creativity

Why study influencers' social streams?

When one goes slowly and with imagination through a list of influencers, reading about their passions, studying their proclivities, observing the vicissitudes of mood and opinion in their social stream…a story emerges and forms about that individual, about their market sector and about the customer in that sector. And it is such stories that form the basis of potent marketing campaigns, the focus of which is to grow awareness of YOUR product/service.

Creativity and Critique: The Dance of Life

MY STATEMENT ON FACEBOOK: Currently THE coolest social/brand ad game out there! http://pleasurehunt.mymagnum.com/

FOLLOW-UP ON THIS STATEMENT BY TWO FRIENDS:

FRIEND ONE: One friend replied, “Very cool… Its really interactive and connects with some great websites and services. Great idea.”

FRIEND TWO: Another replied, “I’m not sure why people would do it if they don’t get something from it. It’s not that fun and it doesn’t seem to give you anything. I’d be curious how this site did but I don’t think that something like this which isn’t great game- play would work. Different story if it is a cool game that has a lot invested in it and people want to play it and get something out of it.”

THOUGHTS ON THE TWO RESPONSES: BOTH perspectives are needed and important. OUR WORLD needs a blend of the creative-enthusiast AND the critic-refiner. Each grows the other. Creativity that grows out of the rich soil of critique is the magic this world needs! Creativity involves play, grows out of play. It’s the dance of a tendril through rock and soil into sunshine, air and rain.

A single thought

One thought fills immensity. ~ William Blake

Humanity has the technology AND the psychic receptivity to collectively be aware of a single thought. This moment, when it first occurs, may go by unannounced BUT then, when successive occurences take place, Humanity will sit straight up, wide awake to the wonder AND danger of such a possibility! These SINGLE THOUGHTS, when expressed, will ripple through the texture of human consciousness and effect vast and irrevokable change. Those who post these thoughts, whether in the form of video, music, image or text may be astounded with the volume of response BUT a kind of responsibility that befits a poet-king/queen will come upon him/her/them.

In an age of viral videos, images and quotes, it is not too inflated to make this statement. The coming SINGLE THOUGHTS that will ripple through both conscious and subconscious fabrics of human thought will be the unifying pre-cursors to end-games in multiple arenas. Falling fences will be tipped over as a result of these thoughts and entire forms that existed for centuries may be transformed overnight.

Archetypal Psychology has much to say that applies in this area. James Hillman writes that the fundamental mistake in Western culture is a loss of soul, which is further identified with a loss of images and the imaginal sense. The result has been an intensification of subjectivity, showing…in a Western consciousness which has lost its relation with death and the underworld (Hillman, Archetypal Psychology).

Hillman calls for, and predicts, a re-animation of “things” by means of metaphor, which “gives sense and passion to insensate things”. He writes that the metaphorical perspective “revisions world phenomena as images, finding sense and passion where the Cartesian mind sees the mere extension of de-souled insensate objects (Hillman, Archetypal Psychology).

Our movement into image, both still and moving, has increased exponentially with YouTube receiving scores of billions of individual downloads per month in the United States alone, as an example. As Google TV comes onto the scene, the potential for unknown and perennial philosophies to emerge into open human consciousness will precipitate a rapid evolution of the collective human consciousness, which will in turn cause a greater receptivity to more complex and powerful ideas. Even as wide swaths of human societal structure fall down and disintegrate, the collective consciousness will be such that Humanity as a whole will absorb such a transition with grace and un-precedented creativity. The story of the imaginal cells within the process of metamorphosis is an image of this type of transition.

Imagining, composing, drawing, filming YOUR single thought that would ripple through the social fabric of the internet is a VITAL activity for individuals in ALL disciplines and verticals. It is a CENTRAL PLANET-SAVING activity in our times. To repeat, discovering your gift for humanity IS a CENTRAL PLANET-SAVING activity in our times.

The best strategic alliances

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.”- Lao Tzu

Some of the best strategic alliances are between a Critic and a Creative. The Critic drives the Creative to higher heights, the Creative gives the Critic his content for analysis and, really, the healing of a personal, and often collective, wound. In business, a culture’s wounds offer the largest sources for financial reward AND a positive giving-back: the essence of cause-related marketing.

It is said that the Creative invented the airplane, while the Critic invented the parachute. There are seasons for transcendence and seasons for grounding. In both actions, one needs the Critic and the Creative. Both are relentless beings made of the same stuff in important slices of their personalities. There is an old proverb about men sharpening one another like iron on iron.

Humanity has NO time left for people to figure out how profitable HUMANITY-SAVING VENTURES will be for their own Parea (Tribe) AND then shop those around. That is WHY we are seeing so much giving happening. Time is perceived by many as being short BUT for those who have found their tribe and their gift, these are the BEST DAYS to be alive. Everything is becoming visible before our eyes, everything is opening in the transparent eco-system of social networks.

And yet, as all of this revealing is going on, there seems to be a realization by many of what Carl Jung meant by the unconscious taking up far more of human experience than consciousness. Humanity is currently mapping its consciousness through the building of countless social networks and circles. This consciousness is a jumping off point for diving into the depths of the psyche…into the unconscious itself. And it is the complexes, archetypes and currents within an individual, communal and the collective unconscious that animate human thought, speech and action.

Identifying one’s archetypes and listening to the needs of those archetypes is just a first step in facilitating the design and assembly of useful social communities and tools. The next step involves a kind of deep sea exploration of what has not been spoken of and NEEDS speaking of in times such as these: the unconscious motivators/animators that, once brought into the light, no longer rule us and can be used by humans for solving the problems these self-same animators caused.

Look within to find the reason for what is without.