For me, the two coolest things to read about are Bob Dylan and Creativity. Since I’m not a musician, general creativity takes precedence but there might not be a difference. Creativity is the bedrock, the fountain from which we all drink. That this fact is grossly overlooked by millions of people today [I’m thinking here especially about OUR business-I have 37 years experience] and totally undervalued by most Americans is as appalling as it is fucked-up. I mean, really, what could be a worse environment in which to work? It is encouraging to see creativity getting press today though. Maybe this all might seem obvious to some but I’m always amazed at how little folks actually pay attention to this.

Early in my life, I had the unique opportunity to work with a great thinker on the subject of creativity: Joseph Michael Essex*. Essex’s very first “professional” job was design director at WQED channel 13 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. WQED was the 1st public broadcasting channel in America. It is the original Channel 13 [Pittsburgh also boasts KDKA which was the very 1st radio station in America.  Are you aware that Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, Errol Garner, Billy Eckstein, Art Blakey, George Bensen and Stanley Turrentine are all from Pittsburgh?]. Pioneer town, all. When I was not yet two years out of high school and studying at the now defunct Ivy School of Professional Art, I garnered the first of many jobs from WQED. That experience shaped my future and the general aesthetic/paradigm that is my umbrella. I’ve often lamented the fact since those with whom I subsequently worked only underscored how critically important it is to work with the “right” people. Joseph has since moved on to Chicago where he became senior vice president, director of design for Burson-Marsteller World Wide before starting his own place. Now he is one of two @ SX2, a firm he shares with his wife Nancy [the 2]. They publish VOICES, an HTML newsletter. They have a cool slogan: We See what You’re Saying! This excerpt is from his latest missive. I thought it was right on and sharp as a razor:

“Getting the Best from Creative People

Managing creative people is not possible in the same way attempts to control nature are both futile and delusional.

Truly creative people are motivated by internal forces, so they are not stimulated or satisfied by external manipulation, no matter how benign or benevolent. Creative people are rewarded by the act and experience of their own creative process. However, when creative people do what they do well, clients and their customers are also rewarded.

Contrary to common understanding, creative people are quite disciplined, but usually according to their own methods. Rather than attempting to produce innovation by following one particular method or a formal set of procedures, creative people regularly redefine how they do what they do to achieve the desired results. The quality of a solution is always more important than how it was derived.

Those with the responsibility for managing creative people do themselves a favor when they create a working environment without preconceived notions. Clients do themselves the same service when assignments are defined and evaluated by a goal to be accomplished rather than suggesting methods to accomplish the goal. These procedures are also effective when working along side those whose creative gifts have not been developed by education, experience or vocation.

In pursuit of excellence, leading the creative process has little to do with motivation and much more about creating a safe place to play, explore and discover unexpected solutions.”

I am currently re-reading Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s CREATIVITY. You may vaguely recall him as the author/originator of FLOW. Mihaly is a professor and former chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. This is an awesome, accessible tome chock full of quotable shit. It’s good to familiarize yourself with something positive and it is essential to do a proper review of the literature regarding our endeavor. As I read, it strikes me how much of this Essex had internalized. Mihay’s key concept is similar to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours deal with the addition of the notion that REAL creativity changes the domain or field in which one makes the contribution. Let me toss out a few choice, savory nuggets. I know you don’t like to read but WTF -prove my point:

“If we're to learn anything we must pay attention to the information to be learned. And attention is a limited resource…To achieve creativity in an existing domain; there must be surplus attention…[this concept is very similar to Jared Diamond’s theory of cultural evolution regarding the advent of agriculture: when people had mastered sedentary crop production, there was enough surplus to feed the thinkers so they could have more time to think instead of hunt and struggle all the time. This is why written language evolved in centers of agricultural innovation and of course, how culture spread via the written word.].

It also seems true that centers of creativity tend to be at the intersection of different cultures, where beliefs, lifestyles and knowledge mingle and allow individuals to see new combinations of ideas with greater ease…Therefore it follows that as culture evolves, specialized knowledge will be favored over generalized knowledge…Yet it is practically impossible to learn a domain deeply enough to make a change in it without dedicating all of one’s attention to it and thereby appearing to be arrogant, selfish and ruthless to those who believe they have a right to a creative person’s attention…[Anyone who has lived in a foreign country can attest to this!].

The sociologist of art Arnold Hauser rightly assesses this period: “In the art of the early Renaissance…the starting point of production is to be found mostly not in the creative urge, the subjective self-expression and spontaneous inspiration of the artist, but in the task set by the customer.”…

A field is made up of experts in a given domain whose job involves passing judgment on performance in the domain…In other words, a person must learn the rules and the content of the domain, as well as the criteria of selection, the preferences of the field…All scientists would agree with the words of Frank Offner, a scientist and inventor [semi-conductors] “ The important thing is that you must have a good, very solid grounding in the physical sciences before you can make any progress in understanding.”…

“And so I guess I am most proud of the things in which I succeeded in impressing other people with what I have done.” George Stigler, Nobel laureate, economics…

So you have to have the kind of memory that you need for the kind of things you want to do. And you do the things which are easy and you don’t do the things that are hard, so you get better and better at doing the things you do well, and eventually you become either a great tennis player or a good inventor or whatever, because you tend to do these things which you do well and the more you do, the easier it gets, and the better you do it, and eventually you become very one-sided but you’re very good at it and you’re lousy at everything else because you don’t do it well…

Contributions that require a lifetime of struggle are impossible without curiosity and love for the subject…

Someone who is not known and appreciated by the relevant people has a very difficult time accomplishing something that will be seen as creative…”

I realize how much the new means of information transfer may have set many of these notions on their ear [Mihaly wrote in 1996], or what appears to be an ear, insofar as the vogue for anti-hierarchical, democratic consensus goes but I think Mihaly is right. I believe in validation. I crave it. I thrive on it. I read in the NYT recently that the most money actor Larry Storch [Sergeant Agarn on TV’s F Troop] ever made was for a MacDonald’s commercial. Anybody remember Agarn?? Today, he’s no more than a blip: a one-trick-pony, a one-hit-wonder. I think that we are setting ourselves up for a good laugh. It's just that I'm not sure what the joke is. I just hope I’m around to share the chuckle. LOL - BTW Bob’s a perfect example of Mihaly’s thesis, isn’t he? Well, read about it.

*FYI I stole Essex’s penchant for three names after reading that David Hockney preferred long titles for his paintings since it made them stand out in catalogues. Oh, and before I go I should mention that the second job that I ever did [for Essex] got into the 1975 Graphis Poster Annual. That's when they were still in Switzerland and I was 18. Go figger'!