You're Not Listening→

Last night's presidential debate reminded me of the "You're Not Listening" essay from the Rands In Repose blog and how most people's idea of what listening is, is incomplete. 

The problem starts with the word: listen. Of course you know how to listen. You sit there and let the words into your head. Perhaps your definition is more refined. Maybe your definition of listening involves hearing because you’re aware of that switch in your head that you must flip to really hear what a person is saying. It’s work, right? Pulling in all the words, sorting them in your head, and mapping them against the person who is speaking. That is listening, that is hearing, but if that’s all you’re doing and you’re a leader of people, then you’re still only halfway there.

You should read the whole essay. And remember: ​

“A good conversation is a bunch of words elegantly connected with listening.”

Show Your Work! A new series by Austin Kleon

​Recently I read a book that I enjoyed very much becuase it delivered a potent message with great panache. The book is Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative  By Austin Kleon. This is how Amazon describes the book:

You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side.

And now I discover that Kleon has begun a series of shorts that continue the themes of the book. Show Your Work! Sharing Creativity in the Digital Age is made using Keynote to animate and Quicktime to edit.

Episode 1: Vampires (above) is about Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, and how to decide who to let in and out of your life. Episode 2: Falling Out (below) is a story about Bob Ross, his mentor Bill Alexander, and what happens when a student surpasses his master.

The Marketplace in Your Brain→

Neuroeconomics came into being around the turn of this century, growing out of a critique of the basic idea in economics that people are driven by rational attempts to maximize their own happiness. A new breed of behavioral economists had noted that in reality, individual definitions of "maximize" and "happiness" seemed to vary. Neuroeconomists added the idea that, by mapping parts of the brain doing the maximizing and the happiness-defining, they could better account for those actions.

Through experiments, researchers have shown that when people reject a low, unfairly priced offer, a part of the brain associated with disgust kicks in, but that when they view the offer as fair, a brain region linked to reasoning seems more active. Researchers have also tackled the puzzle of "overbidding," when people pay too much for something. An area called the striatum, associated with rewards, is more active when people bid high in an auction because they fear losing an item, but is not as active when they think they have a good chance of winning. So fear of losing may be key to things like overvalued stocks.

There is a neuroscience trend at the moment. Not the scientific study, but the using of the research to justify and explain a multitude of behaviors. In this article by Josh Fischman for The Chronicle of Higher Education he delves into the world of neuroeconomics.

While some scientist believe that the research is unnecessary others believe that better understanding how the brain interprets transactions would help explain, among other things, why people that spend hundreds of dollars on a smartphone balk at the idea of paying more than a dollar for an app (while holding a latte on the other hand.)

In recent days I've had many conversations about pricing. Pricing performances, the person is basically buying the promise of quality and a good time. The pricing of one's work and how to determine one's value as an individual, team and company. And what is the pricing threshold between some being perceived as cheap vs. inexpensive. 

I think that when it comes to transactions we tend to behave irrationally and the field of neuroeconomics perhaps will eventually help make sense why we react that way. ​

Creativity Top 5: October 1, 2012→

​The rainforest spot is witty with the right amount of irreverence. 

Would you like to be inspired? Here’s what you should do:→

Bang on a computer until you hear just the right drum sound. Write a 50-page short story, then throw it out. Sit in a boring room under fluorescent lights on a saggy, secondhand sofa, in the stale air of hours of futility. Break up your band. Have the worst date of your life. Imagine you’re a matador. Watch Nina Simone. Watch Benny Goodman. Watch Al Pacino, meet Al Pacino, be Al Pacino. Get insulted by Shelley Winters. Round up a marathon of the bleakest, most violent spaghetti westerns you can find. Realize you just might be a racist. Endure your mother’s illness. Most of all, try again, repeatedly.

Don’t trust us — these are tips from the experts. If you’ve ever seen a painting, or watched a movie, or read a novel, or enjoyed a performance, or followed a television show that moved you on some essential level, you probably wondered: What inspired that? We’ve wondered that, too. So we asked. What follows are the answers, in all their varied glory, to that question. In part it’s an investigation into the enigmatic nature of creative inspiration. (Which, it turns out, is often not so enigmatic. Step 1: Work. Step 2: Be frustrated. Step 3: Repeat.) In part, it’s an attempt to figure out just where creative culture comes from. (Sometimes, from the last Kleenex in the box.) And in part, it’s an excuse to celebrate the best music, books, plays, movies, TV and art on the horizon. We hope you enjoy it. Who knows? You might even be inspired.

A great introduction to The New York Times Magazine Inspiration Issue. Great profiles, some with video, with the stories behind some recent creative works. From Alicia Keys, to Anthony Bourdain, and many others. Very much worth the read. ​