Henriette Weber

how are you doin ?

ps. a test project, let’s see if I can get people around the internets to record 20 secs of happyness and post it somewhere on the net tagged “happynessoutburstday09″…

I think a really important thing for everybody is to get away from people like yourself. Not constantly or all the time, but sometimes when you need inspiration.

So go to that financial conference. Take a trip to a place you never thought about going. The diversity is creativity in it’s essence.

Be inspired.

Those of you who have heard me speak at events lately – have heard that I am talking about fighting the emptyness of consumercapitalism. the story of stuff is an excellent place to reflect on this – you should at least watch the video…thanks to Anders Bendix for sharing the light on this issue =)

Kim Bach told me on jaiku this morning that he missed my blogging. I must admit that I have turned into an “infrequent blogger” lately. There’s just so many other things on my mind these days.
I have found out what I like to do when I take time off. Off the internet, off work and just being me, so these days I am doing a lot of painting, a lot of guitarplaying a lot of remodifying ( t-shirts, furniture, you name it) and a lot of cleaning up on every level of my life. Sounds deep ? well it kinda is. It needs to be if Im gonna keep my calm these days and not getting stressed out.

so what do YOU love to do ? and are you doing it when you are taking time off ?

This weekend I took my favorite man and went on a mental training workshop by Susan Ekberg. It was a real mental kick and I got so much out of it. Among other things she talked about the pulsefrequency of the brain which I want to share with ya’ll.

The pulsefrequency of the brain is how fast your neural network ( neurons in singular) is operating.

When you are awake and in “normal mode” (acting, talking, walking) your pulsefrequency is 21 hertz(beta mode).

when you are deep asleep you’re in deltamode and your pulsefrequency of the brain is about 3-4 hertz

when you are asleep but not deeply you are in tetra mode.

What you really want to achieve as much as possible for your creativity is alfa mode. Alfa mode is a pulsefrequency of 10 hertz. It is best described as being the mode when your body is relaxed to complete harmony, but your not asleep. It is often achieved through meditation. This is supposedly the optimal place to start incubation and creativity.

The nature swings with 10 hertz pulsefrequency – which is probably one of the reasons that one of the cures for stress is to send people tree hugging.

the alfa frequency is also the frequency that the collective intelligence is on.

On my alfa frequency these days I just let things come to me.. and it’s making me a better and more reflective/creative person.

If there’s anyone out there that knows about any books on this subject I would love to hear from you.

I have used a part of my summerholiday to write this essay on action – to research what it takes to get from a-z in action or as I have called it “from Z(ero) to A(ction) in ACTION!”.
This means defining some of my main steps necessary to generate ideas and putting them to work.

For a very long time I have been thinking about working my way through the process of idea creation to creativity and finally to action. In my world it’s a petty when a good idea goes to waste without getting to test a part of the actual idea out.

Now for a definition of action – as my good friend J.C. Fischer and I came up with for a 6 word story ” babysteps will get you there too”.

In this case it means that small actions inside yourself will lead to larger actions externally, if the larger actions feels right. So the scalability of actions are really important.
If we take the word ”act” it means that you are ”doing something” about a given idea. That something could be anything from reflection on an idea to bringing the idea to life by making it happen in real life.

This essay is used as mapping out a structure for a ”possible” book on the subject – so if you have any good input about what is missing – please let me know =)

So how do you generate ideas ?

Ideas has a touch of magic and dreams.

An idea to me is a magical feeling that you get when you think about something new. A good idea to a person, is an idea that you decide, you would like to act upon – because you think it’s a good idea. Still most of the good ideas stays at the good idea stage (and never makes it to action). So how do you spur your idea into action ?

Creativity

Creativity is a constant ”stepstone” in the action process – not just a tool to spur ideas into action. You need creativity to generate ideas. In the words of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: ”creativity is interaction”.

Most important to me is the interactions between the people you see, the culture you live in and your own creative vibe.

How can you create a better creative vibe within yourself ?

I have made a creativity 100 list a while back – which was a 100 point list to get more creative.

My favorites from that list are :

- Creativity means creative choices of inclusion and exclusion (Robert Mckee)
- Creative action speaks louder than creative words
- Be a firestarter a twisted firestarter
- Eliminate the word ”against” in your mind. Don’t be against smoking or against war – be FOR health and FOR peace.

Let’s say you’ve got the idea now, and you’ve got that creative vibe going – what’s next ?

You still have quite a way to go to get to action. All steps of ”z-a” is small actions themselves but the place we want to get at, is where people can see you are ”making” something – instead of ”just talking” about the idea.

Talk and listen… ( trust me you need your community =)

So when you have the idea and you are ”flowing” it – start talking and introducing it to various people to get feedback. Don’t think about action just yet – just listen to what people are telling you.

Listening is just as important as talking in action-hunting.

When people are saying the same over and over again and marking out the same assets and faults of your idea – it’s time to springle the idea with a little action.

an Idea description

Change the thing about the idea that people say ( and you feel) is broken, and use the assets to make an idea description – you’re probably going to change the idea description a thousand times during the idea stage but that’s quite okay.
Things I normal put into my idea descriptions are :
- what’s the point of this idea?
- Why is it going to save a tiny part of the world
- How can I make people like it ?
- Who will like it the most (aka. Who is the primary target group)
- What is stopping you from going into action ?
- What are the next steps to be taken.

Review and rewrite the description everytime you idea ”get stuck” and is more likely to go down the drain then to action =)

Remarkability ( be different)…

For this to work – you don’t have to think in ways that other people hasn’t done before. But you have to be damn good at creative puzzles. Creative puzzles is the way you mix and match tendencies, functioning ideas, money-earning ideas into your own. Take your inspiration from places you had no intention of going.

So when you think of being remarkable – you don’t really have to go all the way and reinvent the deep dish again – you can settle for a creative puzzle – which is just as unique. Remarkability can also be a unique way of putting together puzzles.

Turn everything …

Ask questions upside down, inside out.

How would a teapot see your living room ? – what would a cat do in this and this situation.

Find the coolest people as muses and ask yourself questions like ”how would Elvis Presley write this book” – or ” how would the queen of Saba sing ” anarchy in the U.K) – quite amusing and a grand way to put yourself in new shoes.

This essay is not ending.

I will continously add to it. But this is all I’ve got for now, from my balcony in surburbia Denmark =)

creative sources for this post:

James Wood Young: ” technique for getting ideas”

crossposted on tensoriana.org and toothlesstiger.net

Asked in the same way that children asks “where does babies come from?”. that has been on my mind lately. Maybe because i feel more inspired that I have done for ages.

I don’t know if I am in particularly good at it, but lately I have started to pay attention to a lot of things/people that I want and I dont want in my life.

my family inspire me and old ancient stories. People are inspiring me in ways they haven’t before mainly because of the impulsiveness of microblogging communities.
I am documenting and researching a lot more than I used to. mostly in transitional web apps and social networks.

After becoming a mother I have increasingly found inspiration in being grateful. Everything from the outside world is reflected as ” what if it happened to me ?” and more importantly ” what if it happened to my daughter?” and even though i have a lot of concerns about the future – gratefulness is giving in so many other ways.

Inspiration comes from impressions. Inspiration comes from “love” and “new”. from seeing yourself from other sides than you normally do. from appreciation, from daring to state your good at something.

hope I didn’t ramble too much *s*

My good friend André has finished the teaser for his internet series “extraordinaries” that I am going to be a part of ( or so I hope – right André ?)

anyway here it is:

here’s his pledge to make him the ultimate geek movie director…

Help him out – he’s the coolest creative guy – with the craziest ambitions – and a talent for moviemaking and directing…

In connection with my complete creativity 100 – Guy Dickinson gave me the link to the “technique for getting ideas” – it’s a pretty good structure for ideagenerating and a must read…

Since Lift07 I have been wanting to do a creativity 100 – a practical creativity manifesto that can create some twisting and turning in your minds.

Since reboot 9 I have been dying to finish it.

1. your knowledge of “what’s out there” makes you base your choices on your knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work

2. creativity means creative choices of inclusion and exclusion (Robert Mckee)3. What doesn’t work in one context – might work in another. Test your options

4. creativity is interaction. Most of the time with real people

5. the biggest goal for your ideas is casualization. turning your idea into a trend that partly turns “mainstream” or “normal”

6. when an idea is casualized – work on a new idea. Be ahead of the market

7. look at the past to predict the future. Patterns mostly form themselves and repeat themselves

8. being the first is more important to creativity than to be the best. when somebody becomes the best – the first are being first in something else

9. taking a creative project from a-z is a piece of art in itself. Sometimes the creative person can’t manage herself- he’s busy creating other ideas

10. creative action speaks louder than creative words

11. you don’t really need to be tomorrow where you are today

12. you don’t need to have creative past to get a creative future

13. be a firestarter, a twisted firestarter

14. dare to be different, it will really get you further in the long run

15. creative people are often disliked by other people. It’s often real hard for the creative person to accept that

16. see your body mind and spirit as a whole, get inspiration with new ways of eating, living, thinking etc

17. make personal goals and keep them. Do you really want to write that book right now ? – how high priority does it have on a scale from 1- 10 ( 1 is the lowest)

18. make all your thoughts positive instead of negative, don’t nag – think about what a negative situation gives you – in a positive way

19. eliminate the word “against” in your mind. Don’t be against smoking or against war – be FOR health and FOR peace

20. eliminate “forever” and “never” in your mind. This will contribute to reducing you reluctance to change and in the end make your person more in sync

21. don’t go where no man has gone before – go where YOU haven’t gone before – if you don’t like it, see it as an experience, if you do – use it to grow further

22. what do you really want ? get a friend to ask you that question again and again for 5 mins – and write it down ( if you don’t have any friends, IM me and I can ask you)

23. put beauty in everything – live beautifully and clean up your mess

24. smile, try meditation and yoga

25. don’t react negatively to anything, tell people to their face what you think of the way they are behaving

26. Is the processes you have in your life right now draining your energy or giving you energy ? – if it’s draining your energy, get yourself out of there…

27. how do you feel when you have eaten ? tired or energized ? if you fell tired the likelyhood of a food intolerance is big

28. dress up everyday

29. be green – this will change your world ( and it will give you the energy to save the world)

30. tell friends how much you appreciate them – do they know ?

31. make your marks in the sand, claim what is yours before somebody else does

32. what do you want to do right now ?

33. do it

34: l.i.v.e i.n. t.h.e n.o.w!

35: stay philosophical – something like ” is that dress really pink – or is it just my perception of it that’s pink?”

36: don’t just eat everything you put in your mouth, taste it… and taste it again – ask yourself what it tastes of

37: have a happy approach

38: don’t let people who let’s you down, get you down. use the experience to show them what you’re made of

39: be passionate about yourself and your life, if there’s not a tiny spark of passion in what you do, I believe you wouldn’t be doing it

40: try to take yourself where you want to go, not based on where you have been, but based on where you are now

41: see art

42: make art

43: give “it” away – now… it doesn’t matter what “it” is – just give it away

44: be direct, tell people if you don’t agree, but in a positive way – your opinion will be valued and not evaluated if you’re positive about it

45: give people the answers they are looking for, if you can give it to them.. ( and give it to the ASAP – I simply hate hanging on a leash)

46: if you’re in flow, you’re in flow – stop all arrangements and stay there – tell your family that if you say you simply “need” to do something – it’s because you’re in flow.

47: don’t put other people’s priorities first, put your own priorities first.

48: entrepreneurs: get paid for the work you do – if they don’t want to pay you, then they don’t deserve you ( or don’t value you enough) – but hold your head high – it’s hard to live under water

49: listen to music and podcasts – entertain and be entertained

50: have another glass of wine

51: party like there’s no tomorrow… examine the world as if you were born today

52: make yourself an “I am good” book. write down 3 points where you start with “I am good at…”. Then write down 3 points where you start with “Thank you for”. At last write down 3 points where you start with “help me with”… put everything out there – don’t care who you thank or who you ask for help.. just do it everynight before you go to bed… It will get you somewhere…

53: watch movies

54: stop watching TV

55: picture what will be written on your tombstone – picture you’re a hundred and look back at your life, what do you want to be remembered for?

56: take a ceramics course, when you’ve had enough take a guitar course, when you play the guitar to perfection – study litterature at the university… keep evolving yourself..

57: Creativity is not a crime – keep pushin’ the ideas out there

58: try to see patterns and see if you can estimate where the future is heading

60: have the exces energy to cook every night – make it a daily family event

61: have dinner parties for your favorite people.62: listen, and then talk…

63: when people ask you how you’re doing – you should say “great”

64: buy a book today about a subject you don’t think you’re interested in

65: sign up for a new blog today

66: comment

67: try to design it yourself – no matter what you want to do…

68: ask the questions you are scared about first

69: remember your own youth revolution – are you still a part of it and fighting the same things ?

70: don’t fear the unknown

71: tell people if you disagree, when you disagree, not 3 days later

72: be involved in communities

73: use only your weak hand for one day

74: switch to left-handed

75: draw a familiar object, upside down

76: become a designer, in your mind and in your ways of acting

77: DIY – who knows what you might find ( or ruin)

78: draw 20 circles. Try to make each one into something in under 7 minutes (ie: pie, bicycle wheel, sewer grate, etc). repeat daily.

79: write “what if?” scenarios

80: try to do things you didn’t think was possible. fx. if you’re a parent you know how little sleep you actually need to function.

81: act

82: praise yourself

83: make noise

84: imagine your problem was a contestant in the iron chef, but iron chef for X industry/context. how would they win?

85: Imagine other contexts for things. Macguyver everything

86: always keep asking, why?

87: never settle down

88: don’t become to satisfied, be proud, but enhancing

89: if you never ask questions then you’re probably not getting the right answers

90: always keep asking. create questions around whatever you’re trying to do

91: be polite, always

92: revolt

93: be selfconcious

94: take the bike

95: bring a notebook on you and a kick-ass pen

96: love

97: do art

98: join a reclaim the streets

99: picture yourself doing things you never thought you’d do.

100: record yourself singing a song on camera

thanks to John Griffiths, Michele Perras and Will Pate from the wonderful torcamp swarm for the last 20 crossposted on Toothless Tiger and Tensoriana

Since Lift07 I have been wanting to do a creativity 100 – a practical creativity manifesto that can create some twisting and turning in your minds.
I’ve only gotten to 33 – but I am working on it all the time – so the last 67 will come soon =) enjoy

1. Your knowledge of “what’s out there” makes you base your choices on your knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work

2. Creativity means creative choices of inclusion and exclusion (Robert Mckee)

3. What doesn’t work in one context – might work in another. Test your options

4. Creativity is interaction. Most of the time with real people

5. The biggest goal for your ideas is casualization. turning your idea into a trend that partly turns “mainstream” or “normal”

6. When an idea is casualized – work on a new idea. Be ahead of the market

7. Look at the past to predict the future. Patterns mostly form themselves and repeat themselves

8. Being the first is more important to creativity than to be the best. when somebody becomes the best – the first are being first in something else

9. Taking a creative project from a-z is a piece of art in itself. Sometimes the creative person can’t manage herself- he’s busy creating other ideas

10. Creative action speaks louder than creative words

11. You don’t really need to be tomorrow where you are today

12. you don’t need to have creative past to get a creative future

13. be a firestarter, a twisted firestarter

14. dare to be different, it will really get you further in the long run

15. Creative people are often disliked by other people. It’s often real hard for the creative person to accept that

16. See your body mind and spirit as a whole, get inspiration with new ways of eating, living, thinking etc

17. Make personal goals and keep them. Do you really want to write that book right now ? – how high priority does it have on a scale from 1- 10 ( 1 is the lowest)

18. Make all your thoughts positive instead of negative, don’t nag – think about what a negative situation gives you – in a positive way

19. Eliminate the word “against” in your mind. Don’t be against smoking or against war – be FOR health and FOR peace

20. Eliminate “forever” and “never” in your mind. This will contribute to reducing you reluctance to change and in the end make your person more in sync

21. Don’t go where no man has gone before – go where YOU haven’t gone before – if you don’t like it, see it as an experience, if you do – use it to grow further

22. what do you really want ? get a friend to ask you that question again and again for 5 mins – and write it down ( if you don’t have any friends, IM me and I can ask you)

23. put beauty in everything – live beautifully and clean up your mess

24. Smile, try meditation and yoga

25. Don’t react negatively to anything, tell people to their face what you think of the way they are behaving

26. Is the processes you have in your life right now draining your energy or giving you energy ? – if it’s draining your energy, get yourself out of there…

27. how do you feel when you have eaten ? tired or energized ? if you fell tired the likelyhood of a food intolerance is big

28. Dress up everyday

29. Be green – this will change your world ( and it will give you the energy to save the world)

30. Tell friends how much you appreciate them – do they know ?

31. Make your marks in the sand, claim what is yours before somebody else does

32. What do you want to do right now ?

33. Do it

crossposted on Tensoriana