A Few Strong Words…

Today I am exactly the same age as John Lennon was when he was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman.

In his last major interview done before he died, he said that he had heard once that life begins at 40, and that he believed that. He was looking forward to his life ahead.

I was 12 at the time, and I didn’t really understand what he meant — after all, here was an ex-Beatle who had travelled the world, written some of the best music of all time, and somehow managed to take off five years of his career to raise his son. What was he waiting to begin?

I sort of understand it now. I think it has something to do with confidence. How many times have we said to ourselves “if I knew then what I know now…” I know I do all the time. At 40, you reach a point in your life where you have many of the answers. Old enough to know what to do, and young enough to still be able to do it.

One thing I definitely understand now was an incident he described in that same interview (it was with Playboy, and they published the complete transcript in book form after his death). I don’t remember the story verbatim, but it goes something like this: John and Yoko were sitting in a restaurant and he heard a song come onto the radio. He happened to mention that he liked that song, at which point Yoko reminded him that he should, since he wrote it. The song was Glass Onion from the White Album — he had totally forgotten all about it.

I found it hard to believe back then that you could forget a thing like that. Although it isn’t nearly the same scale, I’ve actually had similar incidents where I’ll read something and go “hey, I really like that!” and then realize I wrote it years ago. Kind of a great warm feeling, with a bit of messed up rolled into it.

I am somewhat envious of John Lennon. I mean besides the obvious: who wouldn’t want to be a Beatle? Who wouldn’t want to be able to play the guitar and be that creative and that rich and to be able to say “I wrote Strawberry Fields Forever“?

What I’m most envious though is that he had the time to be creative.

For me, creativity takes a lot of time. I can’t just snap in and out — if I’m working on something that demands creativity, I am basically a vegetable for anything else. Don’t give me phone messages, don’t ask me to take out the garbage, don’t give me any information I’m supposed to hold onto. And unless you are happy with vacuous “uh-huhs” after every sentence, don’t even try to hold a conversation with me.

The worst though is when you have to stop because the kids are getting off the bus or you have to get milk or the million other reasons that pop up. You can try to catch that wave again later, but almost every time it is already gone…

John Lennon didn’t need to deal with the real world. Not like we did. He had drivers and shoppers and housekeepers and personal assistants, so he could float through most of the day without worrying too much about “real world” stuff. Oh sure, he had his own pressures more than likely, but hopefully you take my meaning here…

I will say that yes, a great light went out with his death. His last album Double Fantasy hinted at new depths to his creativity that we will never fully know.

But rather than wallow in these thoughts, I prefer to think of it this way. My life is “beginning” now, and I still have creative depths that I haven’t explored. His work inspires me, and yes damn it there should have been more from him to come.

There wasn’t though.

So I’ll be happy listening to Strawberry Fields for the 1,000th time and marvel at his wit and use it to spur my own imagination. And if I accomplish 1% of what he did, I think I’ll still be a very lucky man.

~Graham

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I’ve been struggling with the direction of this blog since the beginning. Well, maybe struggling is too harsh. Pondering, perhaps.

At first, I had it on my now-defunct StrongWhitePapers website, simply because I had just designed the website and work-flow-wise, it just made sense to add it to that site. I thought at first I’d write about white papers, but I didn’t want to be too limited in my scope. After all, I offer many services, not just white paper writing.

Now that I’ve centralized everything including my blog on my main website, the question still hangs out there. Do I write about writing? Do I write about marketing? Do I write about purple widgets? I’ve written about all of them so far. But I think I want to start homing in on a niche topic.

What all of these things have in common — and indeed what many blogs dance around but not delve into — is creativity. This is a topic that really interests me. What is creativity? How do we “unleash” our creativity? Do you have to be “creative-type” to be Creative?

Linda Naiman, an expert in arts-based learning, described creativity as the act of turning ideas into reality. “If you have ideas, but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative,” she says.

That’s an interesting concept. You have to build on an idea — you have to create. Seems kind of obvious, when you think about it. But that is one key way that we are different from (most) of the other animals on this planet. Our ability to see the possibilities and form our reality based on what we can imagine is at the heart of what makes us human.

Of course, this is going down too much of an anthropological path. I want to find out how creativity helps us in everyday life, mostly as it pertains to the workplace. I want to find those nuggets of creativity that make our world a better place, and find out how we all can inject our own creativity.

I hope you all come along for the ride. I think it will be interesting at the very least.

But in the meantime, what does creativity mean to you? Let me know in the comment section below!

~Graham

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Someone in the blogosphere asked recently why people don’t say thank you any more. Has the practice really declined? I guess I can see how people are becoming gruffer — especially in the bigger centres. Perhaps as a part of this, the simple act of saying “thank you” is being replaced by “flying under the radar”.

Well, I have a few thank yous here. First, I want to thank all the people who sent words of support during my self-imposed sabbatical. I don’t want to go into details here, but suffice to say that it was a difficult time. All of your kind words were much appreciated.

On a less-sombre note, I would also like to say thanks to Danny at Outlaw Design Blog. He had a writing contest a couple of months ago on the future of social networking. As one of the winners, I received 2,500 business cards from U Printing (that’s a copy of my card there, top left). This was actually perfect timing — I haven’t had cards for a while so it really gave me the impetus to get off my butt and finish the design. Fits in nicely with my new website design I think — it’s that consistency thing again.

Lastly, I’m hoping I’ll be saying thank you to Brian at Copyblogger. I entered his Haiku contest to win a MacBook Air. There were hundreds of entries (at last count) so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Mine was:

Today Pope would find / to forgive Vista human / but to Air, divine

Not exactly Shakespeare (or even Alexander Pope, for that matter) but I like it nonetheless…

Who do you have to thank? Let it all out here in the comments below, or put together a few notes of your own. It feels good, it is good, and it helps keep the world a little happier.

~Graham

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For personal reasons, I need to take a short break. I will be back online ASAP.

~Graham

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I’m glad I announced ahead of time the blog was moving — some of you may have noticed some strange activities today, including now the disappearance of today’s post. Now you know why.

Rule #1 - Backup the full original database, not the empty, destination database before moving your blog…

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back online tomorrow. Sorry to all those who commented today — I’m afraid they are lost in the ether!

~Graham

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Wow. Two weeks now since my last post. I woke up this morning and wondered how I was going to find the time to put one together. I actually have a few ideas swirling in my mind — but then I also have a few projects that need finishing today as well.

It occurred to me that this is probably a common affliction. Not necessarily just with blog posting, but with all of our writing. Is there a way to squeeze extra minutes out the day, or make better use of the minutes we are given? (In case you’re wondering, there are exactly 1440 minutes per day, except for one day in the fall when there are 1500, and one day in the spring when there are 1380.)

I’ve come up with a couple of ideas here:

Focus/Write Faster

Jim Estill posted the other day on Copyblogger that it takes him 20 minutes to write a blog post. Okay, he fudged the numbers a bit — that 20 minutes does not include “incubation” time and warm-up writing. I suspect it also doesn’t include formatting and finding that perfect image to go with your blog post.

But hey, point taken. One of the best bits of advice I ever got was to write faster, and that’s something I’m attempting with this post as well. I don’t think I’ll match Jim’s speed yet (I’m at minute 13 already…) but it’s not a bad goal to shoot for.

Get Up Earlier/Stay Later

Let’s assume that you can write 500 words in 20 minutes. That means if you set the alarm for 7:10 am instead of 7:30 am, you’ll get 500 extra words in per day.

On the flip side, if you decide to skip watching The Simpsons every day at 5pm and write, you’ll get an extra 750 words down. (If you happen to watch them on CBC, this won’t be a huge sacrifice — they’ve gone back to Season 1 again. Do you really need to watch those blocky episodes for the 37th time…?)

Get Organized

This is related to the first point, but it bears a separate mention. I find that the more organized I am, the faster I am able to work. Often, when I’m trying to decide what I’m going to do next, I don’t just sit there and think about it. I surf, read emails, catch up on some blogs… perhaps you know the drill too.

Long-time readers of this blog know about my love affair with the Post-It Note (just bought some new pads the other day — colour-coded!)

I’ve found that writing out the day’s tasks and sticking them to my monitor helps keep me focused. Once one project is done (or done for the day…) I give it a satisfying strike-out and move on to the next item up for bid. It certainly helps to put everything in order of importance if possible, but the main thing is to get everything down.

A Last Word

We all have a thousand things tugging at our shirtsleeves — sometimes literally. Kids, bills to be paid, mowing the lawn, the damn dishwasher, replacing that loose board in the walkway so that nobody trips and sues you… it never ends.

And that means we need to make the most of our writing time when we have it.

What tricks do you have to squeeze those precious minutes of time? Please let me know by leaving a comment below — I need all the help I can get!

~Graham

(BTW, total writing time not including recovering from a crashed database and adding an image: 29 minutes. Not bad.)

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Here’s a thought that makes you glad it’s Friday: Paris Hilton is a more famous writer than you.

I caught a bit of David Letterman last night (a re-run, I think), and Paris Hilton was a guest. Now don’t get me wrong, she seems like a nice person. But what is the fascination? She is like a train wreck still happening, marked by the incessant, nails-on-a-chalkboard screech of the brakes that never quite take. I truly hope that the “ditzy blonde” image she portrays is an act.

But what is most depressing is that she is a published author. People who haven’t even read Shakespeare or Fitzgerald or Tom Robbins have read Paris. Of course at the bottom of the cover — if you squint — you’ll see that the book was written “with Merle Ginsberg”. She is even more famous as a writer than the writer who actually wrote the book.

I know this is starting to sound a bit like a rant. It’s not really meant to be, but hey, read into it as you will. I like to think it’s more a commentary on the state of the world today (or likely how it has always been…)

And for us corporate copywriters out there, it is an important lesson. Talent and hard work are great, but marketing is everything.

~Graham

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Tom at the Underground Copywriter found this great new online application: Wordle. Check it out (the blog and the app) to find out how you can make your own word soup.

Here’s what Chapter One of The Great Gatsby looks like:

(Click to see a bigger image)

And here are the famous last three paragraphs:

I don’t know why I like this so much, but I do. There’s something visually poetic about it, obviously. It is also vaguely Douglas Coupland-like (his art, not necessarily his books…) But more than that, it forces you to consider the words in a whole new way.

Do you think Fitzgerald would mind if I turned this into a T-Shirt? For personal use only. I’m not planning to sell them out of my trunk or anything.

But that does raise some interesting copyright issues — can you legally sell the words in this form? Is this The Great Gatsby or does this little application change it into something different?

Ooh, too heavy for me to think about right now. But in any case, spread the Wordle!

~Graham

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Or “The Medium is Not the Message”

In a guest post on The Copyblogger, Bob Hoffman takes the stand that the Internet is not interactive for “the vast majority of users”. He goes on to define interactivity as “the ability to interact with the content of the medium, not just the medium.”

I disagree. First, most people at some point or another have used highly-interactive websites like Facebook, MySpace, even MSN Games (which has been around since what, the 90s?) These are clear examples of interacting with the content. Then there are bookmarking sites, forums, chat rooms, and adjusting the font size of a web page. Even choosing which content to access next by clicking a link is interactive.

But I’m going to take this one step further and state that I disagree with Bob’s definition. For me, the Internet is not about interacting with websites, it’s interacting with people. I bought an image in 1996 from a store in Phoenix I found through the Internet. Got the phone number, called the owner, and ordered it. That is interactivity, because it helped connect two people who likely never would have met.

Today, the site content is definitely more interactive. You can complete a sale without ever actually talking to anybody, though you still have the option of meeting people you never would have otherwise. (And how cool is that?)

Defining “The Global Village”

The Internet emerged about the time that the idea of the “Global Village” started coming into vogue. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Yes, we could say that globalization was and would continue to develop as a driving force without the Internet, but it certainly sped up the process. It also brought it down to the level of the individual, so that instead of just ABC Company purchasing goods from Beijing Emporium, Joe Smith could too.

And that is interactivity.

Now the main point of Bob’s post was regarding “social marketing” and I’m not going to argue with him that there are a lot of unfulfilled dreams. But I think that the potential is still there too, we just have to look at it a different way. Internet marketing isn’t sticking in ads like you would on TV. It’s taking advantage of the medium, and finding new ways to deliver the message that plays to its strengths.

As Tom Chandler has mentioned on occasion, it’s all about engaging the consumer, not interrupting them. Deliver the right message to the right people and the right time is basic marketing. Adapting that premise to Internet and social marketing is the challenge.

What do you think? Is the Internet interactive? Are there better ways to market ourselves and our clients on the Internet?

~Graham

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Came across this neat little web app called “Scribble Live” featured, apparently, at the Toronto Mesh web design conference last week. Its tagline “Fast/Easy/Live Blogging” certainly says it all. It may be neat, but is it useful? Is this just a re-packaged online IM system?

I remember hooking up with friends through IRC chat rooms about 10 or 15 years ago. Someone would open a room, we’d all meet there and chat. It was great for hockey pools!

Now, 15 years later, the technology is different but the result seems to be the same. Mind you it is a bit easier to log in (though you do need a Hotmail or Facebook account to create your live blog).

Blog This Conference

In Scribble Live’s product description, they illustrate some of the uses, including “blogging” at a conference that someone is attending so that everyone back at the office gets a play-by-play of what is going on. In fact, some delegates did a live blog of the Mesh conference. However if conference blogging really did break, then wouldn’t the “best delegate” be the one with the fastest fingers? And how much could you actually participate if you are acting as its stenographer?

I think the greatest value of Scribble Live is to show how far Web 2.0 is progressing — and how it’s pushing against its own limitations. I don’t think “live blogging” will catch on in a huge way (though Anne at the Golden Pencil may have found a use for it last Thursday…!)

Next Killer Google App?

But as a group chat app, it might be one of the easier ones out there, especially considering that you can share images, YouTube videos, etc. It might foreshadow what is to come for real-time, cyber meeting rooms. Sort of an easier “Go To Meeting” but without the go-to cost. Wouldn’t be surprised if Google swooped in and snapped this up for their ever-growing library of online applications (and maybe that’s the point.)

At any rate, I know what I’ll be using for next year’s hockey pool…

Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think: Scribble Live

~Graham

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