A guitar’s tuning is rather strange. The strings are separated in pitch by inconsistent intervals that were designed to make a few chords and patterns easier for your fingers to form. Listen to folk music with an untrained ear and you’ll hear familiar changes and progressions. They are pleasant and time-tested, but hardly represent the possible combinations of sounds that can be made with six strings worth of tone.
New Photoshop users proudly produce images with fat drop shadows, big linear gradients, lots of glowing and fuzz, mostly because they are easily accessible options — simply double click on a layer and check the effects you want. Though Adobe produces a very powerful piece of graphic editing software, a large chunk of its users develop their taste and skill around these early-learned features.
And so, the tools built to enhance a skill have been around long enough that they begin to define it. We have more than enough 4-chord pop music, glossy billboards, and clip-art flyers.
How different would mainstream music sound if guitarists spent their growing years learning minor 9th chords? …or learning a mandocello instead?
Blake Ross, a local artist and good friend, tells gallery viewers that the varied methods and tools with which he manipulates paint is very important to the final value of his art.
Perhaps a certain creativity can be found in simply varying the starting point.
I love automation.
As I juggle the professional hats of business co-owner, Creative Director, web programmer and part-time salesman, I am becoming increasingly aware that I am not a multitasker. Add to that the endless decisions that come with planning a wedding in 3 months, the responsibilities of being a landlord and a tight entrepreneur’s budget, the end of 2009 found me scrambling to tie up loose ends, and doing so poorly.
I strive to impress in many areas and skill sets, but a big limitation is that I must do them in big, concentrated blocks. Also, I program computers. The result? I get a sadistic sort of satisfaction in automating the tasks that otherwise would need constant care.
For those of you like me, I offer this list of tools, lessons, and thoughts.
- Things by Cultured Code • I dropped $50 on this gem of an OSX/iPhone combo app about a year ago, and it is invaluable to me today. It wipes out my forgetfulness, reminds me of my priorities, and allows me to schedule my big-chunk-at-a-time blocks of creation, planning and communication.
- It takes a certain amount of discipline to switch focus. Morning workouts, weekly meetings, and expected daily phone calls from my lovely fiancé at lunch keep me from getting too lost in one task or project to remember that some things are just plain important.
- Use an iPhone, if solely for the purpose of instantly saving notes of things to handle later. You won’t forget the important stuff that randomly comes up, but you don’t have to switch focus from the situation at hand. Just make sure you have a system in place to check for, and handle, those notes every day.
- Personal interactions can’t be automated. Rule #1: Loved ones are always allowed to interrupt focus. Those of us with a one-track mind require more discipline to invest in family & friends properly, and such discipline should be carefully protected.
- Find and trust counterparts who are excellent at multitasking. Ashleigh and Chris, here’s to you.
Today is a long awaited day. No, it’s not that I’m just now posting my first blog entry on The Think Tank, though I’m honored if you’ve been awaiting it.
Chase Finch, my better half in this business, will soon have his own better half in the journey of life. Today he became engaged to the beautiful Ashleigh Lassiter! Join me in saying, “Congratulations!” to them both.
This day will be greeted by some with a “finally!”, though no matter how the day is greeted, it is indeed a great day and the next step toward an entire future together for this wonderful young pair. Congratulations Chase!
…before we all started using it to discuss social media.
Last week we finalized negotiations to work on our second major social network, a website called Veribu. The business-minded fellas that own the project have done their part to define their goals. They hired Engenius to make it work like a charm and look like a peach.
We’re taking it in a Web 2.0 direction, starting with this new logo and ending with a professional product that will integrate video chat, phone calls and text messages into a simple social network. Veribu just may be the next step towards blurring the lines between traditional methods of communication.
Last week, I had the rare pleasure of a visit from my dear friend, Scott Childs. He is a graphic designer a la Clemson who moved to Texas some 3 years ago.
Each visit from Scott is followed by a few weeks of graphic design gifts through email. This is today’s:
Thanks buddy.
