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Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

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Re: Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

#21

Post by r00fus »

jfarmer wrote: post #20
InclinedPlane wrote: post #9

If you need to pump out a high volume of moderately creative trash, then working in factory conditions makes sense. If you need to foster actual creativity, if you have a desire to build things that touch people's lives and that people will talk about and be inspired from then perhaps less so. The caveat that real artists ship is still in effect of course.

When it comes to producing amazing work, quantity beats quality. That is, it's better to produce 100 things and throw away 99 than it is to sit around a perfect 1. In the end the quality will be higher. http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2007/02/quantity_e...

Absolutely this. The trick is to getting where people see you deliver that one out of a hundred, and assume that your quality beats others' quantity.

How are Jobs' keynotes so well delivered? Repetition, iteration, practice, just like martial arts, makes perfect.

Re: Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

#22

Post by alabut »

tjr wrote: post #16
alabut wrote: post #14

Everyone is making (probably well deserved) ad hominem attacks on the ad agency, but the principle of structured creativity isn't a bad one. Steven King once said his muse is a drill sergeant with a flat top lurking in his basement. The book The War Of Art has a similar perspective from a dance choreographer about how she breaks through creative blocks.

I didn't really see the article describe much about the principle of structured creativity. I would have liked to have seen that.

True, it didn't explain the principle but that wasn't the point of the article - it was to show it in use and document this particular case study. It's up to the reader to pull out lessons learned.

I'm personally a fan of using the pomodoro technique to break down tasks into manageable chunks with mini deadlines. A simple countdown timer does a lot to get my competitive juices going and just get started.

Re: Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

#23

Post by systemtrigger »

I love this part: "Creativity and drudgery are not mutually exclusive, Richards deduced as he toiled away. Instead, they enable each other. A good idea can come from anywhere. Expressing it in a way that jumps off the page—fresh, elegant, exciting—requires, first and foremost, relentless hard work."

Re: Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

#24

Post by adorton »

nostrademons wrote: post #18

Is this why the ad industry is getting eaten for lunch by Google/Facebook?

How are agencies threatened by Google and Facebook? They aren't creative ad agencies. They provide publishing media (Google's AdWords, PPC ads, Facebook ads, fan pages, etc) and tools (Google Analytics) that agencies use to advertise more effectively. If anything, I'd say Google, Facebook and the like are helping ad industry grow.

Re: Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

#25

Post by Detrus »

nostrademons wrote: post #18

Is this why the ad industry is getting eaten for lunch by Google/Facebook?

The stricter schedule in advertising vs work whenever probably has little to do with it. Advertising by its nature is more predictable, it doesn't have long term, world changing impact. The ultimate problem of selling is easy enough to crack, even if a campaign flops you try again. They're satisfied with their efficiency so no need to invest in neuroscience yet.

In software/science/math there is more variety, some problems are hard to crack. There is also more motivation to improve efficiency by orders of magnitude, to disrupt the market, like Google/Facebook do. Ad agencies don't develop new tech, only adapt to it, so they're vulnerable to obsolescence. At some point advances in neuroscience, behavioral economics and tech will outpace the rate at which most agencies can adapt.

There are agencies that spend crazy hours polishing up their work, or more often mismanaging. But the end result of such effort is more polished work, not necessarily effect, or a larger quantity of work thrown out on a whim. In technology the end result of crazy hours has more potential impact.

Re: Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

#26

Post by Detrus »

adorton wrote: post #24
nostrademons wrote: post #18

Is this why the ad industry is getting eaten for lunch by Google/Facebook?

How are agencies threatened by Google and Facebook? They aren't creative ad agencies. They provide publishing media (Google's AdWords, PPC ads, Facebook ads, fan pages, etc) and tools (Google Analytics) that agencies use to advertise more effectively. If anything, I'd say Google, Facebook and the like are helping ad industry grow.

Simultaneously the print industry is dying. Ad agencies are not used to the new mediums. You can advertise on Google and Facebook without the overhead of designers and rich media production. Big old agencies are cutting staff and outsourcing to smaller "techy" shops. The number of total employed and revenue may have fallen, I haven't seen the numbers.

Either way, there will be significant reorganization of the industry, with new specialties like SEO/data mining/brain science taking on a larger role.

Re: Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

#27

Post by JoeAltmaier »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #17
InclinedPlane wrote: post #9

If you need to pump out a high volume of moderately creative trash, then working in factory conditions makes sense. If you need to foster actual creativity, if you have a desire to build things that touch people's lives and that people will talk about and be inspired from then perhaps less so. The caveat that real artists ship is still in effect of course.

I don't buy that at all. It's impossible to look at the success The Richards Group has had and conclude it's all "moderately creative trash". More to the point it's insulting to the people who did that work. If there's a lesson here for the HN community I think it's that there's more than one way to do things. You bristle at the idea of punching a clock and accounting for your time in 15 minute increments. So you sho…

All ads are trash. They do not aspire to art - only to hook the viewer with a few seconds of nonsense. Ad people are perfectly aware of this.

Just compare any ad with, for instance, Shindler's List. or Blade Runner. One has a single, cute, memorable tagline. The other is a monumental effort of style, atmosphere, meaning.

If you don't trivialize art to mean "anything pretty", then of course advertisements aren't art.

Re: Creativity doesn't need a muse. It needs a drill sergeant.

#28

Post by stdbrouw »

r00fus wrote: post #21
jfarmer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to producing amazing work, quantity beats quality. That is, it's better to produce 100 things and throw away 99 than it is to sit around a perfect 1. In the end the quality will be higher. http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2007/02/quantity_e...

Absolutely this. The trick is to getting where people see you deliver that one out of a hundred, and assume that your quality beats others' quantity. How are Jobs' keynotes so well delivered? Repetition, iteration, practice, just like martial arts, makes perfect.

Doing the same thing a hundred times until you've got it down isn't the same as doing a hundred different things and picking the best effort, though.
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