Scott Berkun

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11 thoughts on “Creative Thinking Hacks: Video”

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• Smaranda - April 6, 2012 at 12:38 pm #

• In the Q&A towards the end: the stuff about “maybe you will realize that that dream you have is just a fantasy, and you don’t like the reality of being a creative person, you don’t like the lifestyle” was very well put. “There are a lot of famous creative miserable people out there”. Damn right there are. I think we talk about that too little. I find it often that creativity and being “a creative person” working in “a creative environment” is something that we glamourize. Perhaps too much and at times in the detriment of feeling good about what we are doing right now – which we often regard as not “creative” enough.

  I don’t think the myth of the brilliant inventor whose ideas poor out of the skies (which you often talk about) is the only thing at fault here. There’s more to it and if you feel passionate about it, I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on it in a blog post. Especially because of your career change. Again, I feel it’s something that we don’t talk about enough.

  I stumbled across this recently: http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2012/03/how-photographers-rockstars-astronauts-actually-spend-their-time/
  While I don’t know how he got the numbers and if they are right, it points to something very interesting, which I’m personally fascinated by – the dichotomy between appearances and the day to day reality of a profession. I’m starting to think that creative fields (design, graphic arts, film, music etc) are particularly susceptible of being misinterpreted as these lands of unequaled freedom where innovation, wild ideas and a general feeling of purposefulness and happiness are at home. In fact the reality can be quite different and it may affect you as a person and your creativity in ways that you can’t predict. I remember on of my favorite bands, 30 Seconds to Mars, talking very openly once about the actual reality of their jobs. One of them said “It’s often the case that we have very talented, smart, professional people coming on tour with us, who start with the best intentions, and after a month they want to go home. They feel they’re gonna go crazy. They just can’t do it and they have to pack up and leave.” and it was something about not having privacy and time for yourself, being too busy and in a different place every day. And then one of them said something along the lines of: “some people need to close down their laptops at 5 o’clock, put it out of their minds and go home to their families. That just doesn’t happen with me. It’s impossible to do that.” Obviously, that’s very different than what you think in your head that being a touring musician would be like.

  I have a lot of friends who are hard core designers and can’t find jobs that they enjoy because they don’t want to compromise on their creative… whatever, as if there was a Mecca of creativity somewhere in a company that they haven’t yet been able to find. I am myself often dissatisfied with my day to day projects because they are not “creative enough” and I’m not “pushing myself” enough. And then, after much frustration, I sit and think that this other “really creative and innovative” job that I would like to do instead and haven’t yet found might actually be a fantasy as big as the famous rockstar illusion.

  Thoughts?

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• 
• Smaranda - April 6, 2012 at 12:40 pm #

• Damn, that was a long “one paragraph”. Didn’t quite realize while I was writing. Sorry.

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• Joseph Ratliff - March 21, 2012 at 9:40 am #

• Scott,

  Very enlightening.

  This should be a crash course on creativity for everyone who wants to be creative (or get better at it).

  The journal, once I started using it, freed my mind to do some pretty cool things, great idea.

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• Malcolm - March 6, 2012 at 11:35 am #

• What’s the role of appreciation in creativity?

  A person’s or group’s perception that of someone or something as creative is fickle and can be influenced by a) the ability to perceive (e.g. the rare sports analyst that highlights subtleties of the execution), and b) the context in which its perceived (e.g. someone lies about the fact that what’s being viewed is a copy, is not skillfully presented, etc.).

  So is creativity actually relative, or intrinsic to the creator or the work?

  I post this here because a central theme of this great video is “creativity is work”, when perhaps by answering these questions, one might suggest “creativity is perception”?

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• Enrique - February 24, 2012 at 5:48 pm #

• im surprised, i made a thesis to get my degree in graphic design on this very same topic, back in 2006, i reached some very similar conclusions, i called it sistematic idea asociation. and i tried to find a way to make it work methodically so that anyone could applie it in their designing process.

  recently ive reached a definition about desing, to me, desinging is thinking.

  love your video

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• 
• Sahar - February 24, 2012 at 2:17 am #

• Hi Scott! Thank you for sharing this video. Many great tips. I would have a question: throughout history’s evolution, what is the main purpose for which people work on their creativity / want to produce and give life to creative ideas? What is the main motivation? I am thinking back to Mozart all the way down to today. Is there a shift throughout time?

  Thanks for your answer!

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