Design Treasury of Freedom, Enlightenment, & Creativity: 2012

United States Forces Japan (USFJ) Certificate of Appreciation 2019

Words on certificate: “Ms. AnneMarie Arnold distinguished herself by exceptionally meritorious achievement while supporting United States Forces, Japan, Yokota Air Base, Japan… providing outstanding support in preparation for the Commander United States Forces Japan change of command ceremony… flawless planning, coordination, and execution… significant work and extended hours… led to the most appropriate send off for Lieutenant General Martinez and amazing welcome for Lieutenant General Schneider. The distinctive accomplishment of Ms. Arnold reflect credit upon herself and the Department of Defense.”

Intertek Technology Team Promotes Emerging Technologies in Video Conference

1. Talk and act like a human being at work.

2. Encourage creativity; allow time for unofficial, unsanctioned, or unfunded work.

3. Make sure your enterprise stands for something and contributes to the world.

4. People are more creative when they are solving a problem on behalf of others.

5. Widen your view, restructure your firm, or recruit independents to spark corporate creativity.

6. What you like to do for fun is probably what you should be doing; many businesses started out as hobbies.

7. People do their best when unencumbered by rules, policies, and stipulations.

8. Create a collaborative environment at work rather than a competitive one.

9. Talk less, listen more.

10. Create a "Don't" list.

- Daniel Pink, author of The Flip Manifesto

Seth Godin on Marketing and Creativity

Which comes first, the product or the marketing?

In fact, just about every successful product or service is the result of smart marketing thinking first, followed by a great product that makes the marketing story come true.

If someone comes to you with a 'great' product that just needs some marketing, the game is probably already over.

Grave new world

Creativity loves a problem, but it hates a lousy audience.

If everyone around you is sure the economy is tanking, that the end is near, that time is up and the company is headed for the tubes, it's almost impossible to find a creative solution.

Creativity changes the game, whatever game is being played. "We're going to run out of cash by the end of the year," is accurate unless you count creativity into the equation. Then the accurate statement is, "Under the current rules and assumptions, we're going to run out of cash..." Big difference.

Creativity demands exposure to market needs, and insulation from market fears. Give it some time to work, some support, some breathing room. That's when creativity has a chance to change the game.

-Seth Godin's blog, 2009

Creative Process

"Yes, I have a creative process. It has nine steps: intended outcome, information gathering, information analysis, incubation, insight, inspiration, integration, implementation and incarnation. I could talk all week about it."

Through my own experiences, I came to realize that all creativity goes through these steps that I just mentioned. And that includes scientific creativity, creativity in art, of music, of storytelling; but also biological creativity, which is healing."

- Deepak Chopra, 2007

4 Simple Principals for Highly Effective Teams

Great article on making teams far more flexible, innovative, and productive. The 4 principles are:

1) value the value: track and validate projects to have measurable results;

2) be open and honest: this includes making open and visible to all team members the team's communications, status reports, and other factual data;

3) shorten workplans: deliverables should be broken into small pieces that can be accomplished in a shorter timeframe;

4) create interdependence: a team must function like a team - no one wins unless everyone wins, or as Pixar says, "all for one and one for all!"

Because I am a visual person, this is how I would build a multimedia presentation or create marketing collateral for a national conference. Imagine managing a team of 4 to 5 people in a design marketing department. First, I would break down the projects into final deliverables. Then, I would estimate the timeframe working from the due date backwards after consulting subject matter experts and vendors on execution time. Next, I would delegate responsibilities to individual team members who possessed the skillset/talent to complete each task (after consulting each member and the team group). Additionally, I would have each of the team members create an interdependency list and risk assessment (a risk could be anything from the subject matter expert becoming disabled to s freak weather condition which could prevent the timely delivery of outputs). Certainly, the communication plan would be one of the first outputs).

If it is a virtual team, no problem! We would use Google Docs and Google Hangout as we did on my Amazon Rainforest documentary team project which we produced in 48 hours for Full Sail University (posted on this blog - see my videos).

The Importance of BEING BOLD

Social psychology and organizational management explains theories of Conformity and Social influence which describe "the innate desire of people to belong to a group and minimize dissonance". The Abilene paradox is when members of a group [mistakenly] believe that their personal preferences are counter to the preference of others in the group, and therefore do not think that they should raise objections. This results in the group being steered towards a situation or outcome that is incompatible to its goals. The Abilene paradox often manifests itself in organizations, and even on a larger scale in populaces. When individuals have personal qualms about opposing a decision or an action but feared to voice them, they relinquish their human rights for a trade-off of being a "team player" - this is not only passive, but also unethical. For example, it's important that individuals have the psychological freedom to stand up in a meeting and say that something should be stopped, rather than give in to "the fear of the group pressure that would ensue, of not being a team player".
Source: https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-psychological-facts-that-people-dont-know-1

Napa to Charlottesville — the "Napa of the East Coast"

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