April 2013 – ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

When do you profit from optimizing a task? Brilliant comic by xkcd

2013-04-29

Xkcd did a brilliant diagram showing you whether it actually makes sense to invest the time needed in optimizing a task. Something to keep in mind in any optimization process.
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Burning Employees’ Creativity: Or, it’s whether communication has positive consequences … or not

2013-04-29

If employees do not provide creative solutions, or even criticism, there are two likely reasons for that: Fear of a loss of reputation and ... well, experience. Also: Why you might fool your customers or funding agencies, but not your employees.
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What the heck? Or: Making Money with Out of Print Books

2013-04-26

Just found the old version of my "Organizing Creativity" book offered at an insane price. This sucks. But I hope the review I've written will spoil these racketeers' profits.
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Elance — Freelancer Site

2013-04-26

If you need to outsource some tasks of your creative project, this site might be very useful ... crucial even.
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Application Links Browser Start Page

2013-04-24

You can easily use the start page in your browser to quickly open the applications you need.
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Lousy Form, Perfect Form, or: Why learning something late in life isn’t that bad.

2013-04-22

There's no need to feel stupid if you did something in an unnecessarily complicated way. Here's why.
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If you quit your PhD …

2013-04-19

Quitting a PhD can feel like failure. But take a look at the actual situation whether this is really the case.
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Another academic workflow visualization

2013-04-17

Visualized my current workflow when it comes to dealing with academic work. Includes references to apps and postings.
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Beware of data corruption devastating your Workflow Lynchpin

2013-04-16

Encountered the worst and most devastating bug ever. Some catastrophes work like nukes, this one is more like Alzheimer's' disease. Leads to a crucial recommendation: Keep your old backups, you might desperately need them.
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This is a private blog showing my opinions. If you have an issue with what I write here, either don’t read it or talk to me directly. Don’t waste your time — or mine — dragging my employer into matters where they hold no authority.

The institution I work for, or rather the people officially representing it, have already distanced themselves from this blog. I find this unnecessary, as I’ve clearly stated in the «About this Blog» section that this is a personal blog.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for those who lack the backbone to address their concerns directly and instead resort to passive-aggressive tattling to others. Such behavior strikes me as not only cowardly, but also spineless, gutless, and wholly unprincipled. Moreover, these efforts are as pathetic as they are futile.

That said, I might listen if you present compelling arguments and evidence, as constructive feedback is always welcome. Who knows? We might even both gain something valuable from the interaction.

A comment for those seeking to use this site for personal gain: Given the increase in requests, let me be clear. I write on this blog because I want to. It’s my hobby, my playground. Sometimes people point me to interesting products/services and I write about them. But any request regarding ads or sponsored placements ends up the trash without a reply. And if you think something would be of interest, differentiate yourself from the spammers by referring to a posting — in an intelligent way. (I get enough auto-generated mails to identify them immediately.)

BTW, posts can get updated after I published them if I spot spelling errors (not a native speaker) or think a different wording might improve precision and clarity.

This blog is not focused on a single topic, or method. As long as it is relevant to improving creativity (or allowing it in the first place), it's fair game.
Some postings on this blog deal with freedom, as I think that we need freedom of thought, of speech, of association, etc. pp. to solve mankind's problems. Thus, some postings may seem a bit remote when it comes to organizing creativity. Freedom is, however, the bedrock of creativity.
The heterogeneity of the postings can make reading this blog a bit cumbersome, at least if you are only interested in one topic. You can either use the search function (above), or use the categories or the tags to narrow down the postings you see.

ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

How to generate, capture, and collect ideas to realize creative projects.

Month: April 2013