Point-Know-Buy – The Next Frontier?

QR codes, still a mystery to some folks, may be obsolete before the ink is dry. According to trendwatching.com, “the next frontier is visual info-gratification: consumers accessing information about objects encountered in the real world, in more natural ways and while on-the-go, simply by pointing their smartphones* at anything interesting.”

Applications for smart phones that gather information from real-world objects are rapidly hitting the market. From DIY health apps that will keep track of changes in your moles (not kidding) to an app that can identify bird calls, the potential to access information instantly is here.

Trendwatching’s February Briefing offers some amazing examples of how this emerging technology could revolutionize how creative entrepreneurs  buy and sell. 

Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world’s leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.

Creativity as Tranformation: Of Sticks and Stones Spotlight

Creativity is a powerful tool for overcoming the most challenging of life’s obstacles.  Colleague Mari Selby and I recently launched a project called Of Sticks and Stones aimed at showcasing the use of creativity to transform fear, anger and aggression to compassionate action.  As the project grows, there will be a Facebook community, an ezine, online seminars, writing groups and an ebook publishing company.

We want to spotlight examples of people using creativity to make it through adversity, and each week we will feature someone new. Send us your suggestions, tell us your story! Give witness to the everyday heroes that are seldom seen…but always inspire us to LIVE.

Of Sticks and Stones Spotlight this week:

Sarah & the Dinosaur – a play about a girl, her cancer and a dinosaur.

Donate to the Sarah & the Dinosaur Kickstarter Project.

Cool Tools–Is the Evernote App Google for Our Brains?

Strangely enough, Google, and now maybe a new software application called Evernote, may help me age a little more gracefully.   I’ve always been an information geek–not in a “I know a lot of shit” way–but in the “I can find it” research librarian way.  I like digging for answers to obscure and curious questions and finding applications for the info in my life.

What my brain doesn’t do well is file that information.  This is not a new dilemma, it’s been with me all my life.   If I don’t handle information in a very specific hands-on way, I have a terrible time finding it again.  I made my way through school as a copious note-taker, chapter out-liner and chart-maker.  In my personal life I don’t remember the names of books or plots or songs or bands I like.  I can’t remember a movie I saw a week ago, nor can I retell a story or joke.  In my work life, I have learned to adapt with maps and charts and lists.  Sometimes I am required to write or do things over and over to make them stick in my memory.  And now as I age, I’m noticing the time it takes to manage my memory is increasing. It’s worrisome.

So how have Google, and now possibly Evernote revolutionized my memory challenges and eased my mind?    I have stopped worrying that information found is immediately lost without having to make charts and lists and maps for finding it again.  With Google, I know that I can get to what I need to remember with just a snippet of information.

But what about all the personal details of my life, my work? Managing personal information has become more and more overwhelming.  I have huge lists of bookmarked websites, emails with links, piles of materials filed/stashed in my office, notes on calendars and on my phone.   Now what?

Enter Evernote, a software application geared to help with filing bits of personal information so it can be found again.  Author and journalist David Freedman,  takes an in-depth look at Inc.’s Company of the Year, their amazing rise to the top in “Say Hello to Your New Brain on Evernote”. 

Will Evernote help me with my personal information struggles?  I’m downloading it now.  I’ll let you know how it goes, that is if I can remember to make a note of that.

“Refuse to be driven mad by the world”

I adopted this mantra of Eckhardt Tolle’s last year for the holidays and realized it is very appropriate throughout the year… “I refuse to be driven mad by the world.”

Remembering to embrace spaciousness can be difficult in our fast-paced, demanding lives, but it’s always accessible and always effective no matter what situation we find ourselves in.  The skill of re-entering spaciousness comes the moment you realize it’s gone (without judging yourself for losing it in the first place!). Ah, how perfect and easy is that?  No lengthy ritual, no special equipment, no need to fit another practice into our busy lives.  Just noticing is enough.

Will Mapping the Brain Alter Our Creativity?

A group of researchers at Harvard are on a quest to crack the puzzle of the human genome and build a full map, or connectome, of the brain.   Austin Allen wonders in his article “Will Neuroscience Kill the Novel?”  if knowing our brains so well will change our literature, or for that matter, all the arts?   Does a glut of the literal “sharpen our appetite for the metaphorical?”  or will it be a cultural shift from which there’s no turning back?

Read the article and decide for yourself, but I’m with Allen when he says “the day the brain in fully mapped, writers will find a way to turn it into a foreign country.”   LIKE.

This discussion reminds me of Ian McEwan’s take on technology killing the novel.  He says that there’s something in us that “…needs to examine the fine print of human behavior and human relationships.”   Seems to me neither technology nor neuroscience can replace that need.  Ever.

Creativity, Hipsters and the Local State of Mind

After attending several sessions of a fast-paced, fun open mic for creative ideas called Ignite Staunton recently, I started wondering how the demographic of this small town nestled in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia appears to have shifted from more traditional over 35 business types to a decidedly “hip” group of entrepreneurs interested in green, creative and grassroots business ideas.  Where did these folks come from and what does it mean for our local economy?  Why here?

Then I ran across this article on NPR “The Hipsterfication of America” and it totally made sense.  “Hipsters, after all, know how to adapt: how to make the cheap chic, the disheveled dishy, the peripheral preferable. A shaky, shabby economy is the perfect breeding ground for hipsters….Hipsterishness is a state of mind.”

So a room full of young ideas from every possible age group…presenters ranged from 10 years old to the AARP eligible…convinces me that the hipster state of mind has totally arrived in this tiny community.  Why? It used to be that odd, creative minds fled small town America’s scrutiny for the anonymity and comraderie of other weirdos in the big city.  What’s different here?

My theory is that despite its reputation for being a  little pocket of Southern conservatism, Staunton has always embraced creativity and the arts.  It’s not just a charming historic town.  It is a place willing to take creative risks, to accept quirkiness.  And despite the usual obstacles and threads of old power getting in the way at times, there’s a local state of mind that embraces innovation as the key to surviving and thriving.  And the hipsters feel it.

The hipsters have arrived, and they are heating things up.   Keep your eye on Staunton, it’s slowly lighting up the Valley.

Rebalancing the Divided Brain

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant.”  ~Albert Einstein

Iain McGilchrist explains how the left and right hemispheres of the brain must  work together to make sense of the world and what we incorrectly think about the way our brains work can imbalance and significantly reduce the quality of our lives.

Diversity in Online Marketing–Building a Safety Net

I get complaints from a lot of my clients that social media sucks up a tremendous amount of their time and they don’t see the rewards in terms of  increased sales.  They don’t quite understand the method behind the madness.

I admit when I saw the graph of social networking Jane Friedman published last week I totally understood why they feel so resistant.  The idea of taking on so many different tasks is pretty intimidating.  To some people it’s not a prism, it’s a cluster… well you know.

But Jane points out that by building diversity into your online networking, you are in effect creating a safety net that keeps you flexible in the rapidly changing internet environment.   Shifting perspectives from “I can’t possibly keep up” to “Diversity will allow me to adjust to inevitable changes,”  makes a huge difference in creating a viable social networking strategy.

Albert Einstein said “A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be,” and that’s really the perspective one must take in building an online marketing plan.   Publishing books and music is easier than ever.  Selling them requires seeing the “prism” as an opportunity not a chore.  Keep weaving that safety net.  It’ll keep you in the game.

Creative Block? Rediscover the Inspiration of Moments

Stuck for material?  Here are four minutes chock full of inspiration.  It’s the moments that hold the creative spark.  Grab some more ideas from Kindling: Ideas to Fire You Up.

How Much Does Music Matter on Main Street? It’s about Sustainability

A proposed change to the guidelines monitoring noise levels in the small downtown where I live and work has stirred up a controversy no doubt common to other vibrant main streets .  How does a city balance the rights of downtown residents and visitors with that of late-night entertainment venues?

Staunton is somewhat unique in the Shenandoah Valley of VA in that it made specific concessions years ago to support a more lenient noise cap within its downtown service district, allowing a higher decibel reading than most other towns.   The proposed change calls for outdoor music to be banned after 11:30pm.  The trouble  stems from an ongoing disagreement primarily between one restaurant with a patio, one inn and one residential building located in a corner of the downtown.

As a downtown resident and advocate of a thriving tourist industry, I don’t disagree that some compromise between downtown revelry and peaceful coexistence is required.  There are a number of possible solutions.  But the way this proposed change has been handled here has stirred up a much deeper issue.   How does a community decide how to regulate a downtown environment?  Is it purely economically based or do the people who contribute labor and energy and flavor have an equal stake?

The answer seems pretty obvious to me, but public comments by City Council members referencing the economic contributions of the people they are hoping to protect from the “noise” versus the venues and clientele they attract has set the tone for the standoff.  And whether these Council members meant it to sound elitist and anti-arts or not, that’s how it has come off.

Now I’m pretty sure that our elected officials understand that an active, clustered and yes, sometimes late-night arts and culture scene, particularly one offering diverse restaurant and entertainment opportunities, is an attractive draw for visitors.   This group of tourists stay longer and spend more if there’s a booming cultural scene.  And if some members of this demographic visit, like what they see and then choose to relocate here, they buy property, open businesses and raise families.

An active night-life nourishes a local economy in non-tangible ways too.  It provides quality of life for the front-line of the tourism industry, many whom are just getting off work when others are going to bed.  These are people who own businesses and homes.  They are professionals who have families and care about the community. They are the entertainers, attraction and hotel employees and restaurant workers that keep our visitors coming back.  If they are excited about where they live and work, it shows.

The end result is a sustainable cycle of visitors and residents fueling a local economy that encourages diversity, respect and cooperation.   Engaging and alive main streets matter to small towns, and they happen from the inside out.

Yes, downtown residents and visitors should voice their opinions about late-night music and be heard.   But the workers and consumers of late-night music also deserve to be recognized as the valuable, tax-paying and invested members of the community that they are.  Every piece of the downtown matrix is important.

This may have started as a long-running dispute between a small cluster of businesses and residents in the downtown district and digressed into name-calling from both sides, but the positive side is that it daylights an important issue.  No matter what Council decides about late-night outdoor music in this specific case, I hope the conversation about managing the downtown environment continues.   It’s more complicated than whether music or sleep matters most on main street.  It’s about supporting a sustainable community based on awareness, diversity and mutual respect.

And THAT, dear City Councils everywhere,  matters a great deal to a lot of voters these days.