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What It Is | Writing On The Wall

es ist ungluck

The above image was taken on Majoribanks Street, Wellington, NZ.

There is always intrigue in words written on the wall for passers by.

Google Translate said it was: “I’ll say it is the calculation”…

A little more searching revealed the lines come from a superb Erich Fried poem and this site offered the full translation (see first two lines of the second verse):

Was es ist (German)

Es ist Unsinn
sagt die Vernunft
Es ist was es ist
sagt die Liebe

Es ist Ungl’ck
sagt die Berechnung
Es ist nichts als Schmerz
sagt die Angst
Es ist aussichtslos
sagt die Einsicht
Es ist was es ist
sagt die Liebe

Es ist l’cherlich
sagt der Stolz
Es ist leichtsinnig
sagt die Vorsicht
Es ist unm’glich
sagt die Erfahrung
Es ist was es ist
sagt die Liebe

What It Is (English)

Rationality says
It’s nonsense
Love says
It is what it is

Reckoning says
It’s doom
Fear says
It’s nothing but sorrow
Sense says
It’s hopeless
Love says
It is what it is

Pride says
It’s ridiculous
Caution says
It’s reckless
Experience says
It’s not practical
Love says
It is what it is

Random words in another language leading to a fantastic poem. Do you do stuff like this or is it just me?

Hillman Curtis | RIP

Tears for a guy I never met.

I never met Hillman Curtis.

I wanted to.

The three times I visited New York emails were sent to attempt to connect, however, he was always busy with other things.

Busy with his amazingly adept creative offerings which I featured regularly on here (the last included a comment thread between myself and the great man which humbled me to the core).

This man was a mammoth creative influence on me. Raised expectations and understanding of the visual narrative; the simplistic but oh so sweet connection one can create through the video medium.

This guy was a master of his craft.

My last email to Mr Curtis was about a month ago after seeing the video above. I was selfishly asking him about his thought process as he embraced the need to lead a more creative life.

I now understand why there was never a response.

Thank you sir, for your creative offerings to the world.

Thank you for allowing us all to see your work.

Thank you for inspiring.

Thank you.

Think And / Or Smile

thinksmile

Something I hold dear.

This is what I believe in.

My ‘why‘…

To create an intellectual and emotional response in people.

Making folks think and / or smile.

Sometimes I fail.

Sometimes I achieve.

What do you believe in?

Creativity Is Not A Talent | Cultivating Innovation

Habitat cultivates habit (UPDATE: video now blocked due to copyright infringement. Other versions are here)

The above video is a feast for the brain / heart and introduces the conditions for creativity:

Space—obviously, both the physical and psychological
Time—half of creating the oasis
Time—to play with the problem and solving it with something original
Confidence—to get things wrong
Humour—getting us from the closed to the open mode/mindset in the quickest way possible

For me the most compelling idea in the whole presentation is that creativity is not an in-built-DNA-traceable-disposition.

It’s something which can be learned.

Cultivated.

Encouraged.

So, do the organisations / companies we create / work for foster the above conditions so creativity / innovation can blossom?

How To Write A Social Media Strategy | Use Cartoons

Seriously!

The above are the images recently used in the internal social media strategy I wrote for the executive team at CORE Education—all courtesy of the fab Hugh Macleod, Gapingvoid.

The focus of the strategy was on:

inspiring staff—VISION
offering opportunities to develop their social media education and sustainable pathways for future use—TRAINING
create success points and reflective opportunities—MEASURE

The vision provides an horizon line. A goal. An outcome focussed narrative.

The training, which all staff will take (managers first of course), attempts to bring everyone up to the same educational mark of social media and digital literacies (even if it’s not what they do).

These two things I’ve been doing for the past six years.

The last point is where the fun and new stuff is. Utilising gamification we’re going to develop in in-house system for tracking and rewarding social (media) participation. We (meaning others with bigger brains than I) might even write a paper on it all.

How do you do yours?

Creatalyst | Releasing My Inner Artist

creatalyst 1

Images. Words. Soundscapes. Questions.

The opening lines on the about section of the Creatalyst app says:

“The creative process, a business project, even life, is a journey expanding our vision of what’s possible.”

Photographer, mentor and good friend Dennis Hodges, developed this app as a spark to the creative process we find ourselves in day to day.

The categories of Visualize, Compose, Explore, Develop, Deliver, unfold (literally) as you delve deeper into the audio/visual offering.

creatalyst 2

Used alone, it could simply excite the senses and neurons to reconnect thoughts:

creatalyst 3

And/or spark new ideas:

creatalyst 4

There are also deeper options such as favouriting images, deleting them from the image bank, sharing through social spaces, adding comments for yourself and others in the Creatalyst community to read.

creatalyst 5

I remember Dennis describing the seeds of the app idea on a train journey back from Lucerne to the Zurich, Switzerland (Feb 2011). As the magnificent view offered us lakes and majestic mountainside I was more intrigued by the essence of the idea shared.

Congratulations Dennis.

Not just on bringing an idea to market, but also on making it so engaging.

All links to the Creatalyst app are non-affiliated.

Yoga | Bendable Steel

Via I Am Dave Mack

Education vs Life | A Thought

The answer to learning.

Most formal/traditional/current education systems provide lessons with the view the learners at some stage will complete some kind of test to prove understanding, skills, knowledge etc

Life on the other hand, provides tests and it’s up to us to make sense of the lesson (with the opportunity to pass that knowledge, skills, understanding etc on in some way).

Because I didn’t know better, the social media training I’ve developed and delivered in the past takes this test-first approach. Providing a problem to solve and a reflective space to discuss the lessons learnt (sometimes after failure), meant highly engaged participants with fantastic feedback plus obvious learning outcomes.

Would be fun to reverse the current educational paradigm of teach, learn, test.

Then again, that’s just my opinion—say otherwise in the comments below.

Connecting social to the real world retail space.