Ever hear of someone’s fantastic exploits of a trip to some far off place, how they ran a 5K, climbed Everest or just finished their first novel? Ever sit back in admiration and debrief, saying, “Damn, I wish I could do that!” Well, I hope you have! I have. Its what keeps me inspired! It is what compels me to push on. Maybe it’s a muse, or a healthy sense of competition, I don’t really know. But, I hope you have been inspired to do the same. What separates you from that person you so admire, that person who freezes you in amazement? Most likely their awesome motivation and determination. Nothing super human! Characteristics that we all possess, aspects we can all hone. In almost all cases, what they achieved wasn’t borne of genetic freakism or defeating some insurmountable origin story. Most likely it just took them doing something, doing anything. Setting goals and meeting them, rinse, repeat. Don’t be discouraged. And if you are, use that as fuel to succeed. Everyone always talks about wanting to win the lottery; no one ever wants to earn the lottery. Go be a winner yourself. If you see something great, or someone doing something great, be inspired. If you don’t have that in your life, then find it. Ignore that instinct to be protect yourself with excuses. Instead, Get inspired. Sometimes shit happens—other times you can MAKE SHIT HAPPEN.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
- Zig Ziglar

Be Cool and Eat Fruit!

Research shows that infusing art into STEM learning can actually cultivate a culture that embraces science, technology, engineering and math, but with a creative engine to power it all forward. Idit Harel Caperton illustrates that this is not just a hypothesis, but a reality worth embracing.

STEM learning—that is, education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—could well benefit from an infusion of art and design. Adding an A for art to STEM would give our technical and scientific education “some steam,” said my MIT colleague John Maeda…

The possible combination of left brain and right brain processing would allow logical, systematic approaches uninhibited due to the imaginative process instigated by creative pathos. By allowing students to experiment in the realm of video game development, they not only touch all aspects of STEM, but by virtue of the medium, approach the whole affair through the spectacles of an artist.

Teaching students the principles of STEM with a dollop of art integrates procedure that, educationally speaking, is lacking:

…in another school, Team Furyunleash22, designed a game team members called Paleo Quest. Early in their game design process, these Globaloria students learned to draw their game concepts, videotape the concepts, and test their game structure with future players. Based on the critique they receive on their prototype, Team Furyunleash22 modified their ideas. They learned to move from an idea to drawing a prototype, then to designing an interactive demo that shows how the game will look and work.

Too often, the cocoon of art experimentation exists in a vaccuum. While fun and certainly a fertile ground for making mistakes and thus learning from them, as sophistication in artistic attributes grow, implementing a workflow—moving from sketching, prototyping, and then designing—is an essential element, as of now, only staring to come to fruition.

I’m an advocate in not only teaching knowledge, but also the principles by which that knowledge can blossom. Caperton’s pursuit in turning STEM learning into STEAM learning is one I fully appreciate and I look forward to hearing more about the development of this initiative.

by Jason Andrichyn

Ok, so now you have your groundbreaking song and you have people listening to your music. I think it is safe to say that your fans will want to hear you and your songs in an experience that they won’t be able to forget. Are you ready? Let’s find out. Perhaps the band meets up to rehearse songs, once a week, twice a week? What about the show? How long do you practice? How do you practice? These are essential elements I see missing from bands that are looking to cross over to mainstream and what holds them back. Some bands think that having a live show locked down to every movement takes away from the live experience or lessens the truthfulness of the show. Could it? Yes it can do that if it is not done properly. So can going on stage and fumbling around or playing out of sync and allowing your audience to take you unprofessionally. Bottom line is that you have to practice you have to learn your band and the movements. Put on an exciting show, practice so much that even a rehearsed show looks nature and happening on the spot and don’t be afraid to practice with issues that may arise when performing so you and the band are ready for them when they are most likely to happen at some point.

by Dan Waldron

That is what I have been experiencing lately! Quite literally actually. Just five short weeks ago I witnessed life, my first-born. I realized, as we get yanked into this world the first action we take is to find our voice. A deafening roar announces our arrival!

As we go on in life we grow, collect experiences, and with hope, knowledge from those experiences. Do we continue to scream and announce our presence? Do we continue to find our voice? Some of us may. Some of us may also let that shrill turn to a mumble, a whisper, a sigh. Why?

We can lose our voice for many reasons: fear, laziness, boredom—or worst—our inability to muster up the courage to speak up. However timid that voice becomes it is important not to lose passion. Treat your passion like any relationship in your life. Keep things fresh, grow and evolve, trust and believe, and it’s always best to keep it honest.

Here are some tips I find keeps my head in the game when I need inspiration, if I am juggling too many assignments or when I am just feeling unoriginal and stale.

VISIT YOUR FRIENDS AND COMPETITION

Visit the blogs of artist that inspire you. I often feel most inspired when visiting an artist blog and get to see behind the curtain. Often seeing another artist’s process or work gets me inspired. For me it’s my morning coffee. I have a bag full of artist blogs I visit every morning to refresh me, inspire me and stoke my competitive fire.

‘AIM HIGH WILLIS!’

Goals. Man, setting goals can be fulfilling when attained and deflating when fumbled. Keep the goals honest and realistic. Just like working out don’t let the goal be too easy. Aim for a height that is just above that comfort level each time. Allow for breaks before you over exert yourself. Allow time for rest and to reset.

‘I PICK THIS UP, THEN I PUT THIS DOWN!’

Taking breaks! In these breaks its important to decompress, but be sure not to over indulge. I’m not saying that grabbing a few beers is a bad idea, but stay productive. I find it best to grab snack and do a few short sets of a workout. Get all of the blood that has pooled in my ass and legs from hours of designing moving back up to the other parts of my body. Getting some fresh air reawakens the artist in me and staring at a new environment is crucial for your health and sanity.

F*CK YOU, PAY ME!

Just like in business: pay yourself first. Keep a project on the side that is just for you. One that you can revisit weekly, daily whenever you need. I find that doing work that isn’t for yourself can sometimes be soul crushing. Its good to keep a project, journal, sketch book so that you can keep your own sanity. I personally like to keep a sketchbook of daily drawings that I do at lunch or at that seventh inning stretch in the day. Set aside time to pay yourself back.

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE … ER, ONCE

Don’t forget to live. Do something completely different. Don’t take yourself to seriously. Climb a tree, commit a few misdemeanors or invent a new position.

Go experience some LIFE.

Stay tuned.

by Jason Andrichyn

For the past few years I have had the privilege of working with a lot of very talented musicians, audio engineers and producers. During this time I noticed some major traits separating the average local band from a band that captures your attention keeping the music and performance locked in your mind—to a point in which you think you are never going to get that experience to dislodge from your head.

Music is the most important part of this package because without the music, or more importantly without your creative expression, there is no product. What does walking on water with your music mean and why do you need it? Simply put, it is taking your entire musical outlook and pushing the boundaries of what you thought you could do with a song. It means helping to mold you and your band into the exact moment the crowd remembers your name and most importantly, your music.

Let’s start from the top: the core of what you and potentially your band is doing. Writing songs does not equate writing for the intent of selling records. Writing lyrics is not synonymous with groupies following twitter posts. You need to feel your music as well as be proud of it. Say something. Express your emotions. Don’t be afraid of being vulnerable or what other people might think. You want your crowd to be into what you put out there, but if you don’t feel your music – nobody else will. When you write your song, don’t be afraid of creative criticism. Looking for people to help improve your song doesn’t mean it’s not good or it needs to be changed. Find people who worked with music, those people that really are capable of giving you that outer-body experience you crave. And learn from them. Grow from them.

The right producers won’t change your music. They will help the song grow. They will allow you to gain exposure, to meet a greater audience. The first way to make your music walk on water.

A Creative’s Struggle to Feel Human

by Phillip Le

I am amazed at the situations I find myself in, sometimes extravagant, other times surprising, and from time to time, enlightening. Mundanity sets in, for sure, and I think that this feeling grows as we find ourselves more capable of escaping it. Ever read a book and wish that you were doing what they were? Or watch a movie and find an instant twinge of nostalgia as the music cues and the credits start to scroll? Part escapism, part actualization of a dream to move, to explore, to inquire, the adventurous in us were clever enough to invent ways to accentuate the experience, or, with a sprit of genius, create one.

Even then, once that moment is done, that last leaf turned, or the last spin on the merry-go-round rounds, people like us crave ever so slightly the next moment that brings us out of our normalcy. Book, film, playground architecture, small hamlet along the coast, guest to a laird, sitting on a dock with friends; amazing moments once wrung lay dripping with memories.

Finality inspires. It asks of us, what have we taken for granted? What have we done, or more importantly, what have we yet to do and what will we never be able to experience again. How many more times will we sit by that window sipping coffee? Or run alongside the river, losing the day’s trials as we do so? How many more opportunities will we have to dance upon rooftops like kings upon their thrones?

Are all these hopeless grasps at unsustainable pleasures? Or mere stepping stones to a higher plane of existence? Collingwood warned of looking at practical life with disdain, that the disatisfaction of those linking moments between fortuity be an illness to our humanistic fiber:

Amusement becomes a danger to practical life when the debit it imposes on these stores of energy is too great to be paid off in the ordinary course of living. When this reaches a point of crisis, practical life or ‘real’ life, becomes emotionally bankrupt; a state of things which we describe by speaking of its intolerable dullness or calling it a drudgery. A moral disease has set it, whose symptoms are a constant craving for amusement and an inability to take any interest in the affairs of ordinary life, the necessary work of livelihood and social routine. A person in whom the disease has become chronic is a person with a more or less settled conviction that amusement is the only thing that makes life worth living. A society in which the disease is endemic is one in which most people feel some such conviction most of the time.1 (R.G. Collingwood)

R.G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 95

An alarming consideration at the very least. To be addicted to what we consider the essential consistency of our resolve—the “stuff” that makes life worth living—would be a crime. But I believe there is a clear distinction between the stargazer and the sleuth. Perhaps in our pursuit of mental and spiritual satisfaction, we use those rare moments, exploiting them as linking points, cues to connect our memories to the less memorable—though no less essential—chapters of our greater narrative. That is what makes working hard and working smart as satisfactory as traveling fast and traveling far. And while the repetitious routine may seem to wear away our resolution, we must remember that those instances, whether impressive or seemingly inconsequential, are only a part of the greater awe. It is, after all, in those quiet moments where we are able to synthesize all those great experiences to create the great work, our magnum opus.

And so it is that on a Friday night, quite an un-extraordinary one, we find ourselves in a restaurant discussing the mundane.

“When you start feeling that way, it’s always good to take a moment and step back. That way you can look at yourself as a character in you own narrative. You can remove yourself from that moment of frustration.”

Wise words from a friend who, at the moment, is taking a giant bite out of his brick-oven pizza.

”That’s why it’s called ‘The Struggle,’ Phil. Because it’s a struggle.”

And as I’m now taking my turn to take a bite out of my pizza, I think about what Matt had to say. All that comes to mind is: How clever.

We can coexist.  I mean us.  You and me.  The Digital Immigrants.  We can coexist with those Digital Natives.  You may think you’re a Native.  You were young when Windows 3.0 was standard, but you were there.  And you witnessed E-mail and the Internet become common household words.  But c’mon.  You still love the idea of a mixed tape and the fidelity of a record.  You miss finger painting and feeling that conte crayon.  You love strumming those strings over hitting buttons on the latest heroic guitar game.  Or maybe not.  Maybe you are a Native.

It’s debatable.

Take script for example.  Some say script is an older form of written expression, ready to be taken over by new technology (despite script and writing also being technology, albeit much older) and optimized by our ability to type, first by printing press, then typewriter and now by computer.  It’s all nostalgia such as Polaroid or painting right? Artform?  Sure.  But practical? Well…

Of course, then there is the antithesis.  We all need one.  We are, after all, immigrants and natives trying to make sense of it all.  Some immigrants suggest that handwriting and script IS an artform and one that not only engages the mind, but also shows personalization, craft, artistry and greater engagement of the brain’s functions in composing thoughts and ideas.

I know for me, working professionally in the creative field, I’ve grown more accustomed to working analog rather than digitally—much to my initial chagrin.  That’s not to say the final products aren’t digitally produced via the computer, but rather, the creative process, the wire-framing, sketching and sharing of ideas happens with pen and paper.  It’s actually liberating and productive. Furthermore, most of my writings, though much more easily and comfortably started digitally, is more rewarding and fruitful if started with pen and paper.

But one of my favorite concepts during a European History course was the dialectic.  Thesis.  Antithesis.  Synthesis.  Perhaps Pilot Handwriting has something worthy up it’s sleeve as the synthesis to this debate…?

Regardless, a very intriguing proposition worth noting.

Having said all of that, how do I get my hands on one of these C60′s?  Oh analog and digital worlds making sweet sweet love.

c60 Redux from IDEO on Vimeo.

by Tim Williams

When do we (public) realize that music is an art and stop trying to promote it in ways that do not match the organic adoption process? Artists wish to communicate their vision, their music, their art.  Our goal as marketing types should be to utilize creativity, inspiration and aesthetic reasoning to help them share these experiences with the world. Somewhere along the line we decided to create what sells instead of creating something that evokes emotions. I wanted to point out a band (THAT I HAVE NO AFFILIATION WITH) that does just that : Zach Deputy Band (http://www.zachdeputy.com/)

Not too long ago I was able to see Zach live at a bar in Hilton Head, NC. Man they rocked it! . Zach Deputy has an undeniably cool sound filled rooted in soul and delivered in an uplifting island spirit.  The true artistry and technical appreciation of his music is validated when you SEE how he makes his music, live, only him, and a sampler.   Real pure energy that you can’t package. It is the challenge of the supporting team to recreate that same energy and artistry in all points of experience the audience can find.

When an artist market themselves they have to make sure it fits their product. THat is where we get truly original and creative marketing from.

by Tim Williams

Over the years of working with artists/bands who are trying to get more attractions (publicity, listens, hits, web traffic, sales, gigs etc) I have noticed that their image is not being positioned correctly. DON’T get me wrong, you can go through our website  and find that my strategies for helping develop artists their careers does not involve changing their image to make them something they are not.

The most important thing to remember when positioning your band and creating your image is  to try to communicate your vision in a creative and unique manner which implies the art that you make. Utilize your creativity or the creativity of a friend or family member to help inspire your image (in relation to your music) and create an aesthetic positioning and unique look.

This simple process will help keep your band in the top of your fans mind when they turn on their iPod and want to listen to something they like.

What do I mean?

Your music is not the only deciding factor that a consumer (fan) uses to decide to adopt your product (listen/buy your music). There are many factors that a person will answer (both consciously and subconsciously) when they are exposed to you for the first time. “What are they wearing?” “Who are they affiliated with?” “Are they hot?” “How are they acting?” “What kind of mood does there artwork put me in?”  ”How does their music sound?” All of these questions can be answered in a persons mind in a matter of seconds.  So there is the proof your image does matter! This is a key concept in artist development and should be a key concept in your development too!

“Our clients are artists wishing to communicate their vision, their music, their art.  Our goal is to utilize creativity, inspiration and aesthetic reasoning to help them share these experiences with the world.” – Hotovaa Media Group

I am one to advocate education.  I myself, am an educator in disciplines dealing with mass media studies, graphic design, and martial arts.  I believe that this is the only key to ensure a rich future (and I don’t mean monetarily and I don’t mean just yours, though I do believe it would irrevocably be those things too) with bold new frontiers.  Then why do I agree with Ken Robinson that schools are killing creativity?  After all, isn’t school about nurturing dreams, propelling aspirations?  No.  Not all the time.

You see, Ken Robinson states that schools focus more readily on literacy forgoing creativity in an era when creativity is just as important.  His central thesis is that kids don’t grow out of creativity, but rather are educated out of it.  Everyone is born creative in his eyes.

And taking a close look at our educational system, his theory seems to prevail.  Most educational facilities look upon the creative core as electives.  Take a glance at most high school curriculums and notice that music, art, theater–they are all peripherally adjacent to the classic concepts of education: math, history, english, science and of course, the top of the pedestal whether they admit it or not–sports.  While all these classic classes (and yes, sports as well) grew in importance as well as in advancements of academic nature due to the creative thinkers breaking outside boundaries, today, most focus on analytical methodic approaches to these subjects.  I believe, this is in part, to ensure that the greatest number of children gain the base set of knowledge.  In an age birthed from the Scientific Method and the Industrial age, a methodic, step-by-step approach to education seems to work.  Nonetheless, it takes the brilliant ones to advance these disciplines.  That is to say, the creative individuals take these disciplines into more creative directions thereby advancing the fields.

But what if education focused on nurturing creativity as well?  What if we attempted to get students to develop creativity so they were able to take these “standard” subjects and spin them into new directions?  What if, agreeing with Robinson, we stopped educating our students away from creativity?

Robinson states that if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never do anything original.  And that is not to say that wrong equates creativity, but his argument stands that we live in a society abhorring errors due to their effects of polluting efficiency.  He argues, that overdeveloping this error-avoidance actually dampens our abilities to take risks–risks that may be rewarding.  James Cameron states as well his belief that risks are important as they propel us forward.  He claims what we needn’t need is fear.

Furthermore, as we grow, we focus mostly on the function of analysis, of one side of the brain, negating everything else that engages our brain, namely, our bodies.  Robinson argues that no where in the world do they develop, say dance, as they would a math class in the public education setting.  And why not?  His answers are compelling.

To clearly hear out both Robinson and Cameron’s arguments, watch their lectures.

Once you’ve had your fill, there is a book entitled A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future that proposes that we are moving into an era of “Conceptualization” away from the age of Industrialization.  I have not yet read it, but certainly plan to.

While I agree that creativity is overlooked for more “practical” subjects, I do not believe either is mutually exclusive.  We have both functioning sides of our brains for a reason (as well as an inclination to dance to a beat, to engage in moving films, to hike along new terrain) so why must we exclude one over the other?  I could write a whole discourse on this topic as education and creativity both evoke passion out of me.  And perhaps one day I will revisit this topic.  But first, I’m going to go outside and work on my martial arts patterns and give myself a shot of creativity.