AD Trading Cards

Each year Marketing does a gift at the holidays that celebrates our team. One of the great things about having Erin Brady join us a few years ago is that she brings a lot of creative energy to this.

This year, Erin developed AD trading cards for our Dallas and San Diego offices. (All 30 of us).  Not only did she find really funny photos , but each card had the "team player's" name and "nickname" on it. (Which Erin made up.)  The back of the card contained "mostly true" facts about each person and all of it was hilarious.  (Nancy Jumper and I served as contributors for that part.)

I love it that we work in a place that we know each other well enough to even have that type of content.

Now, wouldn't you like to know what we have planned for next year. (Smile.)

Note: Jason McKelvey would probably like me to add that his nickname "Barbie Paparazzi" has to do with a project he did for his photography class.  He was running tight on deadline and couldn't find anyone to model on the one day he had to shoot, so he wound up using his daughter's dolls.  (Which turned out oddly real looking with 1940's movie star lighting.)  I should probably also clarify that Brian's nickname has to do with the fact that he played Santa at our company Christmas party. Last year, Brian's three-year-old son almost gave the game away by pointing and calling out "Daddy Ho Ho."

© Cathy Hutchison 2009

An unexpected surprise...

From my window at Acoustic Dimensions, I noticed a parking sign where there hadn't been one before and went to check it out.

Now, I should probably mention that today is a milestone birthday for David Stephens. And our office went all out. We dressed in black. We bought gifts.

So it shouldn't have surprised me that when I walked a little closer....

This is what I saw...

Yes. This is why I love my day job. The people are amazingly creative.

My Week as an Artist

Each year, I take a week of vacation to live my life as something I've always wanted to be/do. This year, I lived my life as an artist.

Of all the techniques I explored, I found that working with acrylics suited me best in terms of personal style.

For this series, I explored a contemporary twist on the designs of Talavera tile. I think part of the beauty of it are the variations from tile to tile. Painted by hand each one is unique. (Unlike machine produced tiles which are painfully identical.)

I enjoyed the themes but wondered what it would be like if I worked with people the same way I had done with the animals and this was the result. It began as inspiration from a face pin I purchased when I was in Panama, then took on a life of its own. (No, the resemblance to Lichentstein isn't lost on me.)

This week, I'm back in the office deep in my day job, but the mental space the week bought for me continues.

© Cathy Hutchison 2008

Staying Sparkly

There's something about being twenty. Anything is possible. The whole world is out there waiting to be discovered. But somewhere along the way, we begin thinking we have it figured out. We get comfortable in who we are and it becomes easy to stay there. The sparkle encountered so often in the eyes of twenty year olds isn't as easily seen in the eyes of the forty and up.

Today Matt Yohe sent the entire office an e-mail with the subject: Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks? It linked to a fascinating article in the NY Times that explores how our minds work and how to keep them continually developing.

“Getting into the stretch zone is good for you,” Ms. Ryan says in “This Year I Will... .” “It helps keep your brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. Continuously stretching ourselves will even help us lose weight, according to one study. Researchers who asked folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general.”

She recommends practicing a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for tiny, continuous improvements.

“Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain,” Ms. Ryan notes in her book. “If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do. The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.”

Simultaneously, take a look at how colleagues approach challenges, Ms. Markova suggests. We tend to believe that those who think the way we do are smarter than those who don’t. That can be fatal in business, particularly for executives who surround themselves with like-thinkers. If seniority and promotion are based on similarity to those at the top, chances are strong that the company lacks intellectual diversity.

“Try lacing your hands together,” Ms. Markova says. “You habitually do it one way. Now try doing it with the other thumb on top. Feels awkward, doesn’t it? That’s the valuable moment we call confusion, when we fuse the old with the new.”

AFTER the churn of confusion, she says, the brain begins organizing the new input, ultimately creating new synaptic connections if the process is repeated enough.

But if, during creation of that new habit, the “Great Decider” steps in to protest against taking the unfamiliar path, “you get convergence and we keep doing the same thing over and over again,” she says.

“You cannot have innovation,” she adds, “unless you are willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder.”

And wonder, my friends, when seen in the eyes, is very, very sparkly.


© Cathy Hutchison 2008

Of Creativity and Criticism

I posted earlier about flow. For me, creative flow is an energy. I don't know how to generate it. It just happens.

However, I do know what stops it. Criticism.

Criticism is an odd thing. If we didn't have it, nothing would ever get better--even creative endeavors. However, it does have the power to shut down creative flow.

Anne Lamot, in her book Bird by Bird, encourages people to stop writing as if their mom were looking over their shoulder. (Until Anne pointed this out, I didn't even realize I did this.) The point of writing is that it needs to be authentic--and you can't do that if you listen to voices that might be judging you. (Reading Bird by Bird seven years ago unlocked a writers block that I thought was never going to go away.)

One of the challenges with criticism is that most of the time, it comes in a form that there is nothing you can do with it. The statement "that isn't very good" isn't something you can act on. More sophisticated versions are "you over-designed it" or "that looks dated."

There are ways to criticize so that it adds to a piece rather than stopping it, but it takes serious thought on the part of the critic. What is it you are really reacting to? Is it objective or subjective? Can you break it down in a way that is actionable?

Recently a friend sent me an article to give feedback on. I struggled with the text. I could have written back and said, "It doesn't flow." Instead, I took the time to figure out why it didn't flow. The main thoughts were really insightful. And, I couldn't find a single paragraph that wasn't well written. The challenge turned out to be the organization of the paragraphs and the lack of subheaders. He had written "stream of consciousness." Telling my friend that he needed to come up with subheaders and arrange the paragraphs under them is an actionable thing. "It needs better flow" isn't.

Here's another thought...I've found that many people who can't create, criticize. (My personal theory is that they've listened to their own internal critics for so long that their natural creative flow has stopped and criticism is the only way they can participate.)

We have a saying in our office, "No critique without contribution." If you can't put a live, viable alternative on the table, don't whittle away what's there. Because at the end of the day, a Grade B idea with Grade A execution is worth far more than the other way around. (To quote Stephen Covey.)

My advice? If you are in the critic position, analyze until you get to the actionable. If you are in the creative position, find the criticism that stopped the flow and throw it out.

And, if you feel you are not creative whatsoever...ask yourself, do you have an internal critic that stops you? Because, my friend, deep down, we were all designed to be creative. Maybe not painters or writers, but something. Find the something where you feel the flow.

© Cathy Hutchison 2008

Flow

John and I were up to the wee hours of the morning talking the other night. (This happens sometimes.)

One of the things we talked about is flow.

There is something that happens when you are operating at your best. A certain magic that takes over. In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Olympic gold medalist, Eric Liddell, says, "God made me fast, and when I run, I can feel His pleasure."

The whole "flow" thing is sort of like that.

I wish I knew the secret to being able to consistently operate out of a sense of flow. (Because when there isn't, I'm disappointed with almost everything I produce.) At the moment it seems random. Sometimes it happens and everything clicks. Other times I feel like I'm in conflict with the world around me.

One thing is for sure. I am way more creative when there is flow.

© Cathy Hutchison 2008