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.”

Originally Published on Nov. 2009 – try it

While interviewing Will McFarlane I was reminded how critically important it is to avoid getting caught up in the nuance of our creative fields.  “Music can be math without feel or tone” is one of my take away quotes in part II.  Extending that, any field can be dry when devoid of feel or tone”.

It’s way more about what we do with what we know, than what we know.  How extraordinarily remedial is that?  Yet, how much time do we all spend in the pursuit of technique at the sacrifice of feel and tone?  Some players get more feeling out of 3 major chords than others do with a full knowledge of music theory.  Some photographers have an intangible spirit to their work that leads others to a fruitless study of lighting technique.

Technique is great.  Lack of it is limiting.  Then again, tone and feel is worth a constant reminder of its importance to great work.

Biography:

It’s hard to imagine how many 12 year old young men watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 and were inspired to pick up the guitar saying, “I want to do that”. Many, I’m sure. Voice lessons at six years old and piano a year later, young Will was clearly better primed than most.

Motown’s R&B captured Will’s imagination in High School while

growing up on Long Island, which helped him develop as a fine rhythm guitarist.

Bonnie Raitt enlisted the 23 year old college escapee McFarlane as a member of her band one night when she heard him play at a Cambridge, MA night club. He toured with her band from 1974 – 1980 before leaving the road to move into the studio.

While with The Bonnie Raitt band, Will shared stages with living blues and folk legends. That’ll do wonders for your playing but more importantly, Will learned to listen for what guitar licks to leave out to best play up the band.

In 1980 Will McFarlane joined the famed “Swampers”; He moved to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to play and learn from Jimmy Johnson and the boys. Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton, Etta James and Johnnie Taylor are a few that get off hand mention as clients of Muscle Shoals Sound.

Since 2001, Will McFarlane, his Wife Janet, their three children, and five grand kids all live in North Carolina’s Triangle Region. The Will McFarlane Band plays regionally but Will continues his studio work in Nashville and Muscle Shoals as well as live gigs both nationally and abroad.

Frank Stasio, WUNC Radio interview of Will McFarlane

When was the last time you surprised yourself creatively?

I recall a conversation with my Dad when I was 18; I simply couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to go to night clubs with friends because as I said then, “you never know what’s going to happen”.  His answer, “I think that’s just youth son, night club surprises don’t come frequently enough for me anymore.”

It’s no surprise that I’m not flummoxed by this as I was.  The scarcity of surprises increases with experience, or perhaps it’s a more accurate notion that surprises so abundant  progressively cease to surprise.

Which is it, scarcity or abundance? It’s essentially a scarcity shift. It’s as though we reside at the nightclub we once visited for the occasional surprise but now  it feels relatively ordinary as we live with noise and abundance; abundance that has created a shift in surprise scarcity.

I work with very talented groups regularly, but one particular encounter survives in me.  Out of nowhere our client said while viewing the daily images: “it always astounds me how you guys make ordinary things look extraordinary.”  It was true, the concept was potentially boring but not when we were done. We transformed it by tweaking the original concept so it had the likelihood of being extraordinary.

In another time, our finished photo was the scarcity we leveraged; today the finished-photo-value-curve points down.  Neither is a recorded song as valuable as a live performance; it’s hard to make a comfortable living selling your recordings so the performance had better be good.

In general, the scarcity shift is away from creative artifacts and toward creative performance. Can you establish the culture that creates, create the moment worth photographing, stage a performance that affects, or design the product that markets itself? What remains constant is that which begets great fishing not merely fish.

That enigmatic black box once so priceless to the creative supplier no longer serves us well.  No longer hidden behind a curtain, the value is what reliably turns the ordinary into extraordinary surprises.  Adding your value to the process should yield the performance surprises; it surpasses the original artifact expectation.

My point is a tweak away from “exceed expectations” but significantly so.  I believe scarcity is shifting toward those who not only exceed expectations but change the original expectations in surprising ways.  It’s because of new economic – we can find it when we want it -  abundance that the scarcity of extraordinary surprise is shifting upstream to creativity of performance and away from creativity of artifacts.

The most remarkable of remarkable things I witnessed during a month spent in China was culture clash – very old and very new – coexisting and competing for road space. Young and old, physically one or two generations removed, expose a gap wider than Jimi Hendricks and The Christie Minstrels – in many ways it’s the land time forgot.

We are analog beings. Analog is the smooth steady sensation on our hands, through our eyes, and in our ears, it’s unlimited in detail and richness.  Analog is the space in which we create things; it’s where we get our hands dirty. Our senses are not nearly acute enough to capture the immense detail of our analog world.

Digital is like touching a hair brush of ones and zeros, it’s like looking at an image full of holes or listening to harsh staccato tones.  Move the bristles close enough to each other and potentially it’s a good surface simulation. As we experience every day, those 1’s and 0’s eventually reach the edge of our senses. Digital detail is limited to what our senses need to perceive the facsimile of analog richness.

Digital gave us efficiencies and the ability to move and edit large numbers. Large portable numbers give us the ability to manipulate a simulated world. What we know is that digital technology is fast, inexpensive and accessible. As generations die, we further bake digital into our culture.  When fully baked, what then?

We all know quality when we see it.  We know what it feels like, and how it sounds, tastes and looks. Quality is not a simulation, it’s analog. Digital quality is a facsimile – albeit a good one – of real analog quality. What we experience as quality is the realness of fine detailed conception. Quality is the best humans can create.

Creativity is analog. There is no such thing as digital creativity.  Accept it, then understand there are critical points at the Analog to Digital conversion and vice versa.  In audio they’re called D/A Converters and they’re found in ever CD player and computer.  Lousy D/A converters mean you’ve lost sound fidelity. Want a quality photo print?  The D/A conversion from light to pixels or back from computer to ink on paper is the most crucial.  Everything else is just editing numbers, and yes there is good and bad editing but don’t forget the priorities are at either end.

My point is that the richness you and I perceive as quality, just like my experience in China, can be like old and new competing for road space. I recently viewed a presentation where an advertising opinion leader characterized the new definition of quality to a room full of students as: fast, accessible, and cheap.  As generations die this will get further baked into culture but, in reality, it’s more or less a digital simulation of what’s good enough and has nothing to do with real quality.

My point is illustrated in this beautiful video “UP THERE” about the precarious profession of hand painting billboards.

The Music: “Window” and “Twentytwoforteen” written by James Lavalle and performed by Album Leaf Courtesy of SUBPOP Records.

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.

I smile and cringe at the same time when I hear the aphorism “back in the day” – at least when it’s used in a serious conversation.  Typically, it’s a punch line.

In the late 80’s the Apple Mac II taught us to set typography. Immediately anyone could set type.  We didn’t hardly notice when the stat camera darkroom was reclaimed for storage, or when you’re local type house became a Mailbox Etc. or a Postal Instant Press (similar to Kinko’s).  Creative destruction is no longer a concept but a lifestyle.

(in the photo: director Jake Wiens)

You no longer have 10,000 hours to become a supremely accomplished anything. Additionally, those superbly mastered skills that worked to differentiate your business, have distorted into obscure techniques for specialized fine artists. Thus, before you can cash in on those professional skills, they’re no longer in demand.  My peers surely remember the fine black and white prints on Agfa Portrega-Rapid Photo Paper processed in Bovira as a fond distant memory. “Damn, just when I was starting to get good.”

A Detroit auto-worker replaced by robots will mutter, “no shit”, when they hear a creative professional complain about digital this or CS4 that causing a downward creative demand.  Craftsmanship has taken many tough hits in the form of the newest creative tools.

Can the 10,0000 hour skill of a professional compete with the 500 hour skill of 1000 amateurs?  The new creative democracy yields plenty of broken hearts, but let’s looks beyond that to what the tools allow the ubiquitous creative minds to achieve.

No time to whine.  What I’m suggesting is that there has been no other period when a highly accomplished professional from one field could apply their expertise to another, and do it solo.  There are enough specialized skills automated by hardware and software to allow knowledge to cross disciplines, and then push those skills out to the masses like Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s a duel case study.  I found Jake Wiens’ video about Valo inline skates on a Vimeo Channel.  It’s one film director, producer and on-air personality distributing his content about Jon Julio: pro skater, graphic designer, skate designer, web designer, and CEO / Owner.   - Bruce DeBoer

Valo Inline Skates: valo-brand.com

Jake Wiens Vimeo Channel: http://vimeo.com/jakewiens

Ask creative folks how their talent was revealed and you’ll probably hear a story of happenstance: my uncle gave me a camera, I got crayons for Christmas, my preschool teacher was a dancer or a likewise charming story of discovery.

It seems as though opportunity found them.  The fit was good; Aptitude harmonizing with occasion led to passion.  Not everyone has talent to be a musician, artist, or writer but we all have talent for something if we can find it and – with luck – get the education that enhances the find.

Historically our education skips this important discovery step.   Schooling gives priority to Math, Languages and Humanities in that order, followed distantly by the arts.  Did we ever have a creativity class?  Mostly we were taught to fear failure and follow formula.

Sir Ken Robinson’s TED presentation video has been widely distributed.  Permission to Suck is only the latest since its release in 2006 and won’t be the last.  Regardless, it would be almost irresponsible for a site devoted to creativity to evade posting a Sir Ken Robinson presentation.

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong you will not come up with anything original.” – Sir Ken Robinson

Here’s an alternate presentation of you’ve seen the TED video:  Sir Ken Robinson: A New View of Human Capacity

BIOGRAPHY (via Sir Ken Robinson website)
Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources and a New York Times Bestselling author. He works with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations. In 1998, he led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK Government. All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (The Robinson Report) was published to wide acclaim in 1999. He was the central figure in developing a strategy for creative and economic development as part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, working with the ministers for training, education enterprise and culture. The resulting blueprint for change, Unlocking Creativity, was adopted by politicians of all parties and by business, education and cultural leaders across the Province. He was one of four international advisors to the Singapore Government for its strategy to become the creative hub of South East Asia.
For twelve years, he was Professor of Education at the University of Warwick in the UK and is now Professor Emeritus. He has received honorary degrees from the Open University and the Central School of Speech and Drama; Birmingham City University and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He was been honored with the Athena Award of the Rhode Island School of Design for services to the arts and education; the Peabody Medal for contributions to the arts and culture in the United States, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for outstanding contributions to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005 he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s.Principal Voices. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts and education. He speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies.

Skill is math already proven.  Not only are skills easy for culture to appreciate, our education from pre-K is about skill development and learning the rules.  We have standards, objectives and tests.  Skill is linear, owning them isn’t unique except to say one has more than another or that their skills are good.

Exercising skills is pure joy – it keeps us focused and present. Honing our skills is a gratifying obsession, we feel accomplished, connected, validated, invincible.  Einstein may talk of a space time continuum, but when chasing a skill, creatives know a space of time suspension.

Expertise in a medium awards us the key to static free communication.  Yet, just because we have a clear channel doesn’t mean we sit in silence expecting to reveal a meaningful message, insight or emotion. An intangible “non-skill” aptitude is involved – a capacity that is near impossible to define.

Skills can also be camouflage as if to say, “No need to be vulnerable, my skills will blow them away.” The judgment we inform is the true value add, nonetheless it follows that once we start thinking beyond our dexterity we risk paralysis: “if only I was better, I could express myself”.  It’s like using unproven math; the danger of being discovered false is dreadful.

An accomplished photographer carries skills that allow him to improvise –results aren’t fully conceived until they are – adding value occurs along the journey to completion.  Yet, as a less than accomplished musician, when I pick up a guitar and play tunes that I’ve learned – this finger here, those  fingers there – the end result at best, is predetermined. Variation is disappointing for its lack of skill.

It’s not until I achieve enough skill can I deviate from my note by note progression.  Once I do though, the result is my version of a tune or my interpretation of a scene in the case of photography. With good judgment, I have not lost the emotional connection intrinsic to the song but enhanced it so the audience feels mine and not an imitation of the composer’s expression.

Do we really need to “go beyond” or break rules?  Perhaps we can’t have too much skill; yet, on balance we can lose what is creatively vital to our work – i.e. Aesthetic judgment.  Breaking rules can simply mean breaking your individual pattern or combining thoughts, experiences or offering a feeling through merging old tested skills.

Being discouraged because of a lack of breakthrough creativity is to fail completely.

All this is to say, don’t let skill get in the way of expression but rather, use skills to gain access to spectators. Be sure you have something to say. The genuine value is in the message but without delivery it’s harder to discern your voice.    -by Bruce DeBoer

Can I make a big deal out of a simple thought or what?  I included the Rembrandt because I simply can’t fathom the skill of his brush.  I included the video of Charlie Rose talking with Chuck Close because he touches on a pivotal point I’m trying to make.

A Manifesto for Creative Professionals.

Somewhere in your personal history a decision was made to forgo a “real job”; one your parents would understand.  Artist, creative director, writer, musician, photographer, actor, fine artist or pick one – you got attention for a talent or liked doing it so much that there was just no room to commit significant time to a profession less flattering gratifying. You became one of them sensitive types whose ego is vulnerably bonded to their work.  True objective distance is pointless but it’s best to have a survival strategy.

Let’s start here:

1.    Snub expectations.  Excitement needs space; throw a few elbows if required.  Picasso’s friend and art critic, Guillaume Apollinaire, encouraged his cohorts to “innovate violently!”   Much more risky for creative professionals, is to abide by rules.

2.    The boss is the problem; the puzzle to solve, the idea to create, the crowd to excite, or your soul to satisfy.  Don’t piss off the boss.

3.    There’s NO plan “B”. Quit moonlighting.  Put in the hours; work without a net.  If you have a plan “B” it’s too easy to bail, and you’ll want to.  Part timers can’t keep up with the guy who’s bustin’ it like a sex crazed school boy.

4.    It’s a passion play for pay. You’re a whore, or not, it all depends on how much money is in the bank.  It’s a crucial balance that keeps sanity from escaping.  Your clarity of purpose resolves the left and right hemispheres.  Ultimately the decision for what kind of creative you are going to be is up to you, but don’t let the vision go blurry.

5.    Industry best practices are not creative. Best practices are maintenance and benchmarking is linear: this leads to that, variation is less professional.  The state of the art didn’t arrive by formula or recipe.

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.

7.    The committee is usually wrong; however the crowd is commonly right but incredibly dull. If you’re part of the crowd you will be sourced and forgotten.

8.    Ideas are like lightning strikes hitting you unaware after you’ve been rubbing a cat balloon on a wool carpet for months.

9.     Everyone is creative but only a select few can deal with the risk of ego crushing rejection that inevitably comes from the direction you least expect.  If your work is worth more to you than the safety of groups or a secure fortune then you’re “a creative”.

10.    That road block was dropped there for a reason; it’s so you learn how to maneuver or to accept the pain of hitting it.  Either way, if you don’t survive the test, it wasn’t worth the trip.

11.    Find a way to turn your weaknesses into strengths, but don’t tell anyone you’re doing it.

12.    Putting creativity into words dilutes the idea unless you’re a writer.  It’s only creative if you actually create it.  “I could’ve done that” doesn’t count.

13.    If you have a style, be sure it’s following you and not vice versa.  If you’re chasing your style, you’ve taken a wrong turn. (see  #5 “best practices”)  Follow your muse, let others call it your style.  Don’t borrow from yourself too often.

14.    Don’t let anyone talk you out of your passion. If you have passion for an idea, don’t lose it by asking others if they think it’s good.  They probably won’t.

15.    Lose the habit of being successful.  Success can doom your career to mediocrity. Embrace the fact that you’re never going to make it and find comfort in other things.  Once success becomes your work, it’s over and if you’re a creative professional, success looks an awful lot like cash and cheering crowds.