can or do live in a silo. Creativity? True, the more one isolates, the more limited is creativity. I should know. I’m living that now and have been for the past few years. But that doesn’t mean creativity is dead in that environment. Creativity does need room to flourish, no question. Realistically, though, creativity will always be doing some sort of battle with outside influencers. That’s just life. However, they need to be kept to a minimum.

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!