Little Red's Big Ideas

CPRS - Let's Go Blog Wild

Blogging.  Should you or shouldn't you?  If you don't blog now will you forever feel behind the "eight   ball?"  Those were some of the questions pondered during my recent workshop at the California Parks and Recreation Society's 2009 Conference in Santa Clara.  For those in attendance, I'm happy to share the handouts from the session for your review.  If you're reading this you've already found my blog.  I encourage you to snoop around and see, not only what's happening at "little red's BIG Ideas," but also look at the many other unique and compelling blogs posted here, at Typepad's homepage.

Download Blog_Wild_20091

So, how ready are you to start a blog?  Or, do you already have one?  Promote it in my COMMENTS below.

Creativity at Your Fingertips

Every once in a while I find a wikiHow article that catches my eye liek this one about creativity.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  I especially like the Creative Exercises and recommend using them at staff meetings, training workshops and as ice breakers to move your team into the "right" side of their brains.

How to Be Creative

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Can creativity be taught? That’s a question without a simple yes or no answer. Creativity may not be able to be taught directly, but what you can get better at is frequently aligning the circumstances of life which foster the greatest chances for true creative expression. Creativity is not like a lightning strike, but more like something which manifests itself inside those who learn to foster it and create the right conditions for it to prosper.

Steps

1. Ruthlessly limit your selection of tools to only the most vital. The more limited your set of tools is, the more creative the output will be. Having a limited set of vital tools forces creativity and really challenges you to use what you have to produce the desired results. As a byproduct, you’ll get incredibly good with that small set of tools and refine your use of them to a point you can literally do anything you like with them. You’ll be far sharper than someone who merely dabbles with a larger set of tools. Learn how to be resourceful.
2. Don’t listen to feedback, keep following your own path. The problem with asking for feedback is invariably the feedback will be given infused with that person’s preconceived notions of what the outcome should be. Others will unconsciously push you in a direction that they see as best. This is done with good intentions; however, it actually hurts your internal creativity. Now this is different than sharing your work--by all means share, but listening to feedback is not a good decision if you want to truly find your own path of creative self-expression. Once you're finished with your creative work, whatever it may be, then you can listen to feedback. Just don't let criticism (even the constructive type) stifle your creativity during the creative process.
   • Keep in mind that people will generally display resistance to your idea, because good ideas change the existing dynamic, and people, for the most part, like things the way they are. When you present something that challenges the status quo, many people (friends, relatives, co-workers) will feel threatened.[1]
3. Having a routine is actually not a bad thing. Routines are positive if they reinforce a healthy, creative consciousness and negative if they destroy that. While breaking your routine once in a while to force new ways of thinking is good, what if growing/learning/experiencing new things was built into your routine as a given? The people who get stuck in a monotonous existence and speak negatively about routine have simply not developed a routine that puts them on a path of internal growth. The key is to discover creative rituals that put you in a more creative mindset.
   • Many writers not only have a minimum number of words they must write each day, but they also have almost superstitious requirements for the circumstances under which they write. The 18th century German writer Friedrich Schiller, for example, kept rotten apples at his desk and soaked his feet in a tub of ice water while he wrote![2]
   • Don't be afraid to seize control of your environment and make it work for you. Ray Bradbury wrote the book-burning story Fahrenheit 451 by leaving his house and writing in a library. Stephen King insists on utter silence while writing, while Harlan Ellison listens to high-volume classical music.
   • Set aside a block of time each day to foster your creativity. Kick the session off with a creative exercise or ritual that triggers a flexible state of mind. Whether it's meditating, freewriting, listening to a particular song, or rubbing your lucky rock--do whatever gets you "in the zone" and set a daily goal (e.g. one sketch per day, 1000 words a day, an invention or song a day).
4. Let go of perfectionism. Your natural output uninhibited by concern for creating something correct or incorrect will always produce creative results. There are limitless paths to achieve creative success; there are so many shades of gray. Imperfection is human, and sometimes the most creative artists leave mistakes unfixed on purpose. Nature itself is beautifully imperfect. Many try to be so perfect that they scrub away what made their work special in the first place. In a world saturated by overproduced, unnaturally perfect, and clean--the unpolished is the most creative and in many cases most inspirational.
   • Work on the "bad" ideas--even if you are only coming up with what you feel are "bad" ideas, you are still being creative, so develop them, and it could turn into a great solution!
5. Ignore trends. If you want to be truly creative, you absolutely must ignore trends. Block them out--pay zero attention to them. Trends are the polar opposite of creativity. In many forms of art (especially music) the masses of artists are following whatever the hot trends set forth are. Then there is the other, smaller group of artists that are pursuing their own path and not really paying attention to external trends in their form of art of choice. There is certainly more money, fame and instant notoriety for following trends, but most of what is popular is hardly creative. If you want to make something truly unique, trends are irrelevant. Looking inside yourself is where you will discover a greater wealth of creativity than available in any hot trend. Here are some more suggestions for insulating yourself from trends:
   • Don’t watch TV, don’t listen to the radio, and remove the vapid elements of popular culture from your life. These things aren’t bad for you in moderation, but they are great at normalizing your thoughts with the rest of society, and do not foster true internal creativity. Realize everything that you experience, every piece of content you consume plays a role in shaping your personality, even if at a subconscious level. It is all influence one way or another. You are in many ways a product of your experiences and stimulus. In one sentence, your creative output can be thought of simply as a personal interpretation of external stimulus. The best part about this is you get to control the input.
   • Don’t try and fit into a genre. Actively trying to fit your art or work into a genre is severely limiting and a detriment to its quality, if creativity is desired. Don’t try and write for a genre, don’t try to follow trends within a genre, in fact don’t even consider genre when working. Labeling it in a genre is a necessary evil for people to be able to find your work, and you will probably have to do this--but it shouldn’t be something that crosses your mind when trying to work. Genres, styles and methods don’t matter for creativity and originality.
   • Spend a lot of time alone. You don't have to be anti-social, but many people find their creativity really starts to open up when they are removed from others and able to have quiet focus for their creative work.
6. Ignore the past. Want to be really creative or original? Ignore or forget the past; ignore what the world has created up until this point. Sometimes considering the past will make you place a sort of unconscious time stamp on a style. That’s the antithesis of creativity and originality. Create things from within yourself that don’t draw inspiration from what has come previously or even consider it, and you’ll be on a path to creative output. In a creative state of mind, time doesn't exist--a few hours can feel like seconds, a moment can seem to last for hours, and you're completely immersed in the present.[3] Learn how to live in the moment.

Creative Exercises

• Think for a half hour a day exclusively on one subject. At first, this might be very hard to do. You can start off by thinking about a single subject for five minutes a day, then increase the period daily until you reach a half hour. At first it is wise to practice this when alone, but eventually you should be able to do it even in the midst of distractions, such as when traveling to and from work.[4]
• Write a letter or speak for 15 minutes without using the words I, me, my and mine. Make it smooth and keep it interesting, so that someone reading or listening would never notice anything odd about it. This forces you to turn your mind outward, and give up the preoccupations and obsessions of your own life.[4]
• Have someone doodle a line for you, then challenge yourself to make a variety of cartoons based on that one line. Don't resort to drawing faces, though--those are usually too easy![5]
• Take a familiar outline and challenge yourself to come up with drawings that could fit within that outline.
• Combine ideas. Choose two random objects, and describe each one in detail. What does it look like? What is it used for? How is it made? Then substitute one object with the other objects description. How can I make object A feel like object B? Or do what object B does?[6]
• Keep a journal, describing everything you do and feel with metaphors. Each day, challenge yourself to come up with new metaphors. (After all, how many different ways can you symbolize brushing your teeth?) See How to Write a Metaphor.
• Write a list of basic questions, such as 'What is your name?', 'Where are you from?', What did you do last Thursday?' Try to come up with at least 10 questions. The more you ask, the better! Whatever question comes to mind, write it down, even if it seems foolish. Answer the questions with song lyrics. (Try not to use the same song too often.)
• Play word association games. It helps to have someone willing to play along, but if no one will, you can do this alone. If you're doing it solo, write down your beginning word and spend 10 minutes or so just saying the next word that comes to mind. Compare the beginning word to the final word. They should be pretty diverse. This loosens up your mind to allow free association of ideas.
• See how long you can talk (and make sense!) without using a common word, like 'and','but', 'the' or 'that'.

Tips

• Spend time around creative people. The most reliably creative people are children. Their imaginations aren't boxed in, and "mind merging" with them can remind you of what it's like to think outside the box.
• Whenever you're challenged to create something, ask yourself: What's the most outrageous, preposterous, and nonsensical thing I can come up with?

Related wikiHows

• How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci
• How to Exercise an Open Mind
• How to Freewrite
• How to Be a Nonconformist

Sources and Citations

• TheFutureBuzz.com - Original source of content, shared with permission.

1. ↑ http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html
2. ↑ http://lateralaction.com/articles/creative-rituals/
3. ↑ http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/2006/04/24/creative-flow/
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!, first published in 1936 (public domain)
5. ↑ http://creativecurio.com/2008/09/exercises-to-cultivate-your-creativity/
6. ↑ http://www.creativethinkingwith.com/Combine-Ideas.html

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Be Creative. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Social Networking Sites You MUST Explore

By the time I get done writing this post, the list will probably change.  But for now, these are the crucial social networking sites all park and recreation agencies and camps must monitor and join  At the very least you should secure your domain name so that others don't create rogue versions of your brand identity.  I've even made very generic ssuggestions about how often you should check in and monitor activities on these sites.  If you prefer this table in an easy-to-edit Word Document you can Download social_networking_signin.doc

Social Networking Sign-in

Account	Name	Password (if needed)	Admin	To dos…	Check in how often?
Gmail					Daily
Twitter					Daily
Facebook Page					Weekly (auto alerts to cell)
Facebook Group					Weekly
Facebook Event					As needed
MySpace					Weekly
Yahoo Groups					Weekly
Linked In					Daily
Club Mom					Varies with Season
YouTube					Monthly
Slide Share					Monthly
FlickR					Monthly
Craig’s List					Ongoing
Ebay					Ongoing
Wikipedia					Monthly