Is it possible to think too much about intuition? Regardless, social psychologist and researcher David Myers has put much thought to it and has a few things to say in a recent USA Today article by Karen S. Peterson: There's a gut feeling about this whole intuition thing.
"Intuition is hot," Myers says. "There is an explosion of research on how unconscious, automatic, out-of-sight thinking guides our lives." There are courses on "intuitive learning, healing, investing, selling and managing." Intuition, he says, is "an effortless, immediate, unreasoned (not thought about) sense of truth." It is a good thing: It feeds creativity, expertise and spirituality, he says.
Pitting scientists against humanists, and calling them The New Humanists in the process, John Brockman writes of how scientific discovery and technological innovation have taken over the realm of intellectual endeavour. This is an outstanding article, made even better by a broad cross-section of thoughtful responses from other "thinkers" (itself perhaps defeating a major point of the original essay). A must-read.
Around the fifteenth century, the word "humanism" was tied in with the idea of one intellectual whole. A Florentine nobleman knew that to read Dante but ignore science was ridiculous. Leonardo was a great artist, a great scientist, a great technologist. Michelangelo was an even greater artist and engineer. These men were intellectually holistic giants. To them, the idea of embracing humanism while remaining ignorant of the latest scientific and technological achievements would have been incomprehensible. The time has come to reestablish that holistic definition.
In the twentieth century, a period of great scientific advancement, instead of having science and technology at the center of the intellectual world—of having a unity in which scholarship included science and technology along with literature and art—the official culture kicked them out. Traditional humanities scholars looked at science and technology as some sort of technical special product. Elite universities nudged science out of the liberal arts undergraduate curriculum—and out of the minds of many young people, who, as the new academic establishment, so marginalized themselves that they are no longer within shouting distance of the action.
In too much of academia, intellectual debate tends to center on such matters as who was or was not a Stalinist in 1937, or what the sleeping arrangements were for guests at a Bloomsbury weekend in the early part of the twentieth century. This is not to suggest that studying history is a waste of time: History illuminates our origins and keeps us from reinventing the wheel. But the question arises: History of what? Do we want the center of culture to be based on a closed system, a process of text in/text out, and no empirical contact with the real world? One can only marvel at, for example, art critics who know nothing about visual perception; "social constructionist" literary critics uninterested in the human universals documented by anthropologists; opponents of genetically modified foods, additives, and pesticide residues who are ignorant of genetics and evolutionary biology.
Escalate - a celebration of digital photography by a curious group of Canadian new media folks called Art Directors Anonymous.
(via Clay)
The Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's a fascinating place that has been subject to some of humanity's greatest hardships. CBC Radio has done an excellent job of presenting a series of online audio documentaries about the country, its people, its riches, its violence, and its music. See CBC Web One - The Congo.
A colleague of mine - an art director - recently mentioned that his idol was legendary designer Paul Rand. He clearly admired Rand's work and this soft-spoken man even went so far as to say, "everyone should kiss his ass" - he was that good. Here's a little bit more about Rand, along with some samples of his ubiquitous logos.
The Village Voice offers this excellent review (I'm In Love With My Walls) of Massive Attack's newest release 100th Window. The album is a pleasant progression from Mezzanine, Protection and Blue Lines and succeeds at mixing Sinead O'Connor's wispy vocals with more dark meandering sounds.
In fact, one early defining characteristic of Massive Attack was their determination to flit about in as many different styles as possible, to run amok all over the place—in non-confinement, so to speak. On 1991's Blue Lines and 1994's Protection, the Bristol trio carved away at ideas from reggae and dub, hip-hop, soul music, lite jazz, and ambient (all the usual post-Soul II Soul suspects), and once in a while—in the rockin'-bells rhythm of "Unfinished Sympathy" and the Dusty Springfield swoon of "Protection"—they made you forget about the grocery list, too. But like so much trip-hop that followed Blue Lines' blueprint, the group's dawdling pursuit of "all over the place" often wound up stranded nowhere in particular.
A charming four-minute ad show short film about The Idea.
(a great find courtesy of Pure Content)
Z+ blog posted about an MIT Technology Review essay by Nicholas Negroponte called Creating a Culture of Ideas. Although I'm too cheap to read this "premium content" piece, here are some good quotes from the site. Sounds good.
Innovation is inefficient. More often than not, it is undisciplined, contrarian, and iconoclastic; and it nourishes itself with confusion and contradiction. In short, being innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass. Yet without innovation we are doomed—by boredom and monotony—to decline. So what makes innovation happen, and just where do new ideas come from? The basic answers—providing a good educational system, encouraging different viewpoints, and fostering collaboration—may not be surprising. Moreover, the ability to fulfill these criteria has served the United States well. But some things—the nature of higher education among them—will have to change in order to ensure a perpetual source of new ideas.
One of the basics of a good system of innovation is diversity. In some ways, the stronger the culture (national, institutional, generational, or other), the less likely it is to harbor innovative thinking. Common and deep-seated beliefs, widespread norms, and behavior and performance standards are enemies of new ideas. Any society that prides itself on being harmonious and homogeneous is very unlikely to catalyze idiosyncratic thinking. Suppression of innovation need not be overt. It can be simply a matter of people’s walking around in tacit agreement and full comfort with the status quo.
The Natural Bias Problem
Creative business has some exciting new ways of working as a result of the fragmentation of specialists. However, modern creative business agencies have not kept up and have dragged forward their outdated self-centred models for delivering ideas.
It is as simple as this: once selected, executional shops will always propose a solution that they can offer. Always. A web designer will build you a website; an ad agency will deliver advertising; a costume designer will provide costumes. Even if one thinks that that is what they need, it is a disservice not to explore other possibilities. As psychiatrist and authour Silvano Arieta put it, “There needs to be “…gullibility … a willingness to explore everything: to be open, innocent and naïve before rejecting anything”. Traditional creative providers are failing their clients’ quickly changing needs by ignoring this. Their inherent structure leads them to overlook that a great “idea exists in and of itself, regardless of its execution. And that is precisely where the beauty of it lies. One could even say that the stronger an idea is, the more it is separate and distinct from its eventual execution. It exists before its concrete expression” (emphasis mine). However, as the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. There may very well be better options discovered through a sourcing stage based on ideation that then discovers obscure firms in unknown micro-industries
For many specialist firms, ideas are treated like their operations: as convergent processes that keep order by lining up the answers in advance. The problem with this is, of course, that it assumes that the answer will always be located in the same place under the same conditions every time. This removes any possibility of making the necessary leap that breaks with marketplace convention and makes it possible to uncover a coveted transcending idea.
For ideas to truly be free it requires that each circumstance that calls for them is not approached identically. Ideas are the product of an organism, not of a machine. Each need for an idea warrants its own project, and each project warrants its own unique creative solution. This is compromised to some extent by long-term arrangements such as retainer agreements at the execution level. It is common practice for clients to return to the same supplier project after project despite the increase in variance among the projects themselves; a trade-off of adaptability for security. A repetitive arrangement is only wise practice if the projects are the same time after time. And remember, an idea repeated ceases to be original.
Also, if you are a client approaching a creative specialists for an idea outside of their specialty you are deluding yourself. Ask an ad agency to do the work of an architecture firm and you will get disappointing, potentially dangerous results because the tasks of an architect have been outspecialized away from an ad agency. That is, the tasks required of an architecture firm are so complex and refined that it has become a difficult club to move into. The same could be said for an architecture firm trying to do what an ad agency does. It will not work 99% of the time. As a client, you are also – unrealistically – expecting your supplier to violate their capitalistic survival skills. You are forcing your supplier to turn down money and we all know that there are few companies that will do that. With more fragments comes a need for greater diligence on the part of the client.
An advisor at a creative specialist firm will be of little real help in this regard. They are, afterall, not there to think of all of the possibilities that would most benefit a project. The advisor is there much like a car salesman in the showroom; to help you to select from the checklist of options, to customize your order, and ultimately to close the deal. Given the complexities and the level of detail involved in many specialties these days this advisory role is important and often essential, but presenting it under the guise of all-encompassing exploration of possibilities is terribly misleading.
_S
At the Playing with Time web site, unseen worlds of change will be revealed. You will see time sped up and slowed down, and behold the beauty of change. Time will be in your hands to witness, replay, and even create. You never know... you might not look at things quite the same way again.
These are photos worth checking out. The intricate art of pencil carving, by Mizuta Tasogare and Kato Jado. Real pencils are meticulously carved into shapes that fit one of four categories: double-spiral, chain, ring, and kikko (honeycomb). The practice requires skill for "delicate woodwork in carving out a pattern like some kind of a tracery without making any miscut on the naked lead inside".
What does it take to write Hallmark greeting cards? Well, besides a $100K/year salary it also requires a strong awareness of emotions and perhaps a fond appreciation of puns. It is a $7.5 billion a year industry afterall. Here's a long, soft and mushy Washington Post article about the profession of greeting card writer: House of Cards.
(via Pure Content)
It seems like a foolish race - espcially now, since the WTC disaster - but it is a race that is nevertheless fueled by groundbreaking technological advances and many eager (or is that egotistical?) minds. The race is for the world's tallest building and Popular Science takes a look at How High Will They Build.
Why the race? To be blunt, in Asia today, as in New York 70 years ago, nothing is more demonstrative than a huge, well, upright symbol. Rival nations and corporations work overtime to show they are high-tech powerhouses. "Height, as a manifestation of technology, is tied up with cultural aspirations," says Eric Howeler, an architect with KPF, which is designing Union Square, a 108-story building that will, Howeler says, be the world's tallest when completed in 2007.
What passes for good television these days? Playmates eating cow eyeballs? Dating lie detectors? Assembly line marriages? Reality is Harsh on TV's Creative Teams. This New York Times article looks at how the surge in reality TV programming has sliced away a huge chunk of creative writing work at the networks. As these relatively inexpensive talent shows and stunt contests take over, there is that much less time available for the dramas and situation comedies that provide writers their livelihood. One veteran writer mused, "Maybe they could have a reality show about writers trying to write for television. It's full of humiliation. They could watch how embarrassing it is to go from producer to producer telling them how much you love their work."
Well, here's an executive that actually understands that brands, products and strategies require ideas as connecting links. Steven Heyer, president and COO for Coca-Cola Co., made what was apparently a very well-received speech in Holywood earlier this week that appealed to movie moguls, music execs and TV producers to cooperate for mutual benefit. He correctly points out that fragmentation is now more common and that compelling broadly-thought ideas more important. He also took the opportunity to position Coke as the valuable network connecting all of the diverse parties.
So how does Madison meet Vine? What's the intersection? It's not the property, the TV show, the movie, the music or the brand. It's why, where, and how we bring them together. And it is, as ever, about the consumer, all glued together by a powerful idea. It's the insight about people's passions and the connections we create -- naturally and uniquely - between them and the equity in our brands. Cultural icons in brand context. Important events tied to important brands... with an important reason why.
...People are always saying that this medium or that medium is in decay, declining, going away. No medium goes away; its role changes. That's all. And as media fragmentation continues... and as new choices continue to emerge and technology leaps out ahead of consumers' wishes to change the way they behave... it's incumbent upon us all -- advertisers, marketers, creators of content and culture, everyone in this game -- to think. And to think differently about how we'll connect with consumers in the future.
...Those clear-cut definitions fit neatly into a box... a box defined by uniformity and predictability, which is no longer sustainable in a hyper-fragmenting world. If we continue to confine ourselves to those roles that box is going to become a coffin. The headstone will read: "They didn't try.
Such is life
to walk down the street
and not help but smile;
to see the thousand colours
blur into one sight;
to hear the hundreds of languages
form into one voice;
to understand it all
and be none the wiser.
Such is life.
_S
Sorry, temporarily out of commission - thanks to Apple and their lovely flashing question mark.