By Mark McGuinness | 1/5/2009 | 12 Comments
Photo by alexsey.const
Happy New Year everyone! The Lateral Action team would like to wish you all a creative, productive and fulfilling 2009.
To help you kick start your enthusiasm for the challenges ahead, here’s a free e-book for you: How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself).
It began life as a series on my Wishful Thinking blog, and is primarily aimed at leaders, managers and others responsible for getting the best out of creative people.
But I’ve written it to be useful to anyone with a passion for creativity. So if you and/or your team want to do better creative work and enjoy yourself more in the process, download your copy now.
Topics covered include:
- What makes creative people tick
- Why motivation is crucial to creative success
- Why you can’t motivate anybody - but what you can do instead
- What Iggy Pop can teach you about management
- Why offering rewards can harm creative performance
- How to write 47 novels before breakfast
- Why some people seem so weird - and how to deal with them
- The positive side of peer pressure
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By Mark McGuinness | 12/29/2008 | 22 Comments
David Bowie is most famous for his glam rock creation Ziggy Stardust, but his best and most interesting work centres around his ‘Berlin period’ - the three years he spent living in Berlin, producing the experimental electronic albums Low, “Heroes” and Lodger. At least that’s what the man himself thinks, and I’m inclined to agree with him.
So you can imagine my delight when Santa left me a copy of Thomas Jerome Seabrook’s new book, Bowie in Berlin, telling the story of this period of Bowie’s career. It’s a great read and full of lessons for the aspiring artist and creative entrepreneur. Here’s what I’ve got from it so far:
1. Zag When Others Zig
In the mid-70s Bowie kept his audience on their toes with a series of changes of direction. He famously ‘killed’ Ziggy Stardust at the height of his fame, when it looked easier and more profitable to carry on down the same glam rock path. He then went to America and attempted an ambitious rock musical (Diamond Dogs) which he abandoned mid-tour, ditching the expensive sets in favour of a stripped down stage on which he played the ‘plastic soul’ of Young Americans. Just as people were getting used to Bowie the soul singer, he left America for Europe and started dabbling in experimental electronic music.
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By Mark McGuinness | 12/23/2008 | 11 Comments
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through Corp. House
Not a keyboard was stirring, not even a mouse.
The screens were on standby, the hard drives as still
As the stars in the sky and the snow on the sill.
The workers were gathered all snug in the bars
With visions of turkey and good R&R
So the office was empty, except for the sight
Of a solitary figure by monitor light …
With his nose to the grindstone, his foot to the floor,
His backups, his buckets, his charts on the door,
His 43 folders, his weekly review -
Who was working so late? Why none other than Lou!
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By Brian Clark | 12/22/2008 | 6 Comments
Jack just gave two weeks notice to the boss.
He’s really looking forward to the freedom, travel, and new experiences his new business will provide him.
Lately, Lou has been giving Jack all this wonderful free advice about VC funding, staffing up, and getting big fast.
Jack didn’t think all that was necessary.
Lou says Jack needs to give him 50% of the company or risk certain disaster.
Will Jack make that deal?
See the shocking result for yourself in the fifth Lateral Action animated video:
Will Jack Make a Deal?
If you’ve missed the previous episodes, check ‘em out first:
By Rajesh Setty | 12/19/2008 | 5 Comments
A creative person looks at the same thing that everyone is looking at from a different perspective. He or she can ‘notice and observe’ better than others. This is where ‘awareness’ comes into the picture. If you are more ‘aware’ of what’s happening around you, you have a better chance of noticing and observing what others are NOT noticing and observing.
At the same time, being ‘more aware’ is not an excuse for losing focus. Focus is equally important if you want to get things done.
This is precisely the reason I cringe when I look at some of the ‘awareness tests’ that are used by some ‘creativity gurus’ to highlight a point.
The example of one such awareness test will be something like this: The ‘creative guru’ will ask the audience to spend a minute focusing on all the “green objects” in the room. After that one minute, the ‘guru’ will ask the audience members to close their eyes and recollect all the “yellow objects” in the room. You fail in this ‘awareness test’ if you can’t recollect ‘N’ number of yellow objects.
The point is that if you do recollect ‘N’ number of yellow objects, you win in the “awareness test” but you probably failed in the ‘focus test.’
You can’t have one (awareness) at the expense of the other (focus.)
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By Brian Clark | 12/16/2008 | 13 Comments
In our last article, Mark demonstrated why thinking INSIDE the box is actually good for creativity. In other words, imposing constraints on your thinking or a project can result in better and faster ideas and innovation.
As existing and aspiring entrepreneurs, we already face real barriers to achieving our goals. The idea is to embrace these constraints as positives that kick creativity into gear and result in smart solutions.
On the other hand, we often impose constraints on ourselves that are pure fiction. We accept certain symbolic boundaries as true barriers, when they’re not real and actually brittle… just waiting to be busted through.
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By Mark McGuinness | 12/15/2008 | 37 Comments
Here’s a little thought experiment for you. You’ll need a watch or timer with a second hand. You have exactly 30 seconds after reading the instructions, to see what you come up with:
Think of a story.
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