jted's Top 3 Goals

Creative people often have many, many things on the go. I used to say, “If you want to get something done, ask a busy person,” and in many ways this still holds true. Busy people have energy and momentum. But there’s another side to it. Having too many ideas, starting too many projects, can lead to ‘action dilution’, where you are spread so thin that you are effectively immobilized.

Once or twice a year, it helps to examine your personal, creative priorities. Make a list of the Top Ten things you would like to achieve over the next six months. Prioritize them, with the most important goals at the top. Now ask yourself, “What Would Jobs Do?”

Steve Jobs, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography, did a lot of strange things including: cry in meetings, park his Mercedes the handicapped spot, eat only fruit for months on end…but I’m not talking about those things. Steve knew how to focus. He did this by being ruthless with lists. Every year he would invite his Top 100 employees from Apple (the first ruthless list) on a retreat. They would talk and brainstorm, and at the end of the retreat they would pitch company priorities to Steve Jobs as he stood in front of a white board. After intense debate and impulsive editing, there would be a list of the Top Ten most important company priorities for the year. Then Steve would examine the list, strike out the bottom seven items, and state, “We can only do three.”

Try that with your own list of personal priorities. Look at what you want to accomplish and winnow it down to the top three. Focus on only those three core goals for the next six months; you can assess and re-prioritize in half a year. This should allow you to get past the ‘action dilution’ problem, and get a few really important things done. If this process can turn a tech underdog into a tech titan (Apple is now the most valuable technology company in the world), think about what a little focus might do for you.

So how does an internationally renowned restaurant continue to innovate year after year? One of elBulli’s secrets is that all ingredients are classified into product families. For example: Fish, Flowers, Fats, Salts, Sausages, Juices, Sauces… These families become lists that a chef can use to make new dishes. She can decide to use a different flower, a different kind of fat, a different condiment, and the dish will be altered.

But it’s not just about the ingredients. The core of their creative process is something they call the Technique-Concept Search. They describe a technique as something that takes a series of ingredients and transforms it. Like how we make omelettes, salads, or sorbets. They are always on the look-out for new ways, new techniques, for making food. Some of their tamer discoveries have included savory ice cream and hot jellies. (Think about it, have you ever had hot Jello before?) In the creation of new concepts and techniques, Ferran’s team uses the following methods: association, inspiration, adaptation, deconstruction, and minimalism. In the book, they often state how difficult it is to describe these methods—especially things like inspiration or minimalism—which are subjective in nature and rely more on experience than following exact instructions.

As a Creative Director with my own set of tools and systems, I couldn’t help relating elBulli’s methods to that of Michael Michalko’s Thinkpak. The Thinkpak is a series of cards used to help push your ideas further, to experiment, to innovate. The cards are variations on the SCAMPER method, a clever acronym derived from Alex Osborn’s 9 principles for manipulating an object. I have listed these principles below, and placed elBulli’s methods in parentheses:

Substitute (ingredient swapping by classification)
Combine (association)
Adapt (adaptation)
Modify/Magnify (see next paragraph below)
Put to another use (inspiration)
Eliminate (minimalism)
Reverse/Rearrange (deconstruction)

Modify and Magnify come into effect when elBulli considers the entire experience through the lens of the guest. How do they experience the food through all of their senses? The chefs think about how the food tastes, of course, but also how it looks, smells, feels (textures), and even how it sounds to their patrons. Lastly, they think about the emotions brought on by the food through memory, association, and the atmosphere at the restaurant. They call these emotions the sixth sense.

elBulli is now closed, but the inspiration and creativity will live on through the elBulli Foundation: a combination museum and think-tank for creative cuisine. Ferran and his team are some of the most creative people in the world, but it is important to remember that they became that way through a conscious process. They created a system to classify common ingredients. They transformed existing cooking techniques and discovered others by adhering to a philosophy of innovation principals very similar to SCAMPER. And finally, they created experiences for the customer that considered every conceivable layer of sensation.

If you want to be the best, most innovative company/business/agency/school/hospital/franchise/corner store/entrepreneur in the world, feel free to adapt these same techniques for your industry.

To sum up, make creative PIE:

1. Process: Alter your processes (and look for new ones) with tools like the SCAMPER method. What changes have the most promise? What works best?
2. Ingredients: Categorize and switch up your ‘ingredients’ (the elements that make up your product or service). Mix and match until you have exhausted all possibilities.
3. Experience: Put yourself in your customers’ shoes (as well as their hats, pants, shirts, skirts, coats, and even underwear). How do they perceive you or your product? How do they feel when they experience it?

Detail from elBullilastWaltz Poster of elBulli's last served meal

Not long ago I took a horse & carriage ride at a small Winter Fair with my family. The two horses pulled about twenty people in a carriage in the freezing rain up a long incline. They had been doing this for half the day. They seemed exhausted and on the verge of disobedience. A young girl dropped her winter hat onto the road and the carriage had to stop. The girl and her mother stepped out the back to retrieve the hat, but the horses were restless. Just as the mother and daughter were about to climb back on, the horse broke into an impromptu trot, and they were forced to run and jump back into the car. Everyone thought it was good fun, and the younger children laughed and cheered.

To be honest, it made me very nervous. You see, when I was just a young boy of four years, I convinced my father to let me show off in front of my visiting friends. I wanted to ride our pony, Peggy, without him holding onto the reigns. I had done it a hundred times, but I wanted my peers to see what a big boy I was. My dad let go, and the horse, which had been cooped up in the barn for the better part of the winter, decided that this was its chance. It bolted. And because it had a rubber bit in its mouth, it didn’t care that I was pulling back on the reigns as hard as a four year old can pull. And because it was a fat pony (it had been boarded at a farm one summer and gotten into the cattle-fattening feed), the straps holding the saddle in place weren’t very tight. As it ran, the saddle slipped down the side of the young horse, with me yelling and pulling and finally falling under its hooves into the packed dirt. My dad was right behind me, and scooped me up. I was crying, but luckily unhurt. After that, I had a healthy fear of horses. They are big, strong, willful animals.

I couldn’t help but imagine the carriage out of control, the two horses galloping fiercely down the road, laughter turning to screams as the carriage sunk half-way into the ditch and pitched onto its side. I imagined trying to protect my children, scooping them in my arms like an action hero, holding them tight as we were thrown from the car… Such morbid, paranoid thoughts. I was ruining my own fun, so I decided to change the subject of my internal monologue to one of horseshoes. It seemed to me that a horseshoe is not lucky for the horse. They still have to slave away, day after day, pulling things and carrying things: a beast of burden.

According to folklore, the Devil became jealous of a horse’s shoes after seeing it gallop over a cobblestone street. The iron shoe striking the stone road was throwing off sparks, and made it look like its feet were on fire. The Devil thought this was pretty cool, and asked the local blacksmith to fit a special pair for his cloven feet. The blacksmith obliged, and fitted the Devil with iron shoes. The Devil was most proud for a few days, kicking up impressive sparks wherever he went, but soon the nails began to hurt and his feet became quite sensative. The Devil returned to the blacksmith and demanded he undo his work. The blacksmith refused. A few days later, the Devil limped back into the blacksmith’s shop begging bitterly for the shoes’ removal. Again the blacksmith refused. Finally, after one week of unbearable pain, the Devil crawled to the blacksmith and offered him a wish. “I will do anything you command,” the Devil promised, “as long as you remove these iron shoes.” “Very well,” said the blacksmith. “You must promise never to enter a house with a horseshoe hanging above the doorway.” “As you wish,” said the Devil, “Now get these damned crippling shoes off of me!” The blacksmith obliged the Devil once more, but not before nailing a horseshoe above his door, making his home safe from evil’s harm.

The trend caught on, and more and more villagers began nailing horseshoes above their doorways. Some knew told the story of the blacksmith, and some did not. Over time, people came to believe different things about this tradition. Some believed a horseshoe brought good luck because it had seven holes in it, a holy number. Some argued that when nailed ‘upright’ in the shape of a ‘U’ it would catch all the good luck that rained down from heaven. Still others maintained that the only way the luck was imparted on the inhabitants was if it could pour onto you as you left your house. These people chose to nail their horseshoes upside-down. Good fortune, it seemed, was in the mind of the beholder.

As luck would have it, the eight horseshoes pulling my family brought us safely back to the cold, muddy parking lot of the Winter Fair unharmed.

As I rode to work this morning on the Toronto subway, I noticed a significant reduction in passengers. It wasn’t a holiday, it wasn’t the weekend, and I wasn’t late for work. I couldn’t help but wonder why there were fewer people on the train. Was the subway half empty, or half full?

If the subway is half empty on the way to work in the morning, it means that the economy is not doing as well as expected. Less people going to work means more unempoyed who cannot afford transit. Less jobs means less people needed to head into the heart of the city. It also means a transit system that cannot afford to optimize, continuing to run inefficiently and lose money and ridership in the process. A half empty subway is a dying subway.

If the subway is half full on the way to work in the morning, it means that the economy is doing better than expected. Less people means more subway cars are running at a higher frequency. It is a sign that the city anticipates growth, an influx of people to take on the jobs being created. Also, due to higher wages, more people can afford to drive their fancy cars, decreasing ridership somewhat. A half full subway is a thriving subway.

There are omens of the impending apocalypse all around us. There are signs of recovery and healing surrounding us. It depends where you look and how you see it. Are you a subway half empty or a subway half full kind of guy? Or is your subway too crowded to think about it?

In a stunning act of unintended irony, The Pirate Bay created something instead of linking off to copies it. Recognizing a future need for stereolithographic (.STL) files, they invented a new category of media documents they now call Physibles. While most file formats are conversions of analog material into digital material (tapes to mp3s, or film to divX) a physible file works in reverse. A .STL document is used in 3-D printing to convert digital creations into real, physical objects. Inventions like the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic®, which retails for just over a thousand dollars, “allows you to print thing after thing.” It’s not quite a Replicator that will synthesize meals, but it’s a start. At the moment it’s a sparse category, with about a dozen items for download, including parts for a gun (disturbing), a 3D logo, a tabletop wargaming robot, a whistle, and a 1970 Chevelle Hot-rod. A future of printing our own plastic Kinder Surprises is just around the corner. The Future is Physibles.

Last night I got into Philadelphia quite late. I took a cab from the airport to my hotel. I looked out of my hotel window for a few minutes, and went to bed. In the morning I took a cab from the hotel to a meeting. Then I took a cab from the meeting back to the airport. It was unusually foggy all day, so I didn’t get to see much of anything from the ground. If you were to ask me what Philly looks like, I would have to say it looks a lot like the inside of a cloud. In fact, it was so foggy that my early flight was delayed and I spent the entire afternoon sitting in the airport. Unfortunately I was already through security, and couldn’t really go exploring beyond the bars and the Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s sad to be in a place without really seeing the place.

So here are the three shots that turned out during my brief trip: one of a coaster with a paraphrased quote by Steve Martin, one of the nighttime view from my hotel room, and one of my bathroom wallpaper (which is now the wallpaper on my iPhone). Enjoy an insider’s view of Philadelphia.

Study of Habituation Over Time, Drawing by Jeremy Dean

I’ve heard it said many times that a habit can be formed (or broken) in roughly three weeks, or 21 days. I’d finally done it. I made writing part of my routine. This is the twenty-second post since the new year, which means now I barely have to try and these entries will virtually write themselves. Amazing.

Amazing and wrong, according to Jeremy Dean, researcher and writer of PsyBlog. He believes the ‘myth’ of 21 days can be traced back to Dr. Maxwell Maltz. Dr. Maltz was a cosmetic surgeon who discovered that amputee soldiers adjusted to their lost limbs in about three weeks.

Dr. Maltz was also one of the founding fathers of the now thriving self-help business. In 1960 he wrote a book called Psycho-Cybernetics: A New Way To Get More Living Out Of Life, which inspired the likes of Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins. In this book he jumps to the conclusion, base on his very limited research, that human beings take 21 days to ‘get used to’ something (like a missing arm). Over time, this idea has taken root and become a ‘known fact’.

According to real research, the actual time it takes to form a habit, where the new actions being introduced become automatic, is 66 days on average. But sometimes it is much shorter or much, much longer, depending on the difficulty of the habit being formed. This makes perfect sense. How long does it take to write a book? Well, that will depend on the amount of work the book will take. As the diagram shows, creating the habit of drinking a glass of water every day is considerably easier than doing fifty sit-ups.

So perhaps I have formed a habit. Or perhaps I haven’t. But I’m still writing. And it’s getting easier, for the most part. And as it gets easier, I intend to add a few new habits into the mix and try to get them to stick too: writing on my book (Create More, Better, Different) every day, drinking more water (apparently that’s easy), eating more fruit, going for walks… but I’m going to introduce these slowly, one at a time, and make sure that they become automatic before over-extending myself. This could take longer than I initially thought…

Genus Aves Iratus by Shane Parker

I think it’s fair to say I’m obsessed with Angry Birds. I own three versions on my iPhone: Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio. Until today, I had collected every possible star (three per level) in every possible level. Nine-hundred and nine in Angry Birds, seven-hundred and twenty-six in Seasons, and six-hundred seventy-five in Rio. That’s a grand total of two-thousand three-hundred and ten stars. I have unlocked The Mighty Eagle in Angry Birds and have collected forty-one eagle feathers so far.

In Apple’s Game Center, I’m in the top 5% of All Time scorers. When Angry Birds came out as a Google Plus app, I played against Chad Hurley, Scott Beale, and Mark Zuckerberg for points one evening, and I came out on top.

Over the course of a few years I’ve put in hundreds of hours of time getting better at this game. And today there is a new update to Angry Birds Seasons, with 45 new stars to earn. And I’m going to earn them all. I say all this not to impress you, but to impress upon you that you often have more time than you think.

So here’s the thing: when you are obsessed with something, you commit to it and you find the time to make it happen. A choose to spend my time playing Angry Birds, and I steal tiny moments here and there to make it happen— twenty minutes on the subway, five minutes in line at Starbucks, a few minutes before falling asleep, etc etc. Over time, those stolen moments have added up to an honorary PhD in Angry Birdsology. And I constantly complain about how little time I have.

I am trying to do a similar things with a few of my other goals. As you may know, I am writing a book (Create More, Better, Different), but I always get delayed and side tracked. I procrastinate. I truthfully do many purposeful things to avoid ‘getting down to it’. So I’ve decided to convert completing this book into an obsession. I have made it accessible on all my devices (through the cloud), so that I can write bits and pieces anywhere at any time. This way I can steal moments when a thought strikes me, and apply the energy to the same document. I have written the outline, and placed it into my document, making title pages for each section. And each section has its own white page. This way it feels more like a game to ‘fill in’ the parts that are still blank. And most recently I have dropped my document into iBooks Author to see what it could look like as an eBook. Wow, it looks so real that I am suddenly re-energized to stick with it and bend time to my will. Every tiny moment counts toward the goal, and when you are obsessed with something, you rarely forget to take advantage of the ‘between’ time you would normally be oblivious too. Every second counts, especially when you are always busy.

Now if you don’t mind, I have fifteen new levels pissed-off birds to content with.