Courageously Creative

Creative Risks: Mistakes That You Can Smell

January 10, 2013 By David Goldstein

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re making a mistake? As I write this, I’ve the nauseous feeling something is wrong and this morning I can smell the mistake and it’s coming from the kitchen. Like anyone going out on a limb to be creative who finds themselves in the midst of a potential error, I’m wondering if I should stop the madness or continue and see where it leads.

It all started earlier this week when I spotted an “out-of-the-ordinary fish” special while browsing the pages of my online grocery. Choosing fish over the internet has its risks but that didn’t stop me from adding “Salt Cod” to my shopping cart. It was not as much my bravery and willingness to take a chance to explore possibilities as much as it was that I wasn’t really paying enough attention.

The next day the fish was delivered in a plain marked pine box. Before even sliding the lid to exhume the contents, I could smell the “aroma.” It reminded me of strolls through the dried food markets in Hong Kong or like the beach at low tide on a hot day. I’ve learned that to some, the smell of dried fish is like the freshness of baked bread; however, I’ve not acquired this sense and beginning to wonder if even a splash of wine or a squeeze of lime could provide enough cover. The instructions say to rehydrate the fish in a series of water baths for a day and some Google searching revealed testimonials predicting a full transformation into something worthwhile and wonderful.

At the moment, it’s been soaking for 12 hours and the smell is …a little less fishy. Halfway through when trying something creative, when your hopes and your visions aren’t materializing, do you ask yourself: “What am I doing?” Should I go on?? Is it worth my effort? And will this one-pot meal disappoint my hungry audience and lead to the inevitable pepperoni pizza?

At times, our plowing through the chaos and uncertainty is rewarded with an incredible final product. Other times, simply giving up can provide freedom, like playing with the food you no longer intend to eat, or splashing and dripping paint over a landscape you don’t expect to complete – when you have nothing to lose – you have the freedom to start to really experiment.
Is it Portuguese Fish stew or New York pizza tonight? when you get the feeling things are going wrong, what do you do?

Robots with Wings? Next Year in Review: 14 Trends for 2013

December 30, 2012 By David Goldstein

New camera in my future? The last photo I took with my 5D before the mirror fell off

Do you ever have a strange dream and wake up to read about it the next morning in the newspaper. The following visions of the future aren’t as rigorously derived. For the third year here are my predictions and trends:
1) It’s increasingly possible to become happier and richer through your investments. Now, you can be a capitalist with a conscious by trusting your intuition and following your values. Being green or socially responsible is gaining momentum and as more people shop, fund and support, what they believe in – valuations increase too. The book Conscious Money shows you how to become a self- reliant benevolent investor so you could become richer in spirit and balance sheet.

2) When natural disasters inevitably strike we will see faster and more direct response to those in need. The web provides democratization of charity as giving shifts to small and local organizations. Lost with the tide are economics of scale and the experience of seasoned relief workers from large central organizations.

3) It’s been said that “on the internet, nobody knows if you’re a dog” but it may increasingly be known what neighborhood you log in from, your income, the type of car your drive, what schools you attended, or your shopping habits, allowing the sellers to adjust their prices and offerings accordingly. Whether you’re a social media butterfly or not, your degree of influence may begin to affect the way you are treated by customer service representatives when you try to return your defective dog dish.

4) The concept of retail is forever changing. For deciding what TV to buy, or if you needed a gasket yesterday to repair a leak – retail is the way to shop – but increasing what you find at the corner stores are limited selections and last year’s models. If you know the model number of the chef’s pan you must have, or the brand and quantity of vitamin C, or the size, color, and degree of insulation for a new hot tub cover, then you will increasingly find availability and the best prices online. Even for small items like halogen light bulbs, lasagna pans, or shampoo. In the near term, we can expect to see more hybrids. Apple provides advice and demos in their stores and encourages you to place your orders online. No checkout lines at Toys “R” Us the Saturday before Christmas, for their sake, I hope the customers are all on line online.

5) Unfortunately, you will be spending more time proving who you are, not at the security line at the airport, but at home. Even our own computer, printer, or toaster doesn’t seem to believe it’s us without our secret password. Proving you are the “genuine you” will drag on your productivity but at least with plenty of practice entering your keystrokes, you can memorize ItsMe123 and our ink jet printers will be safe.

6) Walk down the street and everyone is looking down at a screen. Same in the office, the gym, or even at home. Soon we won’t have to be only looking down as screens will encroach washing machines, breakfast tables, and replace bulletin boards everywhere.

7) Not just calorie count but more info on your food will be available such as which farm your potatoes are grown and pasture where your steak once roamed will be recorded and tracked to control disease and authenticate attributes like organic or Angus.

8) Watch the skies for robots with wings as drones will be used for more than military purposes. Unmanned flight will seek new applications in gathering information and delivering goods and services.

9) Less DVDs, less physical data, less printouts, less 4×6 photos, More storing and exchanging data through cloud computing.

10) A sense of design will be increasingly valuable. Everyone with a smartphone is a digital photography, every computer serves as darkroom and over the internet, our amateur photos can be seen by more people than ever. At times when it’s necessary to stand out like the launch of a new product or to promote a brand, it’s more important than ever to get help from a pro. Expect a re-emergence of the great photographers who hone their craft. Professional website developers too.

11) Entrepreneurs will find opportunities for Innovation where they look to improve inefficiencies, especially related to underutilized resources, boats, exercise equipment, cars, land, or wedding dresses – people will find ways to utilize and monetize all the stuff we have sitting around our closets and garage. Ebay helped us sell our stuff we no longer wanted; Now entrepreneurs will help us rent our stuff we rarely use.

12) The best meals will be prepared at home. We once went to restaurants for celebrating special occasions – now we often go for convenience. However, with cost control and increased everyday demand the quality of the experiences is washing down the drain. Learn to cook your favorite foods, make friends with cooks, shop at farmers markets, buy fresh ingredients and you will surpass the quality and healthiness of all but the finest restaurants.

13) Never easier to go with the flow as social media allows for ideas to gather supporters to correct errors and promote justice. However, never has it been more important to make up your own mind, check the facts, and guard against mob rule and global lynch mobs.

14) Your phones, computers and even cars will be rendered useless not by a coffee spill or a collision but from those seemingly helpful automatically installed software updates. New codes may require newer hardware… so Beware of the update!

What do you think about these and what trends have you spotted and do you predict?

Since crayons don’t come with spell check: INNOVember – Your opportunity to invent

November 20, 2012 By David Goldstein

out of the fire and into the frying pan

We don’t often have the chance to really look at the imaginative artwork created by children. Quickly walking past bulletin boards of preschool artwork, I recently saw written in day-glow orange crayon the word “Innovember” and this got my attention.

With my brain preloaded for all things creative, I mistakenly took this to mean: “Innovation in November,” and thought: what a great theme! Then, looking more carefully, the word accompanied an illustration of a Thanksgiving scene and I realized the little typographer who created this amazing idea had actually left out the spacing between words and meant to say: “In November.”

Well, it’s not exactly Rocktober but still a great theme and InNovember we have a built-in opportunity to be innovative. Our harvest festivals around the northern hemisphere and Thanksgiving in the United States in particular are steeped in traditional foods that are ripe for shaking up. However, as we are giving thanks and reflecting on our good fortunes, many people come to expect their stuffing and cranberry sauce cooked a certain way — and many families have traditional dishes that even the most courageous of us won’t dare to mess with.

Our opportunity doesn’t come from reinventing the whole meal or redefining a treasured side dish but from bringing an entirely different creation to the table. Whether it’s your favorite everyday food that you’ve perfected and want to share or a wholly new experiment involving bat’s wings, eye of newt, or the nearly forgotten sun dried tomatoes — either have the potential to become next year’s tradition. Assuming you use ingredients that don’t exceed their expiration dates and are fully cooked, there is little risk in serving a new dish since a singular disaster in a vast feast won’t leave anyone hungry — and mistakes provide the best leftovers that can be warmed up into stories for next year – and some even may even become legends. Try something new! And if you can, please December to help the less fortunate.

What was your biggest holiday food disaster or your greatest success? What will you cook this year?

Is the City Mouse a Creative Mouse?

May 9, 2012 By David Goldstein

City mouse

Have you ever gotten a great new idea through randomly running into someone and having an unexpected conversation? Do you think crowded cities where people bump into each other breed creativity?

In his recent book Imagine, Jonah Lehrer points to studies showing that patents more often build on the ideas from inventors that live nearby. He also discusses the idea that in cities people walk through multi-use and crowded places like Hudson Street in Greenwich Village and literally bump into each other and share ideas.

This seems to be only part of the story. I’ve unscientifically walked down Hudson Street many times and have been bumped into plenty! Although words are sometimes exchanged, for me it hasn’t been the start of any fruitful exchange of ideas. For some reason while walking around the streets in Asia, it seems I was bumped into even more frequently. My only creative result was defensive. To avoid bumps, I started to wear bright “caution” orange shirts to become more visible and it worked – a little. With all the narrow spaces and crowded cities in Asia and all those collisions, I wonder why they haven’t developed a reputation for creativity? (With the obvious exception of Japan)

It seems when it’s too crowded, people don’t talk with their neighbors, with people in elevators or subway cars and this gives a sense of privacy. On the other hand, with too much space, it becomes out-of-the-way to walk down a long driveway to causally say hello to your neighbors. Have you noticed there is seems to be some magically in between distance that sparks conversation?

Perhaps, it’s not the physical space as much as the people who are drawn to the cities. From my experience, people who are interested in using their creativity are open to change and new experiences and they move to cities in search of opportunities for whatever their specialty. Masses of people in cities support masses of creativity that fill every niche.

If you’re a city mouse, have you noticed the real estate brokers are musicians and actors, and the babysitters are culinary chefs and choreographers? Everyone you bump into is a conductor, actor, artist, or has at least one degree of separation away from the arts. In cities, the only people who don’t call themselves artists are the people we find in our art and music classes since most of them are busy being doctors and accountants.

Of course creative ideas are randomly shared in cities, but not as efficiently and relevantly as they are shared electronically. Maybe it’s like when you find an interesting article while flipping through a magazine that you didn’t know you were looking for. Do you think it’s the layout of the city or the people who are drawn to cities that contribute to creativity? Or do you think the best ideas come from the country mouse?

Save the Economy with More Exercise, More Showers, Longer Commutes

February 6, 2012 By David Goldstein

Banking Hours?

Do you have certain hours of the day when you are most creative? People always say they get ideas while showering, exercising, or commuting. If these are indicators for creativity, I wonder which countries have the great environment for generating ideas?

I don’t know who takes the longest showers, and does the most exercising but there are numbers available for longest commute. According to Worldmapper The world average commute is an hours and twenty minutes each day and the nation with the greatest commute time is Thailand with over 2 hours. In fact, Southeast Asia, on averaged commutes almost twice as long as workers in North America. Bad for fuel consumption, pollution, and productivity but is it good for generating ideas?

Do you think urban or suburban commuting makes a difference and which is more conducent for generating new ideas: Mindless driving? Or being a passenger in a taxi and letting your mind wander?
Here is an innovation: for Fashion Week, A fleet of 50 taxis in New York City are providing free rides to test a new service. The already equipped in-taxi TV screens will be used for this experiment to allow passengers to view advertisements and make direct purchases of items, like lipstick, by scanning a code with their mobile phones.

Apparently, a supermarket has tested this idea in Seoul allowing passengers to buy groceries (for delivery) directly from billboards in their wifi enabled subways. This could certainly revolutionized and expand the concept of what is a store, if anything printed with a barcode becomes an opportunity to buy and sell. But will it give us more to do during our commute and take away our precision time to daydream?

Are Forever Stamps 4ever? 9 More Predictions

January 3, 2012 By David Goldstein

Pick your fortune

Got to the post office to mail some gifts just before the holidays and even a futurist like me was surprised by the short line. Then it made sense when a piercing alarm went off from the overhead speakers. The cashier at the counter said: “oh no! not again!!” “The siren has been sounding constantly all week!” It seemed nobody was authorized or capable of turning it off and I was second in line so I held my place and covered my ears.

When it was my turn, I was barely able to hear the clerk try to sell me insurance for packages going just a few miles – Maybe I need to recheck my crystal ball to see if the packages will be delivered. Signing my credit receipt the pen she handed me didn’t have any ink so I scratched my signature on the thermal paper. With the alarm sounding at the post office, perhaps it was a mistake to buy all those “Forever” stamps, like a lifetime membership in the gym that won’t be around next year. With so much of our mail going by email, what will happen with fewer visits from our friendly mail carriers?

With so much happening in the east, it seems fitting that we shake some Fortune Sticks 求籤求簽 to see what unfolds. The cylinder is shaken until one stick falls out. Each stick has a number that corresponds to a prediction but these are no fortune cookies and many omens are NOT good.

Like last year’s “9 Things That Could Happen ”(my inbox is so overloaded from your thank yous, that I can’t respond personally) it’s difficult to know what happened yesterday and predicting the future is anyone’s guess. Here are some long range guesses mostly related to arts and entertainment.

1) Our economy is shifting from an information economy to a creative economy. Jobs and growth will be driven by big creative ideas for new products and services in health care and energy and these will put more people to work.

2) Health care will begin to become more automated. Using devices to examine people remotely is only part of the picture. Getting proper treatment is based on the experience and specialized knowledge of practitioners, however much of this is routine. Databases for diagnostics will help identify the unusual and also use our genetic makeup/age and lifestyle to predict our personal risks – leaving experts to the more difficult cases.

3) The future of books, board games, songs, movies and everything under threat from digitization will survive by providing sensory experiences that are superior to their e-counterpart. Books printed on fine paper, games with wooden pieces, concerts and movies that provide a live experience are the future.

4) This year passive television will get a big push from Youtube, Apple, Google and others who want to give you entertainment on your own schedule. A wider assortment of on-demand entertainment will continue to fracture the audiences providing fewer resources for each program causing overall quality to be reduced and we will have to search a million channels to find Seinfeld and Cheers.

5) Calls for transparency in government and business is opening those closed door sessions and clearing those smoke filled rooms. With social media and blogs giving anonymous freedom of speech a greater reach, some calls for transparency, will lift the veils calling disclosure of real identifies and affiliations.

6) Video games are reaching across demographics and will become more popular than movies and television. As corporate training budgets are reduced while, more specialized skills are required at work, expect to find gaming technologies to be used to teach through simulations for everything from accountants to welders.

7) More regulations in the finance sector will continue to be seen as expensive overhead without adding security, and finance will continue to flow to less regulated and lower cost centers.

8) Those with the greatest need have the greatest incentive to innovate. Asia with its choking pollution will lead the way with green energy technology.

9) Less frequent mail delivery will put weekly magazines printed on paper on the endangered species list. Decline of the post office will be the biggest boon to e-readers.

Did you get the packages? Do you hear an alarms sounding? What happened to number 8? What do you think will happen next?