A Tyrannosaurus Rex for Ideas – C. Crawford

“What you need is a Tyrannosaurus Rex stalking through your mind, viciously attacking every idea you create. It should pounce instantly and sink its teeth into the soft flesh of your idea. It should rip and tear with bloodthirsty abandon. Most of your ideas will be torn yo shreds by your inner Tyrannosaurus. That´s good -better that they be prey to your own monster than shredded by others or, worse still, fail in the marketplace after you´ve invested time, money , and reputation on them.”

That´s Chris Crawford on his book “C.C. on game design”. I agree mostly, but I tend to let the ideas grow a little before start attacking them. They need at least that, a little time to grow a bit and have a chance to fight back.

TEDx Buenos Aires in early 2010

Great news for all the TED fans in Argentina for early 2010. Buenos Aires will be hosting it´s first TEDx. A series of talks by the most prominent and interesting minds in the world.

More information in Tedxbuenosaires.org

No ideas

I´ve found out that the best way of coming up with ideas is not to think about it. It´s not news that creativity works in mysterious ways, but since this blog aims mainly to force myself to put things into words, i´ll make a list of some rules that I use when I´m feeling empty.

1- Get away from the computer. Get out.

2- Stop thinking.

3- Start a project from zero without an idea. Often times this evolves into an actual idea to work on.

4- Tell somebody an old idea that I had. Explain it usually forces me to understand it and something new allways pops up.

Energy rush

When you abandon a project, you get your “energy boost”, the one that comes with starting something new. For some people it´s a drug, they start projects all the time and never finish anything because they need the rush of starting something, feeling full of energy, ideas, everything is a potential hit. Until they start actually working on it, that´s when they came up with yet another genial idea! Thinking that “this is the one”. Over and over again.

Basically it´s about the learning curve. When you start investigating a new field or idea, everything moves really fast, you feel like you are some kind of genius cracking every code here and there, understanding the theory and applying it like no one before you has, the universe is the limit, you will be the best in the field! “How did I waited so long to start doing this?!” Until you hit the first bump, maybe some little problem that slows you down. But you need to move forward, it can´t wait!, “I´m stuck”, “I can´t do this!”, “How is this possible?!”, “I was going to be the best in the field!”, “Such a promising beginning!”, “It´s impossible!”, “Damn this thing! Why me?! Oh God! Why me?!”.

The learning curve has become a little flatter, and so it does the enthusiasm in most cases. The “energy boost” that propelled the fast paced movement in the early stage of the project empties, and if you don´t have a back up energy tank, you´re doomed.

I use to be an addict to the energy bust. I´ve been clean for the last year, five months and fifteen days… one day at a time.

¿Matan las escuelas la creatividad?

Una impecable charla de 20 minutos sobre la educación y la creatividad que expresa (con cierta claridad) lo que muchos tal vez pensamos de tiempo en tiempo. Hace años que pienso en esto, tomando las ideas mas básicas de Krishnamurti sobre la creatividad y la libertad de las ideas, y trato de entender y descifrar porque vemos las cosas como las vemos. Nunca llegué a nada mas que a creer que el único camino hacia una posible plenitud es entender que cada paso que damos puede estar equivocado, y que no hay cálculos suficientes para predecirlos. Eso te da libertad, aunque falta un camino larguísimo por recorrer.
No se la pierdan porque vale la pena en serio.