Things Will Never Be the Same

Nice little snippet from an old Steve Jobs’ interview that says it all.

Creative Mornings with Christoph Niemann

Another gem from Creative Mornings, this time with guest Christoph Niemann, Berlin-based illustrator and creative. Appreciate the humor.

Getting Past “Box Fresh”

The Procrastinators – episode 7 from Lernert & Sander on Vimeo.

This is a nice little video series by Dutch design team Lernert & Sander on procrastination. Over the past year, they interviewed a variety of their fellow countrymen – artists, writers, musicians – to see how each tackle the issue of postponing their day to day work. Why don’t we just do things? Why do we put them off for a later time?

Besides the beautiful, simple video, the series speaks to some universal elements that we all face as creatives. This video in particular spoke to us, not only because it’s been translated into English, but also because of the artist’s discussion of “box fresh,” a story about how he never wanted use his new colored pencils or new paints because they were too beautiful to mess with. The beauty of these things, from the brand new paints to the blank writer’s page, are all things we as artists need to get past, for creativity is really about getting dirty.

If you’re a Dutch speaker, check out the rest of The Procrastinators’ series at Limboland. Or just check them out for the great video.

Whatever you do, don’t put it off.

Everyone Has a Little Room

Something about the words in this simple White Stripes’ song we really like. Listen close.

The McGurk Effect

Although we talk a lot in Fishbird about the power of awareness and choice, this fascinating example of our brains’ hardwiring showcases the fact that being aware of something does not always allow us to choose something different. We’ve been watching this video for the past week and we still can’t get over it.

Ba. Ba. Ba.

Moving Past the OK Plateau

Nice little video here courtesy of The 99 Percent and author Joshua Foer on failure. A common topic on the Fishbird site, Foer delves deep into the idea of studying ourselves while we fail.

And a little side note: after watching this, you’re going to try and type faster. Trust us, it’s happening.

What Improv Comedy Can Teach You About Innovation

A couple of years ago, one of our Fishbird leaders spent the summer up in NYC with the Upright Citizens’ Brigade, a well-known improv group that now offers classes on everything from comedy writing to acting. Suffice to say, we heard our fair share of punchlines that year. But we also heard something interesting that’s stayed with us in Fishbird, and throughout our personal lives. The idea of saying yes. In order for improv to succeed, all participants must say yes to everything that comes out of another colleague’s mouth. You have to run with what you’re given and build upon it. For example, if you’re starting off a scene walking down a street, and one of your fellow actors says, “Aren’t you that famous chainsaw juggler?”, you’d kill the energy in the room by saying, “No, I’m not.”

This is a powerful lesson that can be applied to our everyday work.

Conversations are nothing more than movements of energy, positive and negative. When we’re trying to innovate, we’re just like an improv comedy group starting a story. Nothing’s been established. There are no boundaries. No stops. Everything is open game. We can only build our stories into something fun and exciting by allowing them to grow. Yes is integral in this. It pushes the positivity forward and creates new places for the story to go. The best improv actors in the game understand this concept.

And now so do you.