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.”

If you’re like me, you ask yourself this way too often. Here’s a good reminder from Maria Schneider of the proper answer:

Any new clever combination of A + B = Creativity, and there is more access to “A” and “B” than ever and more tomorrow than today. This is obviously true. Also obvious is the love of creativity in everything; people who never thought of themselves as creative are feelin’ it, and those who are in traditionally creative fields are pressured to be more imaginative.  Isn’t technology wonderful?

Well… to be honest, I’m getting little tired of hearing about how creative I must be; F%$# you, I’ll be who I am – you go and be fresh and new and different, I’m going to concentrate on being a better me.

Yes, we were born to be creative; hell, we were born out of a creative act. But here’s the thing, while creativity is the core of human existence, aren’t we all powerfully drawn to virtuosity? Virtuosity is human excellence of skill, fluency and style. It’s the heart skipping grandness of human achievement.

Creativity is a common and natural act. Yet, being a virtuoso is the ultimate analog goal requiring sacrifice. Great musicians, fine artists, writers, and even athletes inspire awe in what is possible when a life is devoted to skill honing and potential accomplishment. Success is visceral.

For example, when we think “virtuoso” our thoughts go to great musicians. Mastering an instrument isn’t something one can hand off to a machine in order to further increase skill complexity [architecture for example]. It takes a lifetime of devotion and it’s that devotion combined with accomplishment which draws our admiration.

The devotion to a skill that produces useless beauty is virtuous. Aesthetic aptitude + highly skilled craft + just enough creativity to be interesting = Virtuosity. This equation says nothing about being original just to be original.

No matter how fresh, mediocrity is the middle state overflowing with human weakness and unevenness. We’re pushing for fresh creativity but Larry Bird in the ’86 NBA Championship game defines virtuosity.

Virtuosity demands respect; it’s the complete loss of static in communication, it’s the defeat of flaws in the act of performance with a resonance that sends the human spirit. The virtuoso is a supreme victor in a battle over the average creative mediocrity.

Ira Gitler is an American jazz historian and journalist, listen to how he describes Art Tatum, the virtuoso pianist, in this video. Gitler is in awe of the skill Tatum achieved in one lifetime. It’s spectacular, it’s unique and it’s original Tatum. Tatum’s level of virtuosity set him apart; his virtuosity was freshness, everything he did was newly created because his level of musical skill is so rarely reached.

Zenph Sound Innovations is a creative company designing algorithms and deliverable software able to reproduce the virtuosity of artists like Art Tatum or Rachmaninoff on stage. It’s further demonstration of the lengths we’ll go to experience virtuosity. A recording isn’t good enough, we want the experience. We want to be intimately familiar with the performance down to what it feels like to be him.

Zenph’s obsession will succeed in creating a performance snapshot, a clearer portrait of virtuosity; the result, not the origin. Their technology is exciting. Our understanding of performance will be enhanced but it’s still a copy closer to a parlor trick than virtuosity.  To be authentically original is to make the sacrifice to be a virtuoso.

I’m willing to bet a huge ransom that an original low tech recording of Tatum will retain an higher value than a masterful performance reproduction of Tatum’s playing a la Zenph.  What does it say about virtuosity when reproduction quality isn’t worth as much as being closer to the authentic original?

Take a look at the technology behind performance reproduction in this video. John Q. Walker, PhD – Chairman & Chief Technology Officer at Zenph Sound Innovations.  Gave this presentation for TED in 2007.

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.

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

Crowdsourcing is tainted so let’s gift it to corporations for their Power Point presentations.  It belongs to those who use the millennium’s broad bandwidth of human connection to capture creative innovation for personal or corporate profit.  It’s Jargon. Crowdsourcing is using the innovation of a crowd with similar interests to further a cause. Ultimately, in most cases, this means financial profit.

It’s not evil, but let’s get real, crowdsourcing isn’t innovation as much as novelty. Structuring a business around crowdsourcing is doing little more than upping your pool of freelance talent in order to put downward pressure on price and upward pressure on uniqueness. The former almost always happens, the latter is much tougher to achieve. [see iStockPhoto]

The tendency is to focus on what something triggers; what it can do to us (fear) and for us (profit). Where will it take our business? What can I do to harness the new thing? Conduct a SWOT analysis. Crowdsourcing models are an answer for what we can do to take advantage of motivated people through technology and its broad reach. It does little to answer how our interconnectiveness (is that a word?) will change creativity or its landscape.

Chris Anderson

TED conference curator Chris Andersen’s characterization, “Crowd Accelerated Innovation”, is the foundation for why we are in a creative awakening.  Finding the best and learning from a larger pool is why we pay heed. The pool is really a stream filled with potential geniuses who are showing passion, knowledge and skill while screaming, “look at me”. We look, learn and long for the spotlight to shine our direction.

The crowdsource model is a plan to capture innovation for a purpose.  Crowd Accelerated Innovation however, is driving the ideas, skills and dreams of creative individuals. The spotlight is on; everyone is on stage in a global “Gong Show”. Crowdsourcing is a funnel while Crowd Accelerated Innovation is a megaphone.

What seems to be easy to forget is that people are doing it for themselves; answering, “what’s in it for me?” Equally easy to forget is that money clouds passion by focusing on an end game that rarely has anything to do with passion’s origin. For the creative, “what’s in it for me” is not a plan to make money; money is an attractive by-product not a root creative passion.

In this TED presentation, watch what Chris Anderson has to show us about Crowd Accelerated Innovation:

If you’re a creativity supplier be very proud of your steady revenue in the face of change. Either you’re a positioning genius in an unstable market or it just may be the quiet before a bigger storm.

Scott Anthony for the Harvard Business Review writes how flat yet steady revenue might, in the face of disruption, help category leaders ignore even the most obvious need for change. CD sales in the mid 90’s, Newspaper Revenues, or photographic film sales are solid examples of change snubbing categories.  Another example of an organization disregarding change – yet much less surprising – is the USPS sited in an article in the Economist titled: Hoping for Deliverance.

Market positioning is difficult under the best of circumstances and the sole proprietor may have neither the time nor inclination to react even if they’re trend aware. Professional photographers are an especially hard hit group. It was nearly impossible to avoid flat footing the need for dramatic change.  As a group they’re finally mostly aware yet a large number remain bemused about how deep the change will go and its affects, same goes for the advertising industry.

For the last couple years I’ve been thinking about my work in terms of big “D” and little “d” where big “D” is discovery and little “d” is delivery.  Discover your motivation, your unique blend of expertise, and the problems to be solved.  Delivery is the how your discovery fits onto a business model. Sound like “design thinking” – yeah, it should.

It’s been an ongoing process that, thus far, pivots on motivation and passion.  I’ve been taking inventory with questions like these:

1.  Where is my work passion rooted; What do I find exciting?

2.  What are the relevant experiences and skills bordering the excitement?

3.  Among my collected experience / skill inventory, what is uniquely mine?

4.  What value can I offer based on my inventory?

5.  What values are uniquely mine that will not change?

6.  What is the value proposition of my work?

Basic ? Remedial? Yes but it’s easy to lose track of #1 and if you do, #6 will eventually  suck.  It’s a process that was probably switched to auto pilot in early career but certainly if I stayed more cognoscente it would have lead to fewer wrong turns.

What’s at the core of your offering?  You’re a musician but aren’t you also a performer? I’m a commercial photographer but I’m also a visual artist.  If you’re an auto maker aren’t you also a transportation company?  I make these distinctions because they are roots oriented.  Buggy whip manufacturers were in the in the motivation business.  Photographic trends lose relevance but visual art will always move people.

Get the point? Find passion’s root, get back in touch with what you offer, hold onto what won’t change and rappel from there. Good advice for the USPS don’t you think?

Reference Permission To Suck Manifesto:

Law #6.    Your creativity is about your heart, not their surface. Creativity is your world view filtered through your talent. It’s your passion, experience, expertise, inspiration and your rules that drive you to create wonderful things that you’re destined to hate because they’re not good enough, and others are open to admire because they couldn’t do it.



I saw a video of Graham Nash playing Buddy Holly’s guitar [embedded] and picked up on this quote:

“I think part of the process of this whole thing is to get as close to the flame as you can get without being burned” – Graham Nash

Buddy Holly died at 22 when Graham Nash was 17 – clearly it affected him deeply; you can feel the emotion of the moment as he holds Holly’s guitar and says, “Touching the Flame”.  The guitar isn’t the flame but is there any doubt about which fire Nash refers?

Every creative soul is capable of  a 5 minute monologue about their creative flame.  Odds-on it’s a semi-coherent ramble of disjointed thoughts spoken through a struggle to put feelings into words.  Go ahead, give it a shot: What is the flame and where do I find it? Is it passion, obsession or spirituality? Give me a definition please.

Independent of definition accuracy, I’m convinced that we can’t own the flame; no personal flame exists so it’s not ours to sell, only ours to find.  An artist’s most valuable time is spent seeking the flame and, if lucky, we’re allowed to feel occasional warmth.

Additionally, a great piece of creativity isn’t something that needs explanation. You react to it as a pyromaniac would to flame; drawn to it by curiosity, sensuality, warmth and fear.  Inexplicably, the feeling it gives you is like fitting an ocean through a straw.

All my adult life I’ve played the game of creativity for money: You pay me to add value to your idea of what a photograph should look like – I do my best. Together we’re capable of interesting surprises, but I’m fairly sure the “flame” isn’t warming us; we are simply using the memory of warmth to make a living. It’s as though the better we are at making money the less chance of getting burned, on the other hand, stay away from the flame long enough and you’ll go broke.

Execution is a commodity, yet the talented manage to add original value to an execution. Perhaps original value is the byproduct of near burns. Like internal scars on the imagination we execute personal originality that requires intense heat for renewal. No flame yields stagnation or – worse – a talent void.

Permission To Suck Manifesto Law #16 revisited:

Flame finding is your talent. Imagination is hot, execution is cold. The flame is illusive; if you must obsess about something, make it a flame search. “I think part of the process of this whole thing is to get as close to the flame as you can get without being burned” – Graham Nash

Meet Adam. He’s determined to unite talent – his own. A first-class writer and a first-rate illustrator equals a great cartoonist. A great cartoonist makes an exceptional ad man, screen writer and film director.

Here’s an example when livelihood obligates creative talent to flow. Resembling a creative anthropologist, skills are exhumed with the unrelenting exploration, tweaking and deadlines. There is nothing like the demands of a professional creative career; this is no do it when you feel like it hobby.

The fortunate survive the first third, navigate the second third and finish a maturing prodigy with an inspiring future. Talent is a given – find it or go home – nevertheless wisdom keeps talent relevant.

Biography via Capstrat.com

Some of Americas best known brands gained advantage from Adam’s multipurpose communications talent. An art director, illustrator, writer and strategic thinker, Adam is an advertising quadruple threat.

With nearly 20 years in advertising and now a V.P. Creative Director at Capstrat in N.C., Adam has a national reputation that’s prized locally. Distill, his North Carolina creative ad boutique, boasted a roster of Clients including Kingsdown Mattresses, IntraHealth International, Dey Pharmaceuticals and Mother Earth Brewing.

Before launching Distill, Adam devoted valuable message shaping years to San Francisco agency Ketchum Advertising for Bank of America, Hunt-Wesson Foods (Orville Redenbacher, Knott’s Berry Farm, Peter Pan), Pacific Bell and Novartis Crop Protection.

Prior to relocating North Carolina’s Triangle, Adam freelanced with nearly all major Bay Area agencies: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners; Foote, Cone & Belding; TBWA\Chiat\Day; McCann-Erickson; Butler, Shine & Stern. His work included advertising and strategic planning for among many: Charles Schwab, Microsoft, Levi’s, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Apple and the San Francisco Giants.

So as not to be accused of creative slacking, Adam’s daily comic strip, “Herschel,” was chosen for syndication by Creators Syndicate. He co-created a Cartoon Network animated pilot called “Major Flake” and his short film, “Love Scene,” won Best Narrative Short at the Ohio Independent Film Festival.

Some awards needing persistent dusting came from The New York Art Directors Show, The Clios, Graphis, Creativity Magazine, The San Francisco Show, PRINT, The AIGA Boom! Awards and ADDYS.

Adam earned a Bachelor’s degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in interdisciplinary studies with concentrations in art and speech communication from, and an MFA in illustration from the Savannah College of Art and Design.