Hey everyone,

I’m still working on the second edition of Organizing Creativity.

It takes longer than expected (it is a spare time project), so, I’m putting the current draft version online.

It contains the content of the wiki I had here, so I have removed it.

Like I said, it’s a rough draft — some parts are (almost) finished, others are missing in part or completely — but to make the best of the longer work process, posting it online gives me the opportunity to ask for feedback. This is your chance to influence the final version. What do you think of the content and/or the layout? Any suggestions for improvement? I’d like to hear them. Drop me a line at danwessel@organizingcreativity.com or write a comment.

All the best

Daniel

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels.
The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
Woodrow Wilson

It the time between the years — a time when things cool down, usually. It’s a time of remembering and looking in the future — and a good time to put an end to the tiny things that bugged you this year and that you do not want to carry into the next. The tiny annoyances, the small things that bug you enough to notice yet are below the threshold to actually do something about them.

If you think back at the past year, which things did bug you? Think on all the times it did bug you, tiny bites each, but taken together … now is the time to change it.

So, time to take out the trash, fix that leaking faucet, quit the subscription to that newsletter and to sort some newspaper clippings (and much much more).

Have fun & happy holidays

Not only did I wipe Lemmings from my hard disc,
I overwrote it so’s I couldn’t get it back.
Terry Pratchett

Time is a scarce resource, especially keeping others from using up your time. But it’s also very easy to waste time by yourself. In my childhood/adolescence, I played a lot of computer games. It did have some beneficial effects — my English improved, especially “special” vocabulary, it was easy to maintain my mood (the games were always there), and it gave me an interesting perspective: I sailed with a pirate ship in the Caribbean or made the Lave-Riedquat run in space and became elite, I was dropped as an Army Ranger to complete impossible missions or executed a Libyan army, build a syndicate or a human colony on an alien world, and of course, I shot Nazis and demons.

But one day I stopped playing computer games. I think the main reason is that I am only interested in the settings and the characters as inspiration (for which I use Game Walkthroughs now), but no longer interested in beating the game. Because in almost any games the computer could easily beat you — you just need more processing power. What you are essentially doing is shifting bits and bytes in an environment that the computer could make impossible for you to win. And many games aim at making it just difficult enough. My favorite example is Neverwinter Nights, where the computer tries to match up the strength of your enemies with your own (which doesn’t work if you create a rare character like a Cleric-Thief, but they are trying). And why would I want to waste my time on something like that? A computer who “plays with you” to make matters challenging, but not too challenging?

It’s only bits and bytes in the end, it’s only a savegame that stores what you have done or what you have achieved. And in the end, you haven’t achieved much, or would you tell someone that you had a really nice weekend because you cleaned up that house of Zombies? When so many people could have had the same experience because the setting is fixed?

Or isn’t it more worthwhile to do something real, create something you can actually use?

“I wrote them down in my diary so that I wouldn’t have to remember.”
Professor Henry Jones, about why he and his son need to go into the lion’s den to save his diary, in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989)

I’m currently preparing a presentation for a student group about organizing an academic work (focus is on a dissertation thesis, but it can be applied to any major written work). Interestingly, there are currently a few questions about establishing academic work flow, esp. regarding storing citations. The discussion is going on in the posting about Circus Ponies Notebook for Academic Writing (e.g., Thesis Writing).

If you have ideas I’d like to hear them — how do you manage your sources?

It’s been a few years since I wrote “Organizing Creativity” and in the meantime I have learned a lot. I am also critical of the style of the book — I wanted to write everything I knew, I did and it shows. It contains a lot of information, but it is not exactly easy to read.

So, I am currently working on a new version, more concise and more useful for practical application. For this version I would like to ask you for your input. How do you organize your creativity? What skills and tools did help you? What gave you a boost in working. The questions are very broad and no matter how trivial or supposedly widely known it is, I really like to hear about it.

Thank you in advance

Daniel Wessel

Cut from “The West Wing”

The cut above reminds me of something we often lose: Take a breath for a second, step back and ask yourself: What are you doing? Are you really doing what you want to do? What is important for your? What makes your heart beat faster? What motivates you to get out of bed with a smile?

Don’t get me wrong, no job, no matter which, will always be fun, always be great, nor will you always succeed in it. But there are two things that should characterize any worthwhile job, and I include creative work in the past time to this:

• Over a medium time-frame (let’s say up to six months), the balance of the job in terms of enjoyment vs. dissatisfaction should be positive.
• The job should have consequences that go beyond the work itself — be it people inspired, making the world a little less hostile or complicated, etc. pp.

If you are doing something that is not worthwhile, creating something each and every day that does not move your heart, then perhaps it’s time to stop and think — and find an alternative solution.

#Nanoreplicator, #FAC20
Look at any photograph or work of art. If you could duplicate exactly the first tiny dot of color, and then the next and the next, you would end with a perfect copy of the whole, indistinguishable from the original in every way, including the so-called “moral value” of the art itself. Nothing can transcend its smallest elements.
CEO Nwabudike Morgan, “The Ethics of Greed” in “Alpha Centauri”

While the introductory quote can be discussed critically — after all, the artist didn’t touch the replicated atoms, didn’t put them himself in place — what about digital art?

Imagine Picasso had used an iPad and Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile (given that it would have been available) — what would we put in a museum?

We’re not talking about reproduction here, but about an artwork that is purely digital, never was anything but bits and bytes. There is no original. It would also make no difference seeing the same digital image on one’s PC at home (excluding the effect of the setting itself). So, what can you put on display?

Do you exhibit the iPad Picasso had drawn on, preferably with the image still in the graphic program? Something the artists has touched? Or does a museum loose its value? Does it become superfluous, because the work can be everywhere? Or shouldn’t real artists embrace digital, even though most writers readily accepted typewriters and personal computers? Should artists print out the work and sign it themselves on that print, to give it a unique touch? Or does it not matter and reproductions are still worthy of being exhibited, like works of digital photographers are exhibited?

What do you think?

#Neural Grafting, #TECH52
I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier into the synapses of the machine, just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams, the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness: dark, rigid, cold, alien. Evolution is at work here, but just what is evolving remains to be seen.
Commissioner Pravin Lal, “Man and Machine”, in “Alpha Centauri”

I’m very critical of just trying to remember ideas. Once a project has a certain size it becomes almost impossible to keep all ideas in mind. It’s also very difficult to quickly restructure ideas or get an overview of the strength of different parts of the project. It’s essentially the point I’m trying to make here — creativity needs organization and this usually means creativity needs tools.

Some tools use advertisement like “it stores information like the human brain does”. Why should this be a plus? It usually doesn’t mean that it forget information by itself, but that it uses a mind map/concept map like structure similar to a semantic network (few tools actually try to store information in neural networks). Apparently, this should help working with the information because it is familiar and “how the mind works”.

I’m also very critical of these tools. Why should it be like the human memory? It should support it. A digger doesn’t look like a hand, nevertheless it’s much better for digging.

Usually these tools are very graphic oriented and need a lot of screen size (to display the maps), become slow and buggy with increasing input, and often degrade into a superficial mind/concept map like structure with attached text files. And there’s another issue — they are often inconvenient to use. Give me a database/wiki or (for smaller projects) an outliner any time, but unless it seamlessly integrates with the human mind (like the quotation above), it shouldn’t be similar. It should have the necessary functions of an idea collection and allow me to remember, generate, find, add, and restructure ideas. Anything that deviates from that and reduces usability is disadvantageous, no matter the similarity to the human brain.

After all, we want to support the human brain, not copy it.

“State your name, rank and intention.”
“The Doctor, Doctor, Fun.”
Dr. Who

A few years back I stumbled over the series “Dr. Who“. I don’t own a TV, so it was mostly Wikipedia entries and some other references. Thing is, it confused me. What I couldn’t understand was, how someone could like such a series. It didn’t make sense to me. Stupid aliens, a box that’s bigger on the inside, story lines that seemed unbelievable. It kept nagging in the back of my mind until I decided (more or less on a whim a few weeks ago) to buy the first four seasons of the relaunch. I went to work somewhat sleepy for the next days because I watched the episodes whenever I could — usually until late in the night/morning. I now own seasons 1 to 5, including the specials.

Thing is, once you start watching the episodes you discover well thought out story lines — which discuss issues that go beyond the things you see (and, with the tenth doctor, someone with a stylish sense of dress).

I was reminded of the usual reaction as a child/teenager when I said that I loved watching Star Trek (TNG & DS9). For most people, Star Trek is just bad actors badly dressed with masks claiming to be aliens and some space battles. Only when you start seeing the topics they deal with — human nature, issues like prejudice, hate, fear, sanity and much, much more — it goes beyond deep. It uses the age-old trick of telling stories which are highly relevant in a way that makes dealing with the issues no-threating. Nobody is offended if “aliens” do something that everyone with half a brain recognizes immediately as playing on a common human trait or at the behavior of a specific country. And, seriously, the idea of illustrating the stupidity of prejudice based on skin color by having an alien race have either the right side of their body in white and the left in black or vice versa (actually a TOS episode) … brilliant. I learned more about ethics and morality from Star Trek than from anywhere else, including the years of “catholic religion”/”ethics” in school.
I don’t think that Dr. Who is similarly deep (sorry), but it has something — it’s very stimulating and raised questions and brought me ideas. And I nearly missed it, because I reacted with rejection when it made no sense to me at first.

So, what do you miss out because it seems ridiculous to you at first glance?

J.J. Abrams once said:

So, that — you know, I love Apple computers. I’m obsessed. So the Apple computer — like those — the PowerBook — this computer right — like, it challenges me. It basically says, you know, what are you going to write worthy of me?
J.J. Abrams in a TED Talk

I think something similar happens — or should happen — in photography. Not only with cameras, but it starts there because they are easy to acquire. There are some really brilliant cameras and lenses out there, my personal dream would be the Leica M9 with a 50mm/f2 or f1.4, but it’s going to be a long way until I can afford one (then it’s probably the Leica M10 or M11 ), and I think they come with a responsibility to really use them. I mean, I’ve seen photographers with top-of-the-line equipment (usually Canon or Nikon professional level cameras) who thought that the camera does it for you. It doesn’t — and it shows if you think so. And in many cases, they make shooting harder, not easier. You have to see, to compose, to show something that is usually not seen. A camera might give you more options, but these options easily distract from concentrating on the technique … and the motif.

And that’s the second thing here … I think that a photo is comprised of essentially two different aspects: the technique and the motif (which should nevertheless ‘fit’). A beautiful motif is ‘easy’ to photograph in the sense that people will look at your photo and say: “beautiful model”, or “beautiful dress”, or even “whoa yur pict is hot! thanks for posting it. did the job. “. But what does this have to do with creating a great photo? The person was beautiful or the dress was well made, where’s your contribution? For this reason, I think it’s hard to make a great photo if the motif is beautiful because it’s so easy to make a good photo. When you have a beautiful model its beauty — like the options with a camera — are a hindrance to a great photo, not a boon. You have to ask yourself: What can you do that really shows her in ways neither she nor the audience has seen herself? Or to put it differently, how can you top the beauty that is already inherent in the motif?

In a way, I think Heinlein said it best when one of his characters was talking about Rodin:

“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist — a master — and that is what Auguste Rodin was — can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is … and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be … and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart … no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn’t matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired — but it does to them. Look at her!”
“Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein

There are a lot of photos floating around of beautiful models, beautiful dresses and beautiful locations, but there are few really great photos.

So, if you got a camera and a model, what are you going to photograph, worthy of what you have?