Creative Reaction

Behance Magazine has an excellent article on one of the consequences of Social Media; distraction. This ties in perfectly with one of my posts a few weeks back, “The Hidden Costs of Workplace Internet Usage“.

First off, I have to say that I take issue with their terminology. While they accurately discuss the root issue here, that of insecurity, they label the problem “Insecurity Work“. While constantly checking Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, e-Mail alerts, and Blog stats takes time and effort, it is the opposite of work/what you are paid to do/results.

That being said, check out the article: Tip: Reduce Your Level of Insecurity Work.

I have to admit that it’s a little painful to discover, or even worse, have someone point out, a weakness. The good news is that we have an opportunity to better ourselves and then help others. Isn’t that what management is about?

I came across this excellent post via an acquaintance of mine whom I follow on Twitter (@apsinkus) and since yesterday was Father’s Day, it is both timely and apt.

After seeing his daughter graduate from High School, Serial Entrepreneur Steve Blank took a look back and wrote Epitaph for an Entrepreneur.

At the core of his post is a list of “Family Rules” and I’m stunned to say I am in complete agreement.

No one says on his deathbed, “I wish I worked more”. In fact, many say, “I wish I spent more time with my family.” If you value your marriage and your children, read Steve’s post now.

The Heart of Innovation features this brainstorming primer. A post with two LONG lists; twenty-six brainstorming failures, then twenty-six antidotes/opposites.

Life is too short for negatives. Skip down to the positives. Creativity will flourish given constraints, focus, ground rules and conditions.

In the planning fallacy, 37Signals reiterates something I blogged about last Fall; namely that despite our best efforts, and even with the knowledge that planning is often wrong, we still cannot plan accurately.

37Signals conclusion? “That messy planning stage that delays things and prevents you from getting real is, in large part, a waste of time. So skip it. If you really want to know how much time/resources a project will take, start doing it.”

Check out my earlier post, Why Planning is Counter-productive. It has better links if you’d like to look further into the planning fallacy. Also be sure to check out last month’s In Your Face, MBAs series.

I’ve updated some of the Blogs I follow in the Sidebar. Apparently there’s a Wordpress bug which isn’t allowing me to put them into categories the way I’d like; they keep ending up in the “Creative Tools” category. (I’ll upgrade to Wordpress 2.8 over the weekend.)

To those of you following along via New Readers/Aggregators, be sure to visit the web site from time to time!

UPDATE – Wordpress v. 2.8 upgrade fixed the issue!

What a great Topic. Wait. Harvard Business Publishing? Really?

Oh, it’s Gina Trapani of LifeHacker guestblogging. Alles klar.

• READ the post.
• DO everything it says (thus leading by example).
• BUDGET so that your staff can do everything it says. (Especially the part about a good chair and monitor real estate!)
• TRAIN so that your staff can do everything it says.
• ROCK.

Great post over at Harvard Business. It says it’s about “being happy at work”. I say it’s about leadership. (That’s what happens when you put something on the InterWebs;  you loose control as people can say whatever they want.) Skip the intro, head straight for the 7 ways to be a better leader, and ROCK your business.

Great post over at Creativity & Innovation, where Keith Sawyer explores the “tension between individual creative vision, and the collective genius of the group.”

In this Web 2.0 age, where collective knowledge is valued, leaders must keep in mind that “collective stupidity” also abounds. Often, leaders need to move ahead, even when support is lagging behind, knowing that eventually the group will catch on. And just as often, they need to listen.

Lately I’ve been running into the research of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and the more I look into it, the more fascinated I am. Much of it validates the values expressed here at Creative Reaction.

So, what better way to introduce him, than by letting him speak for himself? Click here to see his 2004 TED Talk.

As you’ll see, Csikszentmihalyi’s big thing is “flow”, which I find to be more descriptive than “being in the zone” (uh, where’s that, exactly?) or having a “creative streak” which could be either something in your hair or your state of dress/undress. Of course, we all realize that what’s being articulated is more commonly known as “Creative Reaction”. We expect that academia will eventually catch on. 

Nomenclature aside (wink), an intriguing video!

Lateral Action has an article detailing Walt Disney’s three “personalities”, which allowed him to be successful in both art and commerce:

• The Dreamer - the visionary who dreamt up ideas for films and business ventures.
• The Realist - the pragmatic producer who made things happen.
• The Critic - the eagle-eyed evaluator who refined what the Dreamer and Realist produced.

The article draws upon a book by Robert Dilts, who studies “Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) (which) explores the way people sequence and use fundamental mental abilities such as sight, hearing and feeling in order to organize and perform in the world around them.”

Quoting Dilts, “Walt Disney’s ability to connect his innovative creativity with successful business strategy and popular appeal certainly qualifies him as a genius in the field of entertainment. In a way, Disney’s chosen medium of expression, the animated film, characterizes the fundamental process of all genius: the ability to take something that exists in the imagination only and forge it into a physical existence that directly influences the experience of others in a positive way.”

So my only question is, which one of the heads got frozen?

Thinking time = Better innovation admonishes us to invest an hour each week to stop and think and offers some guidelines to make good use of that hour. The best part is that this can be done practically anywhere, as long as you have a means to record your thoughts. Creatives can apply this as well; just one creative challenge at a time, please.

(via Innovation Tools.)

When I came across this recent ChangeThis Manifesto, I just had to smile, as it dovetails so neatly with this week’s other posts.

Ending the Illusion of Control notes “the dismal historical track record of much, if not most, economic forecasting”. 

Planning and forecasting have their place. Unfortunately, they are wrought with uncertainty. Making matters worse is the fact that “humans, driven by over-optimism and wishful thinking, often underestimate uncertainty even more than statistical models do”.

The authors assert that forecasts can be as addicting and dangerous as cigarettes and, therefore, should have warning labels. 

Nice.

Download it now.

Creative Reaction is giving Twitter a try.

Just yesterday, I posted about the fallacy of trying to control the future by predicting it, and now I’ve come across this. Matt at Signal vs. Noise  summarizes a long book-launching interview, in three simple points:

1. Conventional approaches and planning don’t work when you’re trying to get into new spaces
2. Assumptions are what get most companies into trouble, and
3. It’s not failure that companies need to avoid, but rather “failing expensively”

If I could add a fourth point it would be this:

4. A company’s best ideas will fall through the cracks unless there is a way to capture and process them 

So harness the collective insights of your employees. Move ahead quickly and get new products or services in front of people. Plan in such a way that when things do not go exactly as planned, you can quickly recover and move in a better direction.

Small businesses, you can take these cutting-edge insights which some of the more innovative corporations are implementing, and use them to your advantage within days, not months!