I recall perhaps one professional moment when I felt like I really knew something – I was a master – yet, within short years easily accessible skills-de-Photoshop shattered momentum. What I honed on the view camera in the studio with lights, filters and finessing the process over 20 years was nearly worthless commercially. I wasn’t alone, except for purists mostly found in the masters of fine arts – aka – not me – creative destruction picked up its pace.  From that point on, my lesson was learned.

I’m a beginner  – at everything. My forced realization back in ’98 caused me to dive into Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki. Don’t mistake me for a deep follower, but rather a man with a new attitude. No longer do I own the luxury of working the requisite 10,000 hours at anything for expert status.

Previous post on Beginner’s Mind

“Shoshin – It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would.”

That leads me to this: Film making; motion making perhaps since film isn’t any more involved in my “films” than in my stills. A year ago I knew nothing (I mean REALLY nothing) – I asked friends, “what does this and that mean. What do I need to post to Youtube. What editing program should I buy?

Beyond story, I started watching movies differently; noticing technical things like camera movement, transitions, editing points and most importantly, how they all that make me feel about a scene. Damn – now THESE guys are masters.  Yet, I read somewhere that Spielberg feels like revisiting breakfast on the floor of his car the first shoot day of a big feature – could this be?

This music video for singer song writer Jeanne Jolly was shot by DeBoer Works LLC (Bruce DeBoer) and a small crew in 7 locations. We used DSLR’s – Canon 5D II and 7D. Additional live show footage was shot by Draw Bridge Media on two RED One Cameras. When we lit scenes we used Kino Flo Divas and Arri 650 Fresnel. It was edited at DeBoer Works using Final Cut Pro and graded using Apple Color and Red Giant Looks. The first 2 minutes of the song was recorded with Jeanne solo on her guitar at Burlap Palace in Raleigh. The full band recording, beginning at time code 2:30, was imported from her CD. Sound effects were added during final edit.

I just finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Great book by the way – if you like stories of innovation and inspiration as I do. One of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs – and there are many – is this:

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs

If you’re anything like me you’ve had that dream of being naked in front of an audience at least once. At some point, someone pointed to you and said, “you ain’t that good” or “that’s too hard, don’t even try.” Chances are it was the mirror doing so.

Further, if you’re anything like me you’ve had dreams – usually of the daytime variety – that haven’t materialized for one reason or another. My excuse inventory included: I don’t have the resources, I don’t know enough, or my talent and skills don’t run that deep – blah, bah – you know, the usual stuff.

A few things are now blindingly clear to me.

• Skill trumps talent in the long run.
• Ignore reality. If you want it bad enough it will happen.
• Discard plan “B” because it distracts from plan “A”.
• Fear is the biggest obstacle you’ll face.
• Doing anything beats simply thinking about doing great things. Do something; lay a brick the best way you know how.

Fear runs deep. We can conquer fear but fear of fear is yet one level harder. It’s best to remember Steve Job’s quote; “… you’re already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Historically – and perhaps some of you can relate – my biggest personal challenge has been finding the right passion to follow. I’m your classic shiny object chaser. They say, “Love what you do beyond reason because any rational person would give up.” Yet, after a time, it seems as though meaning leaks out. My conclusion: That thing you love to needs to touch something in others or its endurance fails; most products are disposable, build something that endures.

Settle for building a successful business and it will close – it’s the basic difference between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Both are great business men but Gates eventually bailed from Microsoft to find meaning – Microsoft is irrelevant. Jobs found meaning in what he built and ended up changing the world through Apple.

I thought I’d share this short video [uploaded at this youtube channel] that a few Facebook friends help me discover. Will Smith – yes, that Will Smith – talks motivation, hard work, talent, skill and passion. Well worth the 4 minutes.

Wait. Who is that singing?

I take some pride in my early discovery: At Ribfest 2005, September at Five County Stadium, Zebulon, NC., while there to support the featured band – good friends, great band – and, oh yeah, eat some ribs – surprise – a magnificent voice stopped our tracks dead. Rhiannon Giddens – wow – who is that, and why have we not seen her before?

We got home and I started a search. Turned out Rhiannon was a recent graduate of Oberlin Conservatory now singing fiddle tunes – how curious, how awesome. I fired off an introduction email and began arranging a photo shoot.

Schedules being what they are, it wasn’t until the Carolina Chocolate Drops had formed and were well on their way national attention before we met for a photo session at Stagville Plantation’s Slave Quarters in Durham, NC.

Prairie Home Companion, Grand ol’ Opry, NPR interviews, countless magazine articles, appearance in the film, “The Great Debaters”, and a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album – and 4 years later – I asked Rhiannon if she’d sit with Armand Lenchek and I for a video interview.

Here’s and edited 16 minutes of the 80 she spent answering our creative curiosity:

via Carolina Chocolate Drops website:
This is the story in a nutshell. Rhiannon’s father was a classically-trained singer whose legacy was a warning not to study voice before the age of 16. So Rhiannon waited until she was 16 and set off for choral camp. It was great, so she applied to Oberlin College and took on the deepest part of the classical vocal river, opera. “I did five operas and three main roles,” Rhiannon summarizes, “I got into it pretty hardcore.”

For the record, I’m totally over using Wikipedia as an example of anything except as an example of an overused example. Is a Wiki encyclopedia the only creative thing the internet has produced? Please pardon my digression.

What do the movies Ishtar and Rain Man have in common? They are the consecutive movies in 1987 and 1988 in which Dustin Hoffman starred. I’ve often wondered why an obviously great actor would choose a role in a notoriously bad movie. Couldn’t he see that Ishtar was going to suck? Did he know Rain Man was going to be great? Apparently not.

By now we must all know the secret is in doing, especially since Nike changed their tag line back in the ‘80’s. Take your shot. Be overly cautious and you’ll end up sitting on every idea you’ve ever had.

I’m never “all in” though; I have doubts. Well, don’t. Have no doubt about it, your idea will fail. Your concept at the start will not be the one you take to the goal.

As a photographer I “shoot around it”; my typical success rate is 100:1 if I’m being vaguely creative. If I close the ratio I’m going safe and less with creative instincts.

My new adventure is scripting stories for film – a newbie. In a short 6 months the best quote I’ve applied is that your film is shot 3 times: once in your head, once on film (or video), and once when editing. With each success, the effort that goes out with the trash should be considerable if you’re doing it right.

I guess we don’t know until we try; we’re not as good at predicting success as one might think. Truth is, innovators fail far more than those who aren’t. That’s not what it looks like on the surface. At quick glance, you’re innovative and I’m not. In reality, I’m not failing enough; I’m looking for that 1 in 100 before it happens.

According to Frans Johansson, research tells us that the single strongest correlation between innovator success is the number of ideas they try to make happen. Example: Einstein published 240 unreferenced papers. That’s 240:1.

The secret is in taking the smallest executable step to move your idea forward. What is the minimum investment you need that will convince you to take another step? The strategy is to convince yourself it can work.

Additionally, accept failure of your first step. Start walking northeast even though your final goal may be true north. Do it right and your goal moves, the idea changes as we conduct research, collect resources and create prototypes.

[via the99percent.com]
Frans Johansson is an entrepreneur and thought leader. He is also a consultant and the managing director for a hedge fund. Frans previously co-founded and managed two companies, a Boston-based software company and a medical device company operating out of Baltimore, Maryland and Stockholm, Sweden.

Raised in Sweden by his African-American and Cherokee mother and Swedish father, Frans earned an MBA at Harvard Business School and a BS in environmental science at Brown University.

A successful author, Frans has written on a variety of topics, from business management to healthcare to sport fishing to how to save our oceans. His bestselling book, The Medici Effect, has been translated into 17 languages and was named “One of the Ten Best Business Books of 2004″ by Amazon.com.

TED’s Chris Anderson says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print. [via TED website]

The speed in which learning must take place to succeed is rivaled only by the nearly

Bruce DeBoer

overwhelming quantity of what needs to be learned to meet market demands. For me this means learning to produce, shoot and edit motion.

Let’s review:

Demand for professional photography is way up but barriers for entry into the business are way down mostly in the form of available information and necessary skills. Reference: “automation” and “disintermediation”.

Supply and demand puts downward pressure on price while new innovative workflows and rapidly advancing technology allow newer businesses to compete more efficiently than businesses with legacy systems and business models.

The Challenge:

There is good and bad of course but that really doesn’t matter does it? It just is. Deal with it. The old adage, “if you can’t beat’em, join’em” gets a new life.

It’s unavoidable really. Whenever I picked up my iPhone, point and shoot, or DSLR as a still shooter, I also had a video camera in my hand. Eventually it speaks to you, “try me”. I’ve been in love with the still photograph since I was 8 but I’m a business man, I caved. Kicking and screaming perhaps, but I caved.

Still amazing to me is how little of my still shooting workflow migrated to shooting motion, yet how fast one can navigate a steep learning curve through Anderson’s Crowd Accelerated Innovation – aka the internet.

My Process:

• Research and acquire the minimum amount of gear to get the look you want; improvise where you can. Looking at shoots produced on the iPhone will put emphasis firmly on content and further from a lot of expensive gear.
• Learn all the technical video jargon and stuff like: frame rates, shutter angle, rolling shutter, line skipping, timecodes, progressive v. interlaced, color sampling, codex, transcoding, compression, and all the other stuff that video veterans find remedial.
• Learn enough audio technique from your musician and veteran sound recording friends to stay out of trouble; buy digital 4 track and microphones. (hint: Proximity)
• Take multiple test runs; acquire usable experimental footage.
• Own enough computer power to handle large video files (hint – configuring a PC system to meet the need didn’t make sense). Buy Final Cut Studio or equivalent.
• Learn Final Cut Studio essentials but keep your tutorial videos and books close at hand. (hint: learn keyboard shortcuts)
• Practice with your experimental footage. Compare your results with what you see online. Learn. Repeat. Learn more; at best you are a film student with 30 years professional experience. Learning is accelerated but basically you are “guy/gal with camera” to the big boys.
• Choose a project of reasonable risk; stay within yourself, don’t over reach.  You have permission to suck but a catastrophic disaster may be a bit discouraging. If you actually have a client, drop the “suck” part.
• Prepare. This is one area that is very similar to still production with the exception that you are following (or creating) a script/storyboard and not following layouts or simply grabbing shots from a scene you created. While grabbing motion “pick-up” shots is possible, there is so much more involved with directing motion success as a guerilla shooter or “winging it” becomes much less probable. (hint: “Fix it in post” is more limited and more expensive).

In my opinion, the rest is intuitive creativity. Your aesthetics drive content, timing, transitions, etc. and your minds-eye pre-visualizes the flow and edits. To me, this is the fun part.

On a commercial job you will be hiring experts like an experienced, well equipped DP and Sound Man but if you don’t know your way around and can’t talk to them intelligently, your asking for it. Learn their shit and yours.

I think music videos are a great place to experiment because you’ll have a high level of creative freedom, but still have technical and creative challenges like fitting your story in the exact same length as the song.

I used an original song by Will McFarlane; my good and patient friend. His abilities allowed me to shoot the guitar break at 1:54 as he played in sync with the studio recording; something I wanted to show because of his reputation as a world class player.

Viewer suspension of disbelief is fine but I’m not one who generally likes that unfeasible studio sound while on a mountain top feel of musicals. As a guitar player, the fact he nailed the left hand positions so well still amazes me.

Those who prefer the higher quality of VIMEO use this:

It’s the time of year that is filled with industry predictions.  No predictions from me this year, just realities.  One reality is that we are able to do much more with less.  What’s more, don’t anticipate clients abiding the same thing only better.  They will not be denied.

Technology and talent has proven itself worthy of turning micro budget into an artful result.  The key is to hold the line on what matters.  When money is tight, the line is paper thin between a film spot resembling a college project and a professional production.  Accept a bid and you’re committing to high expectations.

Friend to Permission to Suck, Director/DP David McCarty,  gave me a heads up on a low budget video spot he shot for Hamilton Jewelers.  Impressed, I asked if he would be interested in answering a few questions for a PTS post.  His response was so generous I reproduced it here along with stills and the finished spot.

Where Style Is Timeless: The Hamilton Jewelers

The inspiration behind the project was the current explosion of interest in the early 1960’s era; almost entirely due to the television show Mad Men. We wanted to stage a dinner theater in 1960 where it would be natural to have men and women very well dressed thus offering a vehicle to feature the client’s diamond jewelry.

The storyline is that of a newly engaged young couple. The scene shows everyone in the room involved with the music with the exception of our young couple who are more interested in each other.

This was a micro budget production, so the first obstacle was securing a cheap location that could play as a 60’s era dinner theatre. Second, it needed to look, more or less, dressed and ready to shoot. Third, we needed the run of the place, controlling everything for 10-12 hours.

We found just the location a short drive from our offices in New Jersey. The brother of one of our Senior VP’s just happened to own an Italian restaurant that had an upstairs dining room. He had designed it to look like the old dinner theaters of that era. It was perfect. He was not only closed on Mondays, but he could handle the catering for us as well.

The second task was talent. We were shooting in New Jersey, outside of Philadelphia, and needed good talent. Our usual suspects for styling, hair and makeup were all out of NYC anyway so we cast our principal talent there. We rented a van and drove our talent, stylists, hair and makeup artists down from NYC. The extras all came out of Philadelphia and provided their own transportation. I recruited my daughter and her fiancé to fill in as our third couple.

My Director of Photographer flew in from SF, and I acted as both Director and second camera operator. We both used our personal Canon 5DMII’s and ultra fast “L” lenses, but rented a Red Rock Micro Shoulder Mounted Rig and a SmallHD DP6 monitor. We also had pro sticks with high-end fluid heads on hand and I provided the 1m Glidetrack HD.

Our Producer handled the rest of the crew and the lighting order, which was small. Basically, we had a lighting truck from which we pulled a bare bones lighting package: A handful of Fresnel spots, a couple of Kinos, some flags, and enough board to block the light from the windows.

Our Gaffer and Key Grip was the same guy who rented us the lighting package. He came with an assistant.

We weren’t shooting with sound so we saved on the sound crew. Our intention was to show the idea of the musicians, a little hint to sell the story without being a focal point.  We anticipated plugging in a piece of stock music during post. Our Producer, who happened to be a musician himself, cast friends of his for the shoot.

I’d asked him to see if he could round up a stand up bass player and a horn player. We’d pay them out of our “extras” budget, which meant I’d have two less people in the audience. As it turned out, the producer’s friends were real pros, and they played while we shot them. I was so thrilled with the quality, that I asked the Producer to find out if they’d be willing to record an original piece of music together and license it to us to be used for the piece. In the end, that’s exactly what we did.

The lighting setup was designed to be pretty simple. A key light composed of a couple of fresnel spots bouncing off a wall, flagged to prevent spill. We had another fresnel bouncing off some broken mirrors to provide a little ambiance, and some hair light. The only light that ever moved all day was the hair light, which we used to provide the edge.

The DP shot almost entirely hand held using the Red Rock Micro rig, while I shot almost entirely off sticks, much of it locked off. We added a couple of “dolly moves” using the Glidetrack set on a couple of apple boxes.

Originally, we had no intention of having video playback for the clients. When you’re working on a micro-production, there are just things you don’t get. Video village is one of them. But the Producer and the AC had worked on some other DSLR shoots and had come up with a pretty effective system.

Using a Black Box video splitter with an aux. battery attached to the rig, we output the HDMI signal to a 17” monitor in the other room for the clients. It worked beautifully. The DP used the new SmallHD DP6 monitor, attached to the rig and fed into the splitter. I could either stand behind him to view, or watch playback through the camera after each shot. The client could watch both live and playback of all feeds, at least from camera A. She just had to trust me on camera B.

The room pretty much came as is; they even had the table lamps. Only problem was they were candle powered. We needed more light so we rented a dozen 40wt lamps and tied them into a dimmer. The restaurant provided the desserts, stemware, drinks and dishes.

We planned to handle hair, makeup and styling on the principals, while the extras were asked to show up ready to go. In the end, while we could get away with everything else, even the extras had their hair done. Our hair guy was a maniac; total overachiever.

Once the talent (both principals and extras) had gone through wardrobe, hair and makeup, we were ready to shoot. Except one last thing. The jewelry. The client actually had a small crew herself.  Together they got the correct jewelry on the correct people, keeping track of exactly who had what. This stuff was the real deal complete with security.

The DP and I had discussed the look we wanted at length, and while there were a few key shots we knew we needed, beyond that, we simply found our shots as we came to them. There were no storyboards, just a story. We work together a lot and had discussed the shoot at length. By the time we had the talent in place, we just went to town.

The shoot was based on a 10 hour day, with talent on a 12 hour day door to door from NYC.

The DP and I worked pretty hard to set the white balance to what we wanted before we started shooting and our cameras were calibrated to one another. We wanted to be a little warm, even to the extent that our whites were warm.

Since we couldn’t show people actually smoking, a smoke machine helped give us the needed atmosphere. The intention was to desaturate the footage slightly in post, but the added smoke pretty much took care of it for me. Therefore, there was almost no grading done in post.

Because of the limited 8 bit color depth on these cameras, you are pretty limited to how much you can manipulate the footage in post. It’s best to go old school and get it right in camera. This is by far the most important thing I’ve learned in several years of shooting with the 5DMII.

The shoot went off without a hitch and we finished on time. (Well almost without a hitch. The van with the talent showed up an hour late because of traffic. We still got it all done.)

The footage was backed up to several drives and that evening I transcoded all the 5DII video files into ProRes 422 (HQ) 1280×720.

The next day the DP, Producer and I all had to catch a flight to a location scout for another job, but when I got back a few days later, I was able to begin editing.

By then, our musicians had banged out a few options for me. They sounded great. Only one problem. The sound was too good. Since they had recorded in a studio, it didn’t feel right, so I imported them into Apple’s Soundtrack, added some room tone, ambient sound effects and even a little reverb to give it an authentic sound. It sounded great and I was ready to edit.

I edited in Final Cut Studio. Because we went to the trouble of getting the look we wanted in camera, I needed only a few slight adjustments here and there; nothing that couldn’t be handled in FCP’s 3-Way Color Corrector.

The voice over was originally done as a scratch track using the voice of an audio editor at our local production house. I loved his voice, a Gene Hackman sound alike, but the client wanted a more traditional VO, so we re-recorded it using non-union talent.

The beauty of creating video for the web is the story can be as long as you can maintain interest. No more :15’s or :30’s. Make it as long or as short as you want. In the end, the piece came out exactly how we wanted. It was a team effort including a trusting client. The client got extremely high value and we all got a nice piece of film.

There is no question that you can do amazing things with micro-production DSLR shoots, but if, and only if, client expectations are managed. You have to know what you can and cannot do being upfront and clear with the client. They also have to trust you. If they begin micromanaging the shoot, you will be lost. When you’re shooting a bare-bones production, there is no room for error.

One good idea, if you can swing it, is to have access to a larger lighting package than you think you’ll need. Something you can pull from, a la carte, if you have to. I’ve not needed the extra, but knowing it’s there is certainly a little added insurance.

Critical is your ability to think on your feet and take advantage of opportunities and the inevitable opportune mistakes. On micro-production jobs, you’re going to be more run and gun so you’ll need good instincts and be ready to make quick decisions.

I find another important aspect of successful micro-production is to have good ideas.  Everyone wants to be a part of something with quality. The budget is irrelevant. If you have a good concept and a good plan, you can get highly talented people to come along for the ride. If you’re a demanding asshole that’s trying to do too much with too little, you’ll create a catastrophe. Build a team of creative professionals and treat them like gold. They’ll break their humps for you and thank you for the opportunity to boot.

My final thought: be realistic. You can shoot a $500k film or something 1/10^th the budget. Either one can be great. They won’t be the same scope, but if you maximize what you have and do everything you can to bring every dollar on the screen, it can be great. The trick is to never try to shoot a $500k film for $50k.

Six months ago I was asked a series of questions for Talent Zoo by writer Sara Barton, here are some of the questions with my answers.  There are over 20 questions, but I’ll post installments updating where necessary.

How did you decide on the title of your blog, Permission to Suck? What’s that about?

The blog “Permission to Suck” has actually been around for 5 or 6 years but it’s only been since August ‘09 that I’ve transformed it into something more comprehensive including original video interviews.

One of my close friends, Will McFarlane, and I regularly discuss our careers as creative professionals – he’s a professional guitarist and I’m a photographer. It surprised us just how many parallels there are between the two creative disciplines.

Early on we were lamenting about how hard it can be to try something new because after a long career there is a tendency to feel as though every new thing has to be a masterpiece.  It feels as though your reputation rides on your next photo or your next song; one false move and you’re discovered for a fraud.  I’m not sure when exactly, but at some point, “what we need is Permission To Suck” was uttered and it stuck.  A few days later I had a blog with that name and a month after that I wrote a 1000 word essay titled Permission To Suck that got some traction.

So, do creatives need permission to suck?

Freedom to fail is the disinfected version but, yes, we need it if we hope to grow professionally. As soon as you default to your “A” game – frequently necessary – creative growth is slowed. As Steven Johnson discussed at length in Where Good Ideas Come From, the “adjacent possible” is virtually ignored in favor of what we know works.

Simultaneous with developing an “A” game you hear leaving your mouth: “well, it’s my style”. Without question, it’s great to have a style but be true, are you creating work to fit a style or is your creativity leaving a wake that has style?

It’s easy to say I’m fearless; I’m pushing myself, but very hard to actually “do” in my opinion.  It’s hard to force oneself to be uncomfortable and accept inevitable failure – which is very uncomfortable by the way – especially for those who work for their food.  It’s easier to go with what you know.

I suppose the key is to keep rowing; move the boat.  Embrace Permission to Suck but through hard work, refuse to suck. If you keep moving it’s still possible to steer the boat and discover Steven Johnson’s adjacent possible.

My all-time favorite article is the “Creative Manifesto.” Can you tell me what inspired it?

Most of what I write echoes personal creative tensions. I get bored with myself easily. It’s as though every 4-5 year I had hit another wall. To be clear, I don’t take this as one of my better traits.

In this case, I started reading about creativity and while everything I read had a good message, it left me wanting. It all sounded so removed from a professional’s reality and the advice, on its face, sounds so pat and easy, whereas to me it felt convoluted and enigmatic, a.k.a Effing hard. I wrote the first draft in 30 minutes; I think I was in a mood. I reread it often so I don’t forget what I promised myself – it’s still hard but the Manifesto breaks it down for me.

Like I said, there is plenty of similar stuff written about creativity, but the PTS manifesto was aimed at professional creatives; those who make art & creativity a career choice. My hope is that it sounds as if you wrote it when a little pissed off at falling victim to your need to create. Besides, it’s trendy to have a manifesto isn’t it?

Listen to this NPR Podcast with Ed Norton and Bruce Springsteen

Fans recognize the brilliant genius of Bruce Springsteen, but I think creative professionals can all relate to the process he describes in this Fresh Air podcast. Springsteen’s motivation and passion informed his style not the reverse.  In my opinion, it is the key to a long career as a professional creative.

“you’re usually motivated by fear … I was afraid of losing myself, it is possible for your talent to be co-opted, and your identity moved and shifted to a place there you weren’t prepared for.” – Bruce Springsteen

Professional creatives perform a near constant wrestling match with ego. In crowded fields of talent, ego is all at once responsible for relentlessly pushing a creative vision and crushing it to death.

As far as I can tell, an artist’s ego is really a set of twins. Equally responsible for driving confidence in creative vision or stomping out risk taking and adventure.

Like a hit single with a B side, creative professionals keep on “doing” for two reasons. First, we don’t want to do anything other than create our stuff but we need to earn a living, i.e. we do it for money. If balanced correctly, that’s the “B” side, side “A” is the desire to influence others through our works. Folks may like side “B” but it’s not why you cut the single in the first place.

Imagine you’re a creative whore, then picture the ego damaging consequence of standing on a busy street corner unable to attract better than a $5 customer. Sooner or later wouldn’t you get the message, “I’m simply not that sexy”? At first you’d tell yourself, “I’m always standing on the wrong corner” or “they got theirs at home today.” As a result, creativity turns reactive as ego measures worth in dollars. It’s hardly coincidence that money and creativity appear inversely proportional.

From where does this vague invariant excellence standard originate? It’s how things “need to be” if they’re to be labeled “sexy”. Like an artistic sea level; above it influence thrives and below it lives creative floaters. Influence is sexy; influential creatives are worth more than $5. It’s the “A” side.

Our ego tells us to make judgments; comparing our work to others, contrasting it with our own reputation. The evil twin is reactive pushing fear like a drug but our good twin gives confidence in our influential vision. “If I do it my way it’s way above sea level.”

Broadcasting ego without influence to match is arrogance. No one wants that; it makes others uncomfortable. Arrogance is a sure sign that the twin egos are out of balance, i.e. the evil twin is in command giving too much glory to the “B” side. Conversely, a professional creative “order taker” needs an ass kicking by the good twin.

Influencers are talented wrestlers. Egocentrism of great influencers is a sign of a match winner. Consider it creative hypomania without the down side.

[via Influencers webiste]
INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.

The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.

Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today’s pop culture.

“Influencers” belongs to the new generation of short films, webdocs, which combine the documentary style and the online experience.

My life is a trial of slow hunch and error; semi-baked ideas patiently awaiting resolution. Epiphanies are ideas that move suddenly from semi to mostly baked after a slow burn. They benefit from 10,000 hours of practice, knowledge and tipping points but ultimately rely on staying connected to adjacent possibilities to facilitate the serendipity of adaptive re-purposing.

A superb titles by different authors:

Drive – Dan Pink
Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
Linchpin – Seth Godin
Where Good Ideas Come From – Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson has been making blog appearances through his RSA Animate and TED videos, but his latest book is the unabridged version of his five year research into the formation of good ideas. He breaks it down into seven chapters: The Adjacent Possible, Liquid Networks, The Slow Hunch, Serendipity, Error, Exaptation, and Platforms. Each chapter of Johnson’s book fits comfortably with experience yet offers a significantly alternate angle.

Ideas don’t happen in isolation. One thing leads to the next as we stand on the shoulders of giants. There needed to be a carbon atom before discovering oil, just as there needed to be Kranz before Prince. Clearly some adjacent ideas are more enduring while others are more harmful to a genre but we don’t move forward without error.

On my “to do” list:

Find ways to creatively mingle.

Bump elbows with dissimilar yet like minded creatives; “like minded” meaning open and curious, dissimilar meaning not always agreeable. A denser mix gives rise to more sparks that facilitate idea baking. Will the creative genius be demoted to the merely talented by virtue of our new “Third Place”; the internet? The breakthrough coming from out of nowhere will henceforth be traceable to many adjacent connections.

On my “to do” list:

Find a collaborative space to work.

Good ideas are new connections made from previous knowledge.  The key is knowledge; anything else relies on ignorant chance, which is good but highly unreliable. Knowledge of a genre takes time to explore.  It’s harder to find the adjacent possible without knowing the adjacent exists.

On my “to do” list:

Keep learning but take care not to build a house of mirrors; diversify.

Serendipity is practiced luck; luck that you can rely upon. Stuff happens randomly when at rest; serendipity is to creativity what entropy is to thermodynamics. Serendipity is the uncaptured idea, like energy unavailable for work until acted upon by a force.

On my “to do” list:

Stay open. Let accidents happen. Embrace Serendipity.

Ideas need to be exposed to failure. It’s as though we have to get through the crap to find the gold. Poor information, inappropriate preparation, ill-fated execution all lead to greatness.  Einstein was an idiot until he wasn’t.

On my “to do” list:

Give myself permission to suck.

There is a scrap heap of ideas waiting to be adaptively repurposed; a.k.a. exaptation or in past tense: exaptated.  One-liners become a book if we collect enough of them to piece together in a meaningful way.  Was the appendix really a vestigial organ or one waiting for exaptation in the evolution of man?  A great idea is a great idea but maybe not for the solution you’re attempting to find.

On my “to do” list:

Start keeping an idea book; one that isn’t a computer.

[more via TED website] 

A dynamic writer and speaker, Johnson crafts captivating theories that draw on a dizzying array of disciplines, without ever leaving his audience behind. Author Kurt Anderson described Johnson’s book Emergence as “thoughtful and lucid and charming and staggeringly smart.” The same could be said for Johnson himself. His big-brained, multi-disciplinary theories make him one of his generation’s more intriguing thinkers. His books take the reader on a journey — following the twists and turns his own mind makes as he connects seemingly disparate ideas: ants and cities, interface design and Victorian novels.

Why do some individuals lead with their creative ideas?

We all get attention for what we do.  To get more attention we’re told to get a plan or a better design: goals, objectives, tactics, a proprietary process, a unique value proposition, distinct messaging, a brand strategy.

Rarely are we asked, “why do you do this thing you do?” What’s more, in our deepest frustration, if we fail to find an answer to why, enthusiasm is lost for how we are doing it, and we risk abandoning what we do altogether.

What’s your purpose, your cause, your belief?  What gets you out of bed in the morning? What we do is clear to others. How we do it is less transparent but the “why”  is fuzzy maybe even invisible.  Yet, according to Simon Sinek, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Photographers, musicians, writers make things – creatively wonderful things.  What they make has a style, a voice, and a viewpoint which makes it easier for the creator to ignore the “why”.

The artifacts are deeply connected to the creator’s ego that gets bruised with rejection. Rejection brings focus back on the artifacts; what we make and how we make it – “why” is forgotten in order to focus on the pain of rejection.

Simon Sinek inspired me to add a law to the Permission To Suck Manifesto. In the #1 position it now reads:

1.  Hold on tight to your “why”. Why do you do this thing you do? It is the root of all you create and the power of your inspiration.

“Why” is your deepest inside stuff. If you don’t know why you do what you do, how can you expect others to believe in you; why should they care?

Actions without a cause don’t accumulate followers.

Leaders act from the inside “why” and move on to how they do what they do. Mr. Sinek is codifying the passion for creating in a counter intuitive approach. He starts with why and calls his approach the golden circle -  concentrically from the inside out: why > how > what.

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

[via TED website]

Beginning as a student in anthropology, Simon Sinek turned his fascination with people into a career of convincing people to do what inspires them. His earliest work was in advertising, moving on to start Sinek Partners in 2002, but he suddenly lost his passion despite earning solid income. Through his struggle to rediscover his excitement about life and work, he made some profound realizations and began his helping his friends and their friends to find their “why” — at first charging just $100, person by person. Never planning to write a book, he penned Start With Why simply as a way to distribute his message.

Sinek also contributes to several efforts in the non-profit sphere: He works with Count Me In, an organization created to help one million women-run businesses reach a million dollars in revenue by 2012, and serves on the Board of Directors for Danspace Project, which advances art and dance.  He writes and comments regularly for several major publications and teaches a graduate-level class in strategic communications at Columbia University.

“I try to find, celebrate and teach leaders how to build platforms that will inspire others. “

Simon Sinek