#2  Modern marketing relevance

When choosing the right game play, in today´s competitive environment you need to step out from familiar comfort zone. You may even need to change the whole game book. Using following framework,  you just might do that and add a right amount of  new ingredients to your marketing mix for audience inspiration and activation.

Like Hugh MacLeod puts it in his brilliant aphorism: “if you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they´d punch you in the face”. This describes the challenge modern marketing is facing. With fragmented media options and multiple brand touch points available, in conjunction with continuing push messaging, it is simply not working anymore. How to make sure that your marketing is both inspiring – building perception, and effective – leads to action?

Effectivenes (Impact)

More current studies support the common sense thinking. If you  compare:

1. company/brand´s own channels (websites, corporate blogs, commercial fan pages, newsletters, publications, point of sales…) and
2. bought media (advertising, banners, social ads, sponsored content…) to
3. earned media (independent blogs, spontaneous fan postings, recommendations, media publicity, word of mouth…)

It is clear that earned media has the most impact for driving actions.

Perception building (Inspiration)

If you align this to another axis with approach on HOW you approach your marketing:

1. Planned (pre-meditated content and campaigns for own and bought media)
2. Anticipated (scenario based follow-up options based on measuring success)
3. Reactive (active reaction and fast response to actual behavior on 24/7/365 basis)

It is evident that while you may enjoy a feeling of greater control and safety with planned activities, there is a greater risk of being indifferent and in fact – getting punched in the face while you at it. On the other hand, active reaction, responsiveness and participation in discussion topics raised in earned media gives you much more credibility and possibility to earn respect and fans with less effort and more impact.

Media arts and Constant communications approach take advantage of these opportunities.

If you are able to reduce risks of getting punched, you are more likely to succeed with your marketing!

Next: Do you know your audience?

The say, “write what you know”. While I’m sure I’m not the first, I tend to agree. On the surface – of course – this seems quite obvious as writing about something you know nothing about would be a tremendously difficult task. But as with any great pearl of wisdom, the true meaning is tucked away.

For me, “what you know” is not necessarily what you know, but rather what you feel and who you are. To me, if you’re not writing – or less specifically, creating – “what you know”, then you don’t stand a chance of creating anything of great meaning. It is from this “what you know” that great art is spawned and that unique voices are born.

And it doesn’t matter what you’re creating: music, sculpture, dance, math and advertising all require that unique voice to be heard. What sets the masters apart in any of these fields is that at one point it was like they were speaking their own language.

Sometime in the ’60s, (I say sometimes because it’s nearly impossible to get exact times with this guy, but I digress) Jim Morrison wrote:

I wanna tell you about Texas Radio and the Big Beat
Soft-driven, slow and mad, like some new language

These words have stuck with me since I first heard the songs, but it wasn’t until I read Ignore Everybody, by Hugh MacLeod, that I really found the right context for them. One of the many topics that MacLeod explores in this brilliant book is the idea of a new a language from the point of view of the young artist, creating, without pressure or expectation, and establishing “a new language that other people could also speak to the world with”.

What Morrison is describing is a feeling that I’m sure most of us have experienced. That feeling when you hear a song for the first time and something about it stops you in your tracks. It’s happened to me countless times, but one of the most vivid was hearing Kurt Cobain perform “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” on Nirvana’s Unplugged record (see below for the clip). It was a tape at the time, so I had to stop and rewind again and again because I couldn’t get enough. There was intensity and pain in his voice that I’d never before encountered. His somewhat-flawed vocals spoke to me and yet I couldn’t really understand them. It was truly like as if he was speaking a different language.

And in a sense, he was. Like him or not, Cobain changed the way the language of music is spoken. Just like Lennon & McCartney and many others did before him. And the way the Simpsons writers changed comedy, the Google guys chaged search algortihms and Lee Clow changed advertising.

They didn’t, necessarily, do it by being better than their competition. They did it by writing what they knew in a language that was all their own, but would soon become the language that the audience – and the world – spoke with them.

Please, take the time to check out this clip of Nirvana’s performance, as you can watch the transformation occur in Cobain. Pay close attention at around 4:46. It’s as if he slips out of the trance for a second. When he opens his eyes, either he’s looking at your soul or you’re seeing his. Either way it’s a very intense moment.

Click Away

Hugh MacLeod, cartoons on the back of business cards. gapingvoid.com

“Desde que, en la primera mitad del siglo XX se inventó la moderna empresa, científicamente concebida, se ha sacrificado la creatividad para favorecer los intereses del jugador de equipo. Sólo hay un problema. Los jugadores de equipo no son muy buenos creando valor por sí mismos. No son autónomos.; necesitan un equipo para existir. Así que ahora las grandes empresas están inundadas de pensadores no autónomos. Crear una entidad económicamente viable donde se recompensa generosamente la falta de ideas originales crea un caldo de cultivo rico y fértil para que se reproduzcan los parásitos. ¿Qué pasa en un sistema ecológico cuando el nivel de parásitos alcanza una mas crítica? El sistema muere. Si eres creativo, si puedes pensar de forma independiente, si puedes expresar pasión, si puedes superar el miedo a equivocarte, entonces tu empresa te necesita más que nunca. Y ahora nopuede permitirse fingir que no es así. Así que afina la voz y empieza a pregonarlo”.

Hugh Macleod. Ignora a todos

Descubrí este libro gracias a Marca Personal y lo devoré en un trayecto de vuelta a casa en el que, como de costumbre, la Renfe volvió a fallarnos con su demora. Sus reflexiones son brillantes aunque no innovadoras. La verdad es que verbalizan de forma creativa pensamientos que están en mi mente y seguramente en la de la mayoría desde hace mucho tiempo. Y a menudo es bueno que alguien nos recuerde nuestros propios pensamientos y que active de nuevo en nosotros la maldita vocecita que nos dice que deberíamos hacer algo para vivir nuestra vida de forma más acorde con nuestra personalidad.

An old drawing but one that will forever appeal to me. I know I am a dreamer and an idealist and somehow this cartoon describes me.

Image Credit: Hugh Macleod

He then continues:

We are here to find mea­ning. We are here to help other peo­ple do the same. Everything else is secon­dary. We humans want to believe in our own spe­cies. And we want peo­ple, com­pa­nies and pro­ducts in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature. Pro­duct bene­fit doesn’t excite us. Belief in huma­nity and human poten­tial exci­tes us. Think less about what your pro­duct does, and think more about human poten­tial. What sta­te­ment about huma­nity does your pro­duct make? The big­ger the sta­te­ment, the big­ger the idea, the big­ger your brand will become. It’s no lon­ger just enough for peo­ple to believe that your pro­duct does what it says on the label. They want to believe in you and what you do. And they’ll go elsewhere if they don’t. It’s not enough for the cus­to­mer to love your pro­duct. They have to love your pro­cess as well. Peo­ple are not just get­ting more deman­ding as con­su­mers, they are get­ting more deman­ding as spi­ri­tual enti­ties. Bran­ding is a spi­ri­tual exer­cise. These are The New Rea­li­ties, this is the Spi­ri­tual Repu­blic we now live in. The soul can­not be outsour­ced. Either get with the pro­gram or hire a con­sul­tant in Extinc­tion Mana­ge­ment. No vision, no busi­ness. Your life from now on pivots squa­rely on your vision of human potential.

Hugh Macleod delivers another brilliant one:

Credit: Hugh Macleod

It’s not exactly what you call subtle, but definitely a gapingvoid classic

Gapingvoid

Nobody cares.  Do it for yourself.

Lovely tip from Ignore Everybody, Hugh MacLeod’s new book that’s full of refreshing and brutally honest advice on harnessing creativity in the business of living.  More -

If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

Hugh is a cartoonist.  His medium?  Business cards, of course.  What a great way to turn tired and boring into clever and snarky and so true it hurts!   But remember, we’re accepting the pain, so it doesn’t actually hurt. 

Merit can be bought. Pas­sion can’t.

Look at his art on gapingvoid.   I’ll wait.  

When your dreams become rea­lity, they are no lon­ger your dreams.

Then read the first 25% of Ignore Everybody here.   Now go eat a cookie.  Do it for yourself. 

But don’t ignore me.

-Linda 

A fantastic print by Hugh MacLeod, one of the most original marketing minds, has been decorating my home since September. Anyone who is familiar with Hugh’s blog Gapingvoid is also familiar with Hughtrain (pictured below).

Yesterday the artist made this interesting tweet, which inevitably got my attention.

If Hughtrain is my advertising, is “The market for something to believe in is infinite” my slogan? If that’s what my brand stands for — an idea not at all bad — it seems I have lived up to it pretty well by paying for the advertisement to boost belief in myself. Talk the talk, walk the walk, y’know.

Be it how it may, the piece of art truly inspires me.

So I started reading a new book recommended to me by someone very close. She exclaimed that it will change the way I look at things in my career and personal life. She couldn’t have been any more right, and I just started the book! (Trust me it’s an extremely quick read, this coming from a guy who doesn’t read a whole book that often).

The book, to this point, is all about finding your own identity as a creative person. The author, Hugh MacLeod, offers 40 quick insights into how he has made himself more creative and made his own rules up. He began by drawing cartoons on the back side of business cards while waiting in a bar for friends. His idea came by accident, which he explains doesn’t always happen, but you should find your own way of making a mark on the world.

I know you may be thinking it’s just another book in a sea of books giving advice on being creative, but the trick is to take your own personal perception and make of it what you will. I plan on utilizing the advice he preaches, in his leisurely manner, because it really does help to strike a fire in a creative soul.

A bold challenge by ‘business card artist’ Hugh MacLeod. What more can you say?

“We’re just two wild and crazy guys” – Yortuk and Georg Festrunk

Unlike the quote above, Joe Walsh’s “I’m just an ordinary average guy” fits me to a tee. In spite of this, I’d like to think that I’m open to new ideas and thinking. At the moment, here are some of my favorite, inspirational, weird, and forward looking (but pragmatic) thinkers:

• Seth Godin
• Hugh MacLeod
• Clay Shirky
• Chris Guillebeau
• Leo BaBauta
• Paul Graham
• Scott Berkun
• Tony Hseih
• Ricardo Semler
• Joel Spolsky

Check out what one or more of these whack jobs have to say if  you’re yearning to explore and discover new opportunities that may crack the  concrete in your brain and challenge your same-old, same-old mental models of the world. If you think there is an “edge” to my blarticle posting style, then you should give all the credit to those dudes.

Who are your favorite thinkers, visionaries, and potential status-quo busters? What, you don’t have any? Why not?

One has two retirements in one’s career: Creative retirement precedes the actual one. The Question is how soon it occurs in one’s life – Sujith Nair, Sr. Con, EY

I guess life is not about how far you go in one dimension but about how many dimensions you add to it – - Sujith Nair, Sr. Con, EY

The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props – Hugh Macleod

I am a great fan of the cartoonist Hugh MacLeod from Gapingvoid and here are some of his impressions regarding our studies:

photo by grahambones

One the bloggers I follow regularly is the cartoonist Hugh MacLeod in his blog gapingvoid.  This week he wrote a post titled: “artists are entrepreneurs and marketers, too“. The subject of the connection between art and business is a subject he writes a lot about and I think this a worthy cause, as the two are not as different as we usually think. But what this post made me think about is something bigger, due to a comment on one of his other posts that he quoted in this post, which goes like this:

The thing about working as an artist is that you never realize how much of the work is on top of making the actual art. I was remembering how when I started out, I would visit the studios of more established artists and couldn’t begin to grasp how they ran the show. It’s taken years to slowly put each piece in place. Every day there’s new problems to solve, but if you can solve them in a way that sticks— so that from now on that issue is covered, eventually you come up with an efficient system for supporting the most important work you do, which is the art.

An artist is like every professional. He is very good at something. He has his strengths. But the problem is that he has to do so much work around that doesn’t use those strengths. It may be administrative. It may be marketing. Or it could be anything else. And every second he is not doing what he is good at is a waste of time, effort and a moment where we all miss on his art.

I am sure you felt it before. I know I have. Working as a law intern is all about wasting your time and doing things that are under your potential. Work that can be easily done by someone who did not study law for 4 years. And when somebody complains about it, the answer is usually something like: “this the way it has always been, it’s part of the territory”.

Well, it is not. Because great managers know that this is a conventional wisdom that must be ignored. Managers need to help each employee excel at his job. This means that they should do everything they can to make sure the employees use their strengths as much as they can. So a great manager will create a process that allows his professionals to concentrate as much of their time on what they do best. It just like the second phase according to theory of constraints:

“Decide how to exploit the constraint (make sure the constraint’s time is not wasted doing things that it should not do)”.

Employees being the constraints in the good sense of the word, of course. But the idea is still the same.

I believe it is all about the process. The way your business or team operates, should support the people in it and their strengths. You need to decide which employees are your priorities, your valuable assets, your constraints, and build the business around making sure they have the ability to employ their strength if not all the time, most of the time. The process should not only be effective by itself, it should support and make sure that the right people are effective.

Elad

A couple of projects I learnt IBM is backing, that I think can have important long-term effects:

1. The Blue Brain Project: This was started in 2005 by the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). Essentially this aims to re-create the human brain using ‘the huge computational capacity of IBM’s eServer Blue Gene supercomputer to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex – the largest and most complex part of the human brain’. Though this is an attempt to reverse-engineer the brain, it is not an artifical intelligence project or one that aims to create a brain per se. The aim is to create a ‘physicological simulation for biomedical applications.’ Henry Markam, the director of the project, said at TED Oxford a couple of months ago that the creation of an artificial brain is about 10 years away.

2. The Genographic Project: In partnership with National Geographic, IBM have designed this project to find out where we humans came from, and how we got here. It is a 5-year project where DNA samples collected from 10 research centres across the world will help to map the process. Anyone can participate by buying a DNA kit and submitting samples of their DNA.

On a completely unrelated note, I think Hugh MacLeod’s painting Fred 44 looks very similar to this photo of a forest of neurons from the Blue Brain Project!

Ten Reasons to Blog: Your Ego can Handle it!

“Blogs, social networks, newspapers, any other form of publication – all have social aspects to them. It is a spectrum really, with social networks at one extreme and a 19th century novel at the other. But there’s room for all types of social publishing platforms.” Richard MacManus

The Blogosphere awaits You...

Were you voted most likely to dominate the publishing world in pre-school and again in High School? Okay, so you always imagined becoming the next J.K. Rowling or publishing superstar? Let me guess, was it the famous psychic who assured you your name will be in lights with your words written all over it? Do you fantasize about retiring filthy rich with the money lode you earned blogging? Is your weekly grocery list the most creative prose you’ve written since your school days?

“Authenticity is not an automatic ticket to success in an attention economy. Because, if you choose a platform or business building model where a key element is attention, you’ve got to be not only authentic, but significant.” Jonathan Fields (Career Renegade)

Nature Shot #2 by Veronika Pinke

Alright, I hear your protests. Confess; did you send out a few inquiries to publishers with a treatment or two on How to Solve the Mystery of the Lemming Syndrome and got no response? Right, right… and that 5 page fictional outline on authentic yet insignificant baloney you mailed to 20 agents and publishers? Well, at least you got one reply; the rejection letter was curt and to the point “… Thanks, but no thanks!”

If you answered “yes” or even “no” to any of my questions, then writing a blog is the new path for you. Yes, you might get smacked down and your ego might take a beating but, you don’t want to take an unfulfilled desire to your nursing home or grave, do you? Even if you are busy and think you have little to offer; try blogging anyway; you might surprise yourself.

“One critical consideration when launching a blog is what you are going to call it.” Chris Garrett

Nature Shot #14 by Veronika Pinke

The internet is open to a wide spectrum of voices; why silence your voice? Daily, people from around the world sift through the noise, looking for their version of a gem; that gem could be one of your blogs … or not. Don’t spend too much time worrying whether everybody will love your blog; everyone won’t, some might, and perhaps a few will. Pick a blog name, check your ego at your blog door and go to it.
If you’re still not convinced, here are ten good reasons to blog: Trust me; your ego will thrive…

“Your blog is what you say when there is nobody standing over your shoulder telling you what to do.” Lorelle Van Fossen

I Like You... uploaded by Mike Montiero

♥ Create a digital identity on your terms. Your blog registers your personal memories, ideas, and opinions online for posterity. It is your creative expression and you decide what you wish to include. Embrace the identity you have selected for your foray into blogging. Are you the last angry woman or the happy-go-lucky sprite? Embrace her; she has friends dying to connect in the blogosphere. Go meet them. You can invite your alter ego to blog, you may express your moods and magic through various incarnations or personalities, just stay on point whatever the message. Regardless of who you choose to be, do keep in mind that you must manage your views as what you say is on the internet forever.

“I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.” Darren Rowse (Problogger)

Nature Shot #13 by Veronika Pinke

♥ Clarify your motivations and thoughts as you embark on this unique writing process. Even if the original impulse that led you to blog on a topic dries up quickly, push on and write anyway. Why am I blogging? It is important to ask this question on a regular basis. Blogging will help you engage in discussions that hold meaning for you and your gradually expanding readership. If you plan to make money from blogging, educate yourself on what that entails and then follow your calling. If you blog purely for enjoyment, don’t be shy about that fact either. It is your choice that counts and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

“I never remember what I read; I remember experiences. I find it best to dive right in and learn the hard way.” Pete Cashmore (Mashable)

Nature Shot#9 by Veronika Pinke

♥ Connect with both new readers and other bloggers in the blogosphere. As you write, you will find a vast door open that connects you to other bloggers; some with a similar bent or experience and others with vastly different sensibilities. This is perfectly fine. Eureka or inspirational moments can be triggered by reading a blog on a familiar or obscure subject. As you connect with other bloggers, you will open a gateway to new blogging experiences and knowledge. It can be quite a feast and you must be careful not to over-indulge. There are millions of bloggers out there and only 24 hours in a day. Be selective of which blogs to read daily and which ones to read occasionally. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the choices out there, let your forays into the blogosphere evolve.

“Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.” Brian Clark (Copyblogger)

Nature Shot#28 by Veronika Pinke

♥ Be open to re-evaluating your closely held premises about life, love and the world of ideas. As you formulate ideas and topics to write about, don’t hesitate to challenge yourself to feed off of other points of view; whether you play devil’s advocate or peacemaker, take a position and write on it. If you enjoy writing motivational pieces like I do, don’t censor yourself and pretend to be something else. Write how you feel and share your experiences; as long as your opinions are not completely outrageous you should write without fear of public sanction. Even if you choose to say something outrageous, do so with a clear head and the conviction to stand your ground. You are entitled to your opinion after all.

“I guess my point is, if you’re one of these people considering giving up on blogging in exchange for paying more attention to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, or whatever they throw at us mere mortals, bear in mind you are giving up on something rather unique and wonderful.” Hugh Macleod

Nature Shot #5 by Veronika Pinke

♥ Be bold about learning a new skill. Blogging is a skill that grows with time and the experience gained will be worth the journey. The explosion of social media sites and internet innovation will continue to provide vital fodder for creative, visionary thinkers. As the medium grows and you grow at blogging, you will learn about new applications/tools to help you improve your efforts and make blogging effective. As a new blogger in fall 2008, I soon learned that WordPress regularly updated and offered many blog design templates to choose from, that uploading images/video and writing simple html code for my blog was easier than I imagined. With each passing day/month, I learn new tips and tools about blogging and look forward to seeing (yes, with time) my blog enjoy exponential growth.

“The heart of blogging is linking…linking and commenting. Connecting and communicating is the purpose of the Internet.” George Siemens

Snow and Magiclight in NorthernJutland Denmark by Øyvind Strøm

♥ Develop an expertise in an area if you are so inclined. Are you ready to stay enthusiastic about a particular subject? This is not absolutely carved in stone. If you have several interests, like I do, don’t be afraid to explore them. Follow your spanda, your bliss, your voice and your blog will evolve. Whether you decide to be a generalist or a specialist is your prerogative; be at peace with your choice. Learn as much as you can on the topics you choose to write about and subscribe to your favorite bloggers to stay in touch with the community. Wikipedia.org and Google Images are great resources for material but there are tons you can learn from other bloggers including the bloggers whose quotes you read in my blog. Their names will link you back to their websites/blogs. Go visit and enjoy.

“I believe the term “blog” means more than an online journal. I believe a blog is a conversation. People go to blogs to read AND write, not just consume.” Michael Arrington

Fog in Dyrehaven near Copenhagen Denmark by Øyvind Strøm

♥ Develop discipline and a commitment to honor the goals you set for your blog postings. The best gift you can give yourself as a blogger is to be honest about what is/isn’t feasible time wise and stay true to your blog goals. When I took Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog in April, 2009, it helped me create a realistic schedule for posting my blogs. I knew that, given the demands of work, family, personal training goals, and other commitments, a weekly blog post would be ideal for me. Find your rhythm and go with it.

“The more popular a person thinks he is in the blogosphere, the thinner his skin and the thicker his hypocrisy. This should be exactly the opposite: the higher you go the thicker the skin and thinner the hypocrisy.” Guy Kawasaki

Kashmir Gathering by Ami Vitale

♥ Gain some perspective on readership, blogger stardom, media attention, blog statistics and search engine optimization (SEO). Even Technorati’s star bloggers identified in 100 Top Blogs by authority or 100 Top Blogs by reader favorites did not become wildly successful overnight. NorthxEast.com’s 50 most influential female bloggers focused on their content, their readership, and their blog goals and with time their influence spread. Don’t fixate on the numbers … ok, at least not daily!
The point is to focus on your game, do the best you can and enjoy the process. Even if you were being paid to blog, it really should not feel like a demanding second job. I enjoy researching and gathering information and photographs for my weekly posts. I actually find the process relaxing and fun because I always find something I never expected… so go with the flow; gain perspective my dear, perspective is key to longevity here.

“Just as we don’t spend a lot of time worrying about how all those poets out there are going to monetize their poetry, the same is true for most bloggers.” Seth Godin

The great Baobab Tree by Alli Cooper

♥ Take ownership and responsibility for your good/bad posts. To err is human and to forgive is divine. Unless like Seth Godin, you decide to disallow comments entirely, be prepared for positive, negative, spammy, and zero comments on your blog. Again, don’t fixate on the numbers. Did someone email you privately to say how much they enjoyed it? Fine. Move on… The fantastic part is that you have administrative control and can limit or edit comments as you deem fit. Another point to remember is that the joy of blogging includes the ability to edit your content whenever you want.

“Without the New York Times, there is no blog community. They’d have nothing to blog about.” Malcolm Gladwell

Focus: Don't let your Blog face a ~Total Eclipse by Yang Lei AP

♥ Please get over your fear of public rejection. Your blog represents one facet of who you are; it is not the whole picture. Even if some of your characters are fictionalized to protect the fill-in-the-blank, is your message conveyed effectively? Is the authenticity of your intention and the lesson learned expressed there? Yes, you may choose to re-invent yourself into some new-fangled persona through blogging and maybe, the characters in your blog are more exciting than the characters in your real life but so what? As long as you distinguish fact from fiction by the way you deliver your message, readers will understand you are not the New York Times or BBC News.
As your voice and vision grow, your confidence as a blogger will grow. If you have a niche, you will attract like minded spirits; if you don’t then enjoy your role as a renaissance man/woman. Perfectly acceptable. Now go to it! What do you think?

♥ Let me know how the process evolves for you. I’d love to hear from you regardless of where you are in your blogging history. Share some of your insights or tips here if you wish. Thank you!

***Spanda is a Sanskrit term for the subtle creative pulse of the universe as it transforms into a dynamic living form. The divine impulse to create!

Photo Credits:
Nature Photography by Veronica Pinke
More Nature Shots by Øyvind Strøm
I Like You uploaded by Mike Montiero via Creative Commons.
Kashmir Gathering by Ami Vitale
The great Baobab Tree by Alli Cooper
Total Eclipse by Yang Lei AP

Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank

I will occasional quote Hugh MacLeod from GapingVoid. He has great insight on how to be creative and original. He offers profound but simple truths that can apply to all Creative Leadership types.

Com­pa­nies that squelch crea­ti­vity can no lon­ger com­pete with com­pa­nies that cham­pion creativity.

Since the modern, scientifically-conceived cor­po­ra­tion was inven­ted in the early half of the Twen­tieth Cen­tury, crea­ti­vity has been sac­ri­fi­ced in favor of for­war­ding the inte­rests of the “Team Pla­yer”.

Nice quotes

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
            — Warren Buffett

Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.
            — Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 13, 08-22-04

“There’s no doubt in my mind that my success has more to do with luck than talent, more to do with stubbornness than vision, more to do with ignorance than insight, but the fact remains that I pursued my dream and attained it against staggering odds. I say this now to anyone who will listen: even if I had failed, it would have been worth it. Better to face a brutal truth than to grow old wondering what might have been.”- Markus Pierson

I first saw the amazing work of artist Markus Pierson on a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. His depictions of Coyotes, often dressed in zoot suits, resonated with me immediately. I grew up in West Texas with a great love of the desert southwest and the animals that roam the landscape. Pierson’s art, particularly his early pieces, were full of southwestern imagery, complete with towering saguaro cactus’, enchanted moons with wistful faces and wide open, tumbleweed lined highways. So I bought a lithograph, taped a few of his images from a calendar to my drawing board and added this statue to a shelf at home.

Clearly this was an artist who knew something about long drives across desert vistas that lead you a thousand miles to nowhere, and I could relate to that. Another reason I found Pierson’s work so compelling, is it’s almost, but not quite, humorous illustration, which is one of the genres I practice and love a lot. So I connected with his art on that level as well. But there was one more element that sealed the deal for me about Markus Pierson. It was the words.

“That many had ventured farther and done so in finer style bothered me not. My journey was my own and I found it to be quite spectacular.” from the Pierson painting Spectacular Journey.

Pierson’s paintings are always accompanied by words. Intriguing sayings that seem to call out to that part of us that says “Live Fully”. And I love that.

Markus Pierson grew up in Lansing, Michigan. Not exactly the southwestern artist I had envisioned painting Coyotes next to a Kiva fireplace in Taos and driving a 57 Cadillac through the back roads of New Mexico. A near death experience at 24 left him in a place of deep reflection. He decided that life was too short not to be doing what he loved. So he quit his job as an accountant to pursue his passion to create art rather than to crunch numbers for the rest of his life. The idea to draw and paint Coyotes was inspired by a song by Joni Mitchell called Coyote. He worked as a billboard painter during the day to build a bridge to his dream, and to pay the bills. At night he painted and bonded with the Coyotes . His breakthrough came after painting of a couple of Coyotes in the throes of passion as a wedding present for some friends, simply because he couldn’t afford to buy them one. The wedding party loved it and before you know it, Pierson goes from starving artist to selling in hundreds of galleries seemingly overnight. Well, not quite overnight, but you get the idea.

Here’s Five Creative tips from the art and life of Markus Pierson:

1. Be Courageous. Markus made the defining decision of his life on from a hospital bed. Some thought he was crazy to abandon a good paying job with a relatively secure future, to follow the artists soul inside of him. Crazy? No. Courageous. Very. But it was the right choice.
2. Be in preparation for Inspiration. A song. Markus Pierson’s entire life’s work was inspired by a song. As creatives we must always be open to inspiration no matter where it comes from. John Lennon’s song “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” was inspired by a poster in an antique store, almost word for word. The inspiration for the Peanuts comic strip character, Lucy, was inspired by Charles Schulz’s ex-wife. Could it be a billboard or a movie poster or a t-shirt, or a painting that inspires your next project. It could if we are open to the possibilities all around us everyday.
3. Be willing to Sacrifice. Each act of creation takes sacrifice. For Pierson it meant leaving his career in search of his calling. It meant late nights alone in a dingy, small apartment cranking out Coyotes. It meant taking that job as a billboard painter to build the bridge he needed until his paintings could pay the bills. For some of us, it may mean something as simple as setting aside an hour or two a day, completely dedicated to pursuing our dreams.
4. Create for Your Contentment. Don’t create something just because you think it will sell, because, it often won’t. Entertain yourself. Create something completely for you own amusement, your own satisfaction. Pierson found drawing and painting Coyotes was something he wanted to do. Actually something he had to do. He didn’t really care if no one else liked them. He did. That is all that mattered. When we create from this part of our souls, we create something totally unique. And that passion, that joy that we feel when we create at that level is what invites people to like it. They don’t see the art. They see the soul in the art.
5. Live Fully. Create Boldly. This is probably the biggest thing we can learn from the art and life of Marcus Pierson. Life is short. The chances we don’t take now are the regrets that haunt us later. When the race is over, don’t we want to know we’ve run it?

“No one works this hard and this smart – and has it come to nothing.”- Markus Pierson

For more on the works of Markus Pierson you can see his website here.

It is quick book review night.  Once again, the reviews aren’t that long, and it’s not super comprehensive.  It’s just simple.

Ignore Everybody is a book by Hugh MacLeod.  If you click on the title, it’ll take you to his website.  He’s a cartoonist that started drawing cartoons on the back of business cards.  He has created a genre of art.  He chronicles his adventures and corresponding cartoons on the back of these cards.  He shares the lessons on creativity and life.  I enjoyed the variety of emotions and journey through his experiences.  For me, the over arching take away was – to be yourself – to unapologetically take responsibility and control.  In some ways, he shows me that ignoring everybody helps me to create an environment conducive for creativity.

Quotes we Like

I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
            — Leo Rosten  

(aside: This is pertinent, considering those that believe that Obama was born in Kenya, or that their will be death panels if the health bill passes)

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
            — Dr. Seuss

This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day; Thou canst not then be false to any man.
            — William Shakespeare, ‘Hamlet,’ Act I, Scene iii

The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
            — Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 7. Keep your day job

Mountains inspire awe in any human person who has a soul. They remind us of our frailty, our unimportance, of the briefness of our span upon this earth. They touch the heavens, and sail serenely at an altitude beyond even the imaginings of a mere mortal.
            — Elizabeth Aston, The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy, 2005

Argile: hey, what’s up

Sven: well, it’s monday

Argile: do your classes start today?

it’s strange reading about people starting their stuff

Sven: i’ll bet

i have class on wednesday and thursday

blarg

Argile: evenings only?

Sven: i’ve noticed a lot of people who’ve graduated posting a “it’s weird that i don’t have to go to class this week”

yeah, just night classes

Sent at 8:38 AM on Monday

Argile: solid

Sven: yep, so i can keep on workin’

Argile: well good, because if you weren’t, then I’d have to be… productive

Sven: god forbid

Sent at 8:40 AM on Monday

Argile: yeah, exactly, seeing as I once again have little to do this morning

Sven: bummer

i don’t have much either

Sent at 8:42 AM on Monday

Argile: yep, I’m like a plane in a holding pattern

Sven: that must be infinitely depressing to you

Sent at 8:44 AM on Monday

Argile: nah, it just means I need to find ways to redirect my efforts

Sven: speaking of which, how’d sat. night go for you?

Argile: eh, nothing spectacular

just more of the usual

Sven: typical

Argile: went golfing saturday night and was eaten alive my mosquitoes

my entire body itches as though I bathed in chlorine

Sent at 8:49 AM on Monday

Sven: that’s no good

Sent at 8:51 AM on Monday

Sven: haven’t had a single issue with mosquitoes all summer

Argile: we didn’t either, but then it rained for several straight days and spawned the blod-sucking hordes

Sven: yeah, that’ll happen

Sent at 8:54 AM on Monday

Sven: although we’ve had a pretty rainy summer down here…hmmm

Sent at 8:57 AM on Monday

Argile: well, feel free to borrow some of our bugs

Sent at 8:58 AM on Monday

Sven: i’ll get on that

Sent at 9:00 AM on Monday

Argile: sigh, even my pointless meeting has been postponed…

Sven: good start to the week

Sent at 9:03 AM on Monday

Sven: i’m ready for it to be weekend now

Sent at 9:08 AM on Monday

Argile: I’m just gonna spend the day here: http://www.academicearth.org/

make it feel like I’m still in school

Sent at 9:10 AM on Monday

Sven: why would you ever want to do that?

Sent at 9:12 AM on Monday

Argile: because it’s free?

Sven: i s’pose…it’s just, considering how eager you were to be done with college…seems odd to me

Sent at 9:14 AM on Monday

Argile: oh, I have no desire to cpmplete menial assignments beneath my skill level

(it’s ok to do that on the job b/c of the whole money thing)

but I have no problem with learning things

Sven: i see

Argile: actually, I’ll probably just mess with this: http://gethighnow.com/

Sent at 9:18 AM on Monday

Sven: interesting when a website congratulates you for finding it

Sent at 9:20 AM on Monday

Argile: gotta be positive

Sent at 9:21 AM on Monday

Sven: very true

Sent at 9:23 AM on Monday

Argile: alright, finding a history lecture…

something about battles and bloody desmises…

Sent at 9:31 AM on Monday

Sven: sounds like something you’d look for

Sent at 9:32 AM on Monday

Argile: so, naturally, I’m listening to Thomas Friedman on foreign economics

Sent at 9:33 AM on Monday

Sven: pretty much the same thing

Sent at 9:37 AM on Monday

Argile: you watching those “Get High” things?

Sent at 9:38 AM on Monday

Sven: not yet

people keep coming in and out of my work area

Sent at 9:40 AM on Monday

Sven: that’s some trippy stuff

this website is an acid-fiend’s dream come true

Sent at 9:43 AM on Monday

Argile: lol

excellent

Sent at 9:46 AM on Monday

Argile: jenny is asking if this is work appropriate

is it? (Haven’t had a chance to look yet)

Sven: the “gettinghigh” thing?

yeah, it’s just a bunch of optical illusions

perfectly work appropriate

the website name that shows up at the top of the window is unfortunate, though

if someone scrolls through your history, there’ll be an entry that just says “get high now”

Argile: hahaha

yeah… perfect

Sent at 9:51 AM on Monday

Sven: so i understand jenny’s hesitance

Sent at 9:52 AM on Monday

Argile: yeah, well, she’s just not as reckless as I am

Sent at 9:54 AM on Monday

Sven: very few are

Argile: alright, meeting time, bbl -

Sent at 9:56 AM on Monday

Argile: short, sweet, chuckle-worthy comparison

http://bit.ly/11spBA

Sent at 10:17 AM on Monday

Sven: wow

harsh, but true

Sent at 10:20 AM on Monday

Argile: yeah, Cutler played well this weekend against Giants starters, so I’m happy

Sven: doesn’t take much, eh?

Argile: says the guy whose team is banking on a 40 year-old QB

Sven: nah, we’re banking on our kickass RB’s

Argile: yeah, because that worked well the last 2 years

Sven: well, i maintain that, even more than a QB, we need a competent secondary

any team that plays us rushes for 40 yards and passes for 350

i dunno why anyone runs that ball against the Vikings, our defensive line is friggin’ awesome and our secondary sucks

Sent at 10:25 AM on Monday

Argile: because you can always try to run the ball outside, which forces a defense to keep some of its LBs and CBs closer to the line

if you never run, they can all just sit back and look for the picks

Sven: right

must be nice to be a sacrificial lamb when you’re an RB against the vikings

Sent at 10:30 AM on Monday

Argile: That’s what RBs are in general, though

their chances of breaking a big one, no matter what defense, are small,

they’re essentially a decoy with plenty of upside

Sven: well you don’t need your RB’s to break big ones to still be effective

even if they’re just averaging 4 yards per carry, that’s good enough for a first down every 3 plays

and you need them to run the clock down, too

Sent at 10:33 AM on Monday

Argile: yep, they’re just around to soak up the blows and the time

when the going gets rough, though, they all throw

Sven: and that’s where the Vikings secondary breaks down

i can’t even count the number of games we’ve thrown away because we got 2-minute-drilled

you know they’re passing the ball, and still they march straight down the field

Sent at 10:38 AM on Monday

Argile: yeah, kinda blows

remember oregon trail? – http://xkcd.com/623/

sorry, couldn’t resist the non-sequiter

Sven: no probl

that’s pretty funny, so it’s ok

apparently our office supplies vendor included a box of jelly bellies in our last order for no particular reason

Sent at 10:43 AM on Monday

Sven: mmm…these are wonderful

Argile: fine, we just received samples of gourmet chocolates

think I’m gonna go enjoy some special truffles, biatch

Sven: you always have to one-up me, don’t you

Sent at 10:46 AM on Monday

Argile: damn right I do

Sent at 10:47 AM on Monday

Argile: Game theory lecture from yale university. yay

Sven: sounds exciting

Sent at 10:48 AM on Monday

Argile: you bet it is

Sven: lemme ask you something

did you know a girl named Lena at drake?

Argile: lol why?

Sven: so is that a yes?

Sent at 10:54 AM on Monday

Argile: what does she look like?

also, keep in mind I was generally in class with people older than us

Sven: longish brown hair, maybe a little taller than average

i’m bad at physical descriptions

she minored in english, and had some classes with bob, so i didn’t know if maybe you did too

Argile: what, you supposed to date this girl or something?

Sven: would’ve been easier if i’d gotten a last name

i dunno, but i was talking to her at the library when you texted me

rob seems to be encouraging it

Sent at 10:59 AM on Monday

Sven: just curious, nevermind

Sent at 11:00 AM on Monday

Argile: she on facebook?

Sven: probably

but Lena’s kind of a common name

Sent at 11:02 AM on Monday

Argile: Lena Paulson ring a bell?

she’s friends with bob

would be a senior this year

Sven: sounds about right

lemme hop on fb here…

well, that’s not the most helpful pic, but i’m pretty sure that’s her

Argile: oh, haha, I know this girl

Sven: what does that mean?

Argile: smart, sassy – isn’t shy about her opinion

Sven: i’m comfortable with all that

Argile: i’m just asking if that sounds right

Sven: yeah, it does

she got off on a healthcare tangent at one point

apparently we’re politically similar, so it was ok

Argile: yeah, she’s pretty liberal

Sven: so i gathered

Argile: and she’ll fight you on those points

or, I should say, she won’t hesitate to defend anything she says

Sven: duly noted

sounds ok to me so far

Argile: yeah, she’s a bit heavier in the looks department, though that’s not a knock for or against

just her body type

Sent at 11:09 AM on Monday

Sven: i’d say my record demonstrates that’s not as much an issue for me

Sent at 11:11 AM on Monday

Argile: haha

at least you’re honest

but yeah, give it a go.

hopefully bob and I will have taught you enough to dance with an english major

Sven: literal-dance or figurative-dance?

and she’s apparently a neuroscience major (which is how healthcare came up)

Argile: yeah, because bob and I taught you to literally dance

yeah – we had a minor spat over healthcare once

she’s never worked in a hospital, and attempted to articulate an opinion that demanded inside knowledge

Sven: that can’t have sat well with you

Argile: well, I’m sorry, but it was in an english class with a bunch of people arguing in the abstract

so I had to call bullshit on that

Sven: hey, i wasn’t accusing you of anything

Sent at 11:17 AM on Monday

Sven: i left my lunch sitting on my kitchen table today, and it saddens me

Sent at 11:20 AM on Monday

Argile: you’ll actually have to go out today

oh no. will you melt in the sunlight?

Sven: it’s entirely possible

actually i’ll probably just drive home and get my lunch

but these jelly bellies are holding me over for now

Sent at 11:22 AM on Monday

Argile: kinda disgusting, that is

Sven: not a fan of jelly bellie?

Sent at 11:26 AM on Monday

Argile: not really, no

Sven: that’s just too weird

Sent at 11:31 AM on Monday

Argile: that I’m not a huge fan of strangely flavored sugar?

Sven: well, yeah

you’d love them if they were caffeinated

Sent at 11:34 AM on Monday

Argile: not necessarily

mountain dew is caffeinated, and I despise it

also, why am I still on the english department email list?

Sven: fair question

i seem to still be on it as well

Argile: no, I will not be attending the english department’s opening meeting for freshmen, sophs, nuiors, and seniors

Sven: nor will i

Sent at 11:40 AM on Monday

Sven: does your drake email still work?

Sent at 11:42 AM on Monday

Argile: yeah

it goes for 1 year after graduation

Sent at 11:44 AM on Monday

Sven: that’s where you’re still getting the english dept emails, right?

Sent at 11:46 AM on Monday

Sven: just have to endure the minor annoyance for a few more months

Sent at 11:47 AM on Monday

Argile: yeah… it’s a little annoying though

I don’t wanna be reminded about all the fun stuff the english department is doing

especially since we never had this opening party when I was there

Sent at 11:49 AM on Monday

Sven: yeah…college punks are spoiled nowadays

Sent at 11:51 AM on Monday

Argile: yeah.

I’m still giving the j-profs advice, though.

Swear I should get paid consultants fees for this

Sven: well aren’t you special

Sent at 11:54 AM on Monday

Sven: ok, i’m gonna run home and get my food

Sent at 12:01 PM on Monday

Sven: mission accomplished

Sent at 12:30 PM on Monday

Argile: congratulations, I’m sure your stomach is very happy

Sent at 12:53 PM on Monday

Sven: oh it is

Sent at 12:56 PM on Monday

Sven: i made another batch of my health soup over the weekend

i can feel the healthiness coursing through my veins

Sent at 12:57 PM on Monday

Argile: must be nice. I just feel the leftover strains of booze clinging to my dying innards

Sven: must feel pleasant

Sent at 1:00 PM on Monday

Argile: coupled with the growing sense of despair and hopelessness, it makes for a potent concoction

Sven: i can only imagine

Sent at 1:03 PM on Monday

Argile: out of curiosity, is there something you believe you will do in your lifetime? A certain thing that is more important than others?

Sven: hmmm

Sent at 1:07 PM on Monday

Sven: it may be a tad worrisome that it’s taking me this long to answer

Sent at 1:09 PM on Monday

Sven: for most of my life, asserting complete and indisputed independence has been my most all-consuming goal

i mean, there are things i’d like to do, but putting one ahead of another is where i run into difficulties

Sent at 1:11 PM on Monday

Argile: I’m not talking about abstract concepts like independence, but a single act, sort of like saying “Climb Mount Everest”

Sven: hmmmm

i’m gonna assume from this line of questioning that you do have some such item?

..or goal, i should probably say

the other place i run into trouble is being “certain” of accomplishing some such goal

Sent at 1:14 PM on Monday

Argile: What I’m getting at here is whether there is something, when you look 60 years ahead, that you want to have done

something that you assume you will have accomplished, or at least be close to doing, by the time you’re old

Sven: well, i want to have made a major film with my sibs by that point

but i have trouble hinging the success of my life on one lofty goal

especially since this particular one relies on a lot of other people besides myself

Sent at 1:19 PM on Monday

Sven: i look at people who feel like their lives are a failure because they’re mid-30’s and don’t have children, or whatever, and i find that the problem there is that they’ve placed everything on a single criterion

Sent at 1:21 PM on Monday

Sven: myself, not being a gambling man, i can’t make myself place one goal above all others, especially one that, despite doing everything in my power, may still not come to fruition

Sent at 1:23 PM on Monday

Argile: well, you just stated what I was asking about – making a film with your brothers

there is a part of you that, for some reason or another, expects that to happen

Sven: it’s that word “expects” that i struggle with

i don’t exactly expect it to happen

i want it to happen, i’ll try to make it happen

but i don’t expect that to be enough

and if i’m 60 and for whatever reason it never materialized, i’ll certainly be disappointed, but that’s what i’ll use to gauge whether or not i’m happy with how my life went

*that’s not what I’ll use

oops

Sent at 1:28 PM on Monday

Sven: oops

Sent at 1:29 PM on Monday

Argile: so what’re you going to do to try to make that happen?

Sven: well, it’ll probably be the financial side of the operation that i’ll be most useful

so i’m getting a graduate degree, i’ll sit for the CPA exam, etc

and for now, staying solvent is occupying a lot of my focus

i try to watch a wide variety of movies and TV to keep up with what works and what doesn’t, since i’d like to cowrite

and i ask my brother and my sister to send me any scripts they’ve written so i can get used to their styles, and the format

so what’s your major goal you “expect” to accomplish?

Argile: making the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list

Sven: hilarious

c’mon, you don’t get to go all “guidance counselor” on me and not expect it to come back your way

Argile: sorry, i was editing my background

there’s a reason I’m a writer, not a visual designer

Sven: well, no one can do it all

Sent at 1:38 PM on Monday

Sven: all right, don’t answer the question

be all “mysterious-like”

Sent at 1:40 PM on Monday

Argile: oh,no. my answer to that question is to have a world of my own to play with, some sort of fictional place that maybe, a few other people can escape into for awhile

whether that’s as a novel, game/film script, or something utterly different doesn’t matter to me

Sven: so you’ve taken a concrete goal and made it somewhat abstract

Sent at 1:45 PM on Monday

Argile: basically – though it all starts with the concrete goal of getting the fictional stuff set down and defined in words

regardless of its eventual format

Sven: fair enough

so what brought all that on?

Sent at 1:51 PM on Monday

Argile: oh, I was bored yesterday and went to borders

picked up a book on marketing/business and read it in an hour

while sitting there in a chair

it was called “Ignore Everybody”

which the author defined to mean that your own best ideas are going to be frowned on by everyone else because they’re new

yet, if they’re actually good and you persist, everyone will swing around to your side

at which time you must continue to ignore them as they attempt to modify your idea for their own gains

Sven: well

sounds like someone who paints in black and white

Sent at 1:57 PM on Monday

Argile: haha, kind of, there’s more to it than I care to describe here, but it’s a decent book and a quick read

Sent at 2:00 PM on Monday

Sven: “get an idea, and then get a big stick to protect that idea”

Sent at 2:01 PM on Monday

Argile: that’s one of his points, but the bigger one (that led to our discussion) was that you shouldn’t wait to start working towards that idea we both stated

now, he’s actually smart enough to say “Don’t Quit Your Job”

Sven: that’s refreshing

Argile: but he does push for making better use of one’s evenings and weekends

more time writing, less time TVing

Sven: how original

Sent at 2:04 PM on Monday

Argile: haha, he has a point though

Sven: i know

Argile: every minute we’re goofing off, there’s some competitor working at it

Sven: that’s why i’m actually pretty careful with the type of TV that i watch

Sent at 2:08 PM on Monday

Argile: sigh – yeah. it’s good to filter out the crap.

Sven: what was that sigh all about?

Argile: I was trying to fix some person’s error on my old site (it’s slow around here for me today) and I can’t get into it

either I’m not remembering my password (I don’t have it logged on this computer), or they finally decided to lock me out

Sven: aw shit

Sent at 2:18 PM on Monday

Argile: the amount of hours I sunk into that – it’s like writing a novel and then not being able to change any of the words

Sven: must be frustrating

also, it’s kinda funny looking at a news-type website, but all the articles are from 3 months ago

Argile: yeah.. it’ll start up again soon

but it’s sad, because it more or less means they no longer trust me with the thing I built

Sven: not sure i totally blame them…

Argile: no, I don’t either

but it’s never fun watching your connections to the past get lopped away, even if they simply were passwords and usernames

Sven: yeah…sad day

Argile: you’d better get your punk ass to the cities soon so that I can get out of here

Sven: what, you’re waiting on me?

Sent at 2:24 PM on Monday

Sven: you know how long that’ll take, not in my power to shorten it

only in my power to keep it from being longer

Sent at 2:25 PM on Monday

Argile: ja, I know, and I’m not really waiting for you. I’m just clinging to excuses that’ll get me out of here

Sven: ah, well don’t let me get in the way of that

Sent at 2:26 PM on Monday

Argile: I’m not. The biggest obstacle to success is myself, at the moment

Sven: ‘cuz the waaaiiiiii-ting is the hardest part

Sent at 2:29 PM on Monday

Argile: nevermind, the greatest obstacle to my success is you and your infernal pestering

Sven: hey, you can stop talking to me any time you want

Sent at 2:31 PM on Monday

Argile: yeah, if I really cared.

Sven: that’s the spirit

Sent at 2:36 PM on Monday

Argile: speaking of a lack of spirit, team we’re s’posed to play tonight in the tourney forfeited

losers.

Sven: that sucks

buncha wimps

Sent at 2:48 PM on Monday

Argile: yeah. doesn’t surprise me.

we’re a pretty frightening bunch

Sent at 2:57 PM on Monday

Sven: no doubt

Sent at 3:01 PM on Monday

Argile: sigh, just got an email back from a prof, new j-students aren’t interested in web 2.0 skills

in a couple of years, those students = unemployed

Sven: good to know younger punks won’t be competing with you for jobs

Sent at 3:06 PM on Monday

Argile: yeah, which means there’ll be fewer bodies on the streets

Sven: sounds like everyone wins

Sent at 3:10 PM on Monday

Sven: just one hour to go

grrrrrr

Sent at 3:18 PM on Monday

Argile: yeah, knuckle down

Sven: this has been weird, my one coworker has been set up at a conference table in my work area for most of the day, rather than in her office

her back is to me, but still, it makes me nervous

forces me to put more effort into the “look busy” ruse

Sent at 3:21 PM on Monday

Argile: bwahaha

at least you don’t have people walking by every second

Sven: very true

Sent at 3:26 PM on Monday

Sven: but are they really paying attention to what you’re doing as they walk past?

Sent at 3:28 PM on Monday

Argile: probably not, and they likely don’t care as long as work gets done

but it makes me twitch nonetheless

Sven: understandable

Sent at 3:33 PM on Monday

Argile: or maybe it’s just my synapses firing to have something to do

Sven: one can never be sure

Sent at 3:37 PM on Monday

Argile: tomorrow, I’m going to bring a project with me

going to re-type my novel from the start, smoothing over inconsistencies and such

Sent at 3:43 PM on Monday

Argile: figure I might as well use this time for something productive

I’m thinking you could use the day to teach yourself to crochet

Sent at 3:45 PM on Monday

Sven: actually, i just got something to do

and, as much as i’d love to know how to crochet, i’m pretty sure i lack the fine motor skills

Sent at 3:47 PM on Monday

Argile: I could hack rosetta stone for you and you could learn swahili

Sent at 3:49 PM on Monday

Sven: kind of you, but no thanks

Sent at 4:04 PM on Monday

Sven: apparently one of our subcontractors screwed up on a job last year, and we had to bill them for it

they paid up, but apparently lost the record of the transaction, so i had to track down the invoice and a check stub

Sent at 4:13 PM on Monday

Argile: haha nice

sounds like lovely business

this is an interesting list: http://www.marcandangel.com/2009/08/24/40-modern-nonfiction-books-everyone-should-read/

Sent at 4:18 PM on Monday

Sven: neat

i’ll get right on that

Sent at 4:29 PM on Monday

Sven: well, i’m gonna go home

you have a lovely evening

Sent at 4:32 PM on Monday