Category: Uncategorized

Spark of the Day

Creative spark

Okay. So, before I start if you don’t know already, read this: My brain is weird. Otherwise, what follows won’t make much sense.

Today, a creative spark hit me while working on solving an interesting challenge. The person whose challenge I resolved told me that I should write a book about what inspires my weirdness. As the husband of a successful, professional author, I’ve seen what goes into writing a book. It’s hard work and extremely time consuming.

I have no intention of writing a book, however, I love sharing ideas with people.

Then a creative spark hit me!

What if I freely share one of the creative sparks that smash into my mind each day, here on the blog? And maybe there will be something in the shared weirdness, which will inspire someone else?

So, I’m going to give it a try. I have no idea if my workflow will provide me with the time needed to literally publish a creative spark every day. I may miss a day or more publishing.

Let’s see how the CSOTD goes.

Messy and honest

Back in January, I gave a friend of mine a notebook. I have lots of them. Several times in the past he’d said that he finds the way I jot my ideas down interesting. So I grabbed one off the shelf and handed it to him.

Earlier today we had a coffee together and I asked him how he’s getting on with his notebook. He pulled it out of his pocket and he’s already about 60 pages in.

He said an inscription I scribbled onto the back page helped him keep on track. If you want to take useful notes, let them be messy, and honest.

Messy is important. There’s a side of note-taking that’s almost like art. It’s about the aesthetic, rather than the ideas.

Honesty matters, too. What good are dishonest observations and ideas?

More than you’re paid for. Better than they expected

It’s the foundation of every successful service business. Do more than you’re paid for and make it better than they expected.

  • More than you are paid for, is what gives your work value.
  • Better than they expected, is what inspires people to tell their friends about you.

By combining those two factors you create a valuable service, which everyone is talking about.

Do more and make it better. Simple.

Write it down

Your brain is for having ideas. Not storing them.

It’s hard to think clearly when you have something on your mind. It’s even harder, when you have a ton of things on your mind.

So, write your ideas down. Then, when you’re looking for inspiration, you know where to look. 

John Waters: Another way to be rich

In his graduation speech, John Waters shared some advice on rich people and what he considers the meaning of ‘rich’.

It’s not only extremely funny. Waters makes some very good points, including:

Uh, don’t hate all rich people. They’re not all awful. Believe me, I know some evil poor people, too. We need some rich people: Who else is going to back our movies or buy our art? I’m rich! I don’t mean money-wise. I mean that I have figured out how to never be around assholes at any time in my personal and professional life. That’s rich. And not being around assholes should be the goal of every graduate here today.

John Waters RISD graduation speech.

You can watch the 12 minute speech in full,using the link above.

Nudge theory and food

I’m doing some research for a project and came across the following. It’s from an article on Nudge Theory.

Professor Brian Wansink suggests that “if you describe food with a variety of adjectives – whether they’re geographic or descriptive – it makes the food taste better”.

In Wansink’s study students were asked to rate “bean soup” or “Tuscan bean soup” and the results showed that the broth tasted “8% better when it had those beautiful descriptions.” Every time you choose Alaskan salmon or Cornish cream, you are experiencing Nudge!

Richard Shotton.

It seems the first bite isn’t only with the eye.

Blogging from your phone? Maybe you should. Here’s why!

I did some testing earlier and wanted to share my experience with you.

There’s a key area, where WordPress lagged behind social networks and services like Tumblr. I’m referring specifically to posting updates direct from your phone.

It has always been technically possible. However, the experience was horrible. So, earlier today, I decided to see if the the WordPress iPhone app had improved. I wanted to know if adding links, formatting text and inserting images had improved.

It has. A lot

I last checked it out around a few years ago. Back then, WordPress via the iPhone was fine for writing draft posts. But they would need to be edited and tidied up on a larger device. And adding links to text was, at best, really frustrating.

Today, it’s extremely easy and user friendly. None of the old issues are there.

No, it’s not a full desktop blogging experience. I never expected it would be.

But it works! It’s a breeze to use, too. In other words, it’s easy now to blog “on the go” straight into WordPress.

And that’s what many of us have been waiting for.

Now that blogging on WordPress is truly mobile, I’ll look to incorporate it into my weekly blogging. I’ll let you know how I get on.

More importantly… if you haven’t checked out the WordPress app for iOS or Android in a while, take another look. You too may be pleasantly surprised.

And yes, this post was written and published, from scratch, in about 25 minuets using a Phone.