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The Benefits of Failure & Importance of Imagination

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. (via harvardmagazine.com)

Articles Ideation

Random Rules for Ideas

Written by Rick van der Wal in February 2010

It’s the reason I still use iGoogle as my homepage. Even when I don’t have the energy to browse through 700 items in my RSS feed I still get random lines from some of my favorite blogs, one of my most favorite being the Seth Godin Blog. Today he surprised me with a list of ‘Random rules for ideas worth spreading’ and I’ve noted down a few of my favorites, just as a reminder to myself.

Think big. Bigger than that.
Are you a serial idea-starting person? If so, what can you change to end that cycle? The goal is to be an idea-shipping person.
Waiting for inspiration is another way of saying that you’re stalling. You don’t wait for inspiration, you command it to appear.
Don’t poll your friends. It’s your art, not an election.
Be prepared for the Dip.
The hard part is finishing, so enjoy the starting part.

Most of these ‘rules’ are about finishing an idea – seeing it through to the end (or in case of the ‘the Dip‘, knowing when to quit).

Read the rest of the list over on Seth’s blog, there’s more than a few left worth reading! (and yes this was a little bit of a Seth Godin fanpost but I really feel he’s on a role lately with the ’shipping’ thing!)

Books gtd

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Written by Rick van der Wal in January 2010

Initially, I picked up this book just for the sheer brilliance of its title. As it turned out it was the right book at the right time as well. The War of Art is about realizing your ideas, and with that you creative potential. Steven Pressfield, bestselling author of fiction novels ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’ and ‘Gates of Fire’ reveals his secrets ‘to getting things done’ by dissecting the element of ‘resistance’, the thing standing between you and putting your creativity into practice.

“There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.”

The reason this book worked for me was because it didn’t focus on the solution, but on the problem. It effectively speaks to the inner nay-sayer in all of us that sabotages your ideas the moment they threaten to become to real.

Loved it because:

The War of Art provides great context for a recognizable problem, drawing a beautiful metaphor with ‘The Art of War’ – overcoming your fears and knowing your ‘enemy’.
The author speaks from experience and has a very credible record writing multiple best-sellers
It manages to inspire effectively with the use of good examples and quotes, making it a real page-turner

You might not like it because:

The Art of War is an almost philosophical approach to creativity and ‘getting things done’. If you are looking for real ‘GTD methods’ this book offers not many ‘tangible’ pointers to put ideas into practice (and see them get done to the end).

See this book on amazon.com »

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Creativity is Art, is it?

Many people believe that creativity is something you either have or you don’t, and if you are amongst the happy few, you’ll use your creativity to create difficult art the general public won’t understand but your creative counterparts will love.
But; creativity is of vital importance to every act you’ll ever do. Art or no art. [...]

“When you begin a picture, you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it over several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery the artist does not really suppress it, but rather transforms it, condenses it, makes it more substantial.”

~ Pablo Picasso

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Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain

Bestselling author and entrepreneur Seth Godin outlines a common creative affliction: sabotaging our projects just before we show them to the world. Godin targets our “lizard brain” as the source of these primal doubts, and implores us to “thrash at the beginning” of projects so that we can ship on time and on budget.

Articles Creativity

The Box: Why Brainstorms Fail

Written by Martin in't Veld in October 2009

According to legend there is a magical place where all ideas are good and creative. This place is easy to reach, many know the secret and are happy to tell you how to get there in brightly lit rooms on Thursday afternoons.

“We need ideas and we need them now”, everyone nods in agreement, they know it’s business time. And so the fellowship sets on its journey to this mythical Valhalla of ideas…

“Thank you all for coming, I know you’re busy with your own projects but I invited you to brainstorm with our team today. I expect creativity, and I really want you to think outside the box on this one.”

And so it begins, a journey to The Outside Of The Box: a place of infinite creativity. Read the rest of this article »

Cinema design

Tim Brown urges designers to ‘Think Big’

Tim Brown says the design profession is preoccupied with creating nifty, fashionable objects — even as pressing questions like clean water access show it has a bigger role to play. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory “design thinking.”

“One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests.”

~ John Stuart Mill

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Sir Ken Robinson on Talent and Passion

Sir Ken Robinson at Creative Company Conference in Amsterdam talks about his new book ‘The Element’. A book about discovering and applying ‘passion’. The things that drives you, motivates you, and essentially makes you valuable. Sir Ken Robinson applies this in the context of our educational system, developing and educating in talent.