Lust for Life

A few thoughts and ideas on life, the little guy and getting paid – from Iggy Pop.

Iggy Pop

The radio was tuned to BBC 6 Music a few nights ago and so I was fortunate to hear Iggy Pop deliver the 2014 John Peel lecture, he chose to speak about ‘Free Music in a Capitalist Society’. His talk is an engaging interesting piece of work and it’s available to replay and download here for a short while yet. I also recorded the session on TV and sat down to watch it yesterday. Although Mr Pop (we are not on first name terms yet) was addressing the music/entertainment industry – I got a lot from what he said and wanted to share a few things with you. These aren’t direct quotes as such – I was just enjoying watching the talk and at the same time, trying to pick up a few interesting threads.

On being yourself: If you are who you are, that is really hard to steal, and being you takes you in interesting directions when the road gets blocked, and it will. You are better off with your own identity.

On getting ripped off: I loved my vinyl bootlegs – they did a lot for me. The packaging was often way more creative than the official stuff. Bootlegs moved beyond both the industry and the artist. But now – everyone’s a bootlegger – we are swapping the corporate ripoff for a public ripoff. Devices estrange people from their morals. Thieving is bad, but so many people are broke and abandoned, who am I to say you can’t watch some shitty movie for free after you’ve worked yourself hard all day for almost no money?

On not getting stuck: Diversify – streams dry up. Don’t complain about it, survive it.

On getting paid: So how do you engage society as an artist and get paid? It’s a matter of art, endurance and study. Be curious, find smarter people to learn from. I don’t worry too much about what I get paid for any given thing – I never expected much in the first place.

On the little guy: Youtube, Spotify, they have the numbers. And the indies have the guns.

On giving: Give freely, not in the hope of reciprocal profit, but out of self respect.

On life: Dream – be generous, pursuit is better than arrival. Diversify, stay away from drugs (pause for laughs) and talent judges. Get organised, do better than me. Hang on to hopes, hang on to who you are.

If you can find the time – please check the talk out and let me know what you think, and what you take away from it too.

photo credit

Creativity Constrained – HR Tech Haikus

Today my blog post
Is based on the haiku form
Will it work or not?

Haiku: Noun. A Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five.

Today my blog post
Is based on the haiku form
Will it work or not?

I spoke with Heather
Tweeting from a conference
About HR tech

She encouraged me
To give haiku tweets a try
Here are some of mine

Data has a soul
And to find it you must search
Way down in the mine

Data makes patterns
Numbers as flow and beauty
Your work is your art

Human capital
A name devoid of feelings
I’m not a number

HRTech Haiku
Sort the data from the flow
Aha! Now I see

Data in the cloud
It’s raining information
Drowning in numbers

Heather wrote some too
She said I could share with you
OK here we go

Data are just bits
Of fact, wrapped up in stories
Truth requires both

Data cannot drive.
It doesn’t do anything
Unless asked nicely

Workforce analytics
How do we measure spirit?
With data ripples

Engage your data
Algorithms need love too.
No more lonely code

Great #HRTechConf
Have a people hangover.
My brain is too full.

Creativity
Ofen driven by constraint
You do more with less

The Ebb and Flow of Creativity – V1.3

Creativity is not binary. You don’t just switch it on – you adjust the dials and tease it out. Don’t fear it, play with it, iterate it.

Many organisations desire the benefits that creativity and innovation offer them and yet they are put off by, and often even fear the messy consequences that creativity brings with it. In June 2014 I published the first version of the Creativity Ebb n Flow Meter, a tool designed to help people see past that fear.

Creativity Ebb n Flow Meter

The purpose of this machine is to highlight the fact that creativity is not binary. You don’t just switch it on – you adjust the dials according to your organisation’s prevailing culture, and tease it out. Don’t fear it, play with it.

I received some great feedback when V1.0 was published and I incorporated much of that feedback into V1.2. This is the first time I have shared V1.2 on here, previously it has appeared on Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook, but not the blog. As you can see – V1.2 contains a few improvements, namely a wider choice of beverages, a suspend judgement button, and it is now powered by imagination. Sadly the ham and eggs option had to go – it made a funny smell and was just too messy.

Creativity Ebb n Flow Meter V1.2

Once again I benefitted from a lot of encouragement and feedback when this second version saw the light of day, and I have finally got round to incorporating that feedback into this, the third version of the Creativity Ebb n Flow Meter.

Creativity Ebb n  Flow Meter V1.3

This time the main changes are the inclusion of feedback, a pain dial, a deadline alert and a scarcity slider, necessity is the mother of invention and all that jazz. Wine is also now available. I’ve had a lot of fun designing and evolving this machine, and in addition, the three versions that have emerged also demonstrate the iterative nature of many creative processes. As you can see – I’m getting tight for space now, but if I was to make further modifications, what changes would you suggest?