Simplicity.

Simplicity is a word for all seasons, it means different things to different people and sometimes the same thing but at different times.

Edward De Bono talks of the possibilities inherent in making simplicity an end in and of itself. In other words a value that we seek as the end result not always the means to achieving that desired result.

This approach has its strengths as it demands that people look to simplify and don’t simply acquiesce by claiming the existing status quo works anyway. It demands a level of creativity above that used by most people in everyday life.

In fact, De Bono goes as far as to say, “Hunters are usually given specific seasons in which to hunt. Hunters for simpler ideas may benefit from the focus of a specific ‘thinking’ season”.

This idea may not be so far fetched in fact the approach of delineating in season and out of season can regenerate people and define a focus when a scattergun approach of simply ‘improving things’ can induce lethargy in even the most dedicated of employees or disciples.

Having a week of going all out in a search for the holy grail of simplicity could bring some fresh blood into the thinking game.

It may even produce results in the thinking process itself never mind the end results.

Every idea for simplification does not have to be followed through, in fact most will be downright harebrained but will in turn stimulate new thinking direction and could even result in reinforced appreciation for what already exists.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it applies here. But testing different theories and hypotheses and speculating on the possibilities and potential could benefit any team, organization, individual or lone inventor operating in the margins.

Simply cutting off excess or dead wood is rejuvenating but it takes focus as well as a certain ruthlessness.

Just Ideas.

Blog on blogging on ...

With all respects to Bob for paraphrasing some brilliant lyrics I'm at a deadend with my attempts to become even a little creative about this street pole ads Cannes comp. In fact my mind is caught in a sustainable loop going round and round circuitously with the idea of creating a sustainable ad campaign about building a sustainable village community in the wild heart of the old Transkei.

Some will deride me for writing about creativity rather than actually getting creative but they would be missing the point. I'm trying to get inside the creative curve, impulse, tunnel, router or just the wave that could carry me further.

If I'm lucky I could get to survive the ride and write about it. Difficult to say exactly where I'm at now on the creative journey to winning that trip to Cannes but what's important, in fact crucial, is that I don't need to submit my entry yet.

There's piles of crumpled paper and useless saved files on the drive that will only excite the life form that eventually arrive on earth millenia from now for extended forensic examination and maybe some answers. Pity I won't be around ...

Yeats and blogging in the Transkei.

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world," The brief is nowhere near solved despite sleeping on the conundrum last night. A sustainable village in the heart of rural Transkei. Forgotten by the apartheid government and still undeveloped 14 years after independence, the place reeks of poverty and desperation and yet it has a distinct air of pride laced with a distrust of big city people with empty promises.

Sustainability sustain-ability sustained-ability sustaining ability. It could work, you know. I can see it on street pole ads, only in my minds eye, but it's there an image not caught in freeze frame but alive as if I'm driving past and caught unawares by images and words that startle me.

I'm trying to be impartial and objective. Trying to put myself into the shoes of a passerby seeing the words and trying to figure out what the hell they mean and where exactly the Transkei actually is.

Have to record this thought sequence. They'll never believe me.

Free falling, free styling, Free verse, Free jazz, Free wheeling.

Relistened to In Rainbows and Stadium Arcadium. Still think they suck but can't find a rational explanation for my apparently irresistable urge to push play again and again. Will this feeling prove to be sustainable?

Got brief will travel.

Sitting staring at a blank screen has a sort of soul destroying edge to it. It's as if I'm being indicted for nothing. No that sounds weird but an empty screen can raise concern in anybody's mind.

That's out of the way with now. It's no longer empty. Not publishable but no longer staring back at me. This diary of sorts is about me embarking on a journey complete with a brief. Where it and I will end up is anyones guess but I've set sail.

The brief is incomplete, open ended and inconclusive. That's where I fit in. Find a conclusive solution. Build an entry for the Street Pole Ads Cannes award from a single word : Sustainability.

Alright, there's more to it but that is the kernel if you like. Maybe I should go open source and sort of open it wiki like to all and any contributors. That would be a complete woos out though, and besides I want to go to Cannes.

The entire brief is how to achieve sustainability in a rural village in the old Transkei. A village sustaining itself off the land and any income that can be made from cash crops.

Great idea but how do I get it across on 3 maybe 5 poles?

Minmally of course. Minimalism. I've always been fond of brevity, lugging a nickname like brevitous around for quite some time took a lot chutzpah and massive amounts of humour.

Sustainability, sustain-ability, sustained-ability, sustaining-ability ...
Can't see where that's going except a bozo statement of the obvious although maybe the key is to take the collective ability in the village and get it all pointing in the right direction, a slight nudge forwards and then it simply needs sustained inertia.

Simple really, isn't it? But how to get that across on these infernally small boards. Bearing in mind that motorists and other passersby will vote for the best pole stretch and most people don't appreciate anything whether funny or serious that takes them longer than a nano second to figure out.

Good, I've got it. Keep it simple like instant gratification so that the message is sustainably passed on in bars, cars, offices, impromptu meetings, protest marches and maybe even idle pillow talk.

Now that the theoretical framework is in place I can blog and get on with the real work.

Chat later.