thoughts / thinkit creative

Being a rule-breaker is a compliment, not a criticism

By Patrick Gant

I’ve been following Richard Florida’s work for a number of years since The Rise of the Creative Class. In this presentation (see below), he makes several excellent points about the growing role and value of creativity today.

With parallels to the 1930s and earlier eras of hardship, the rush of new ideas and finding a better way of doing things tends to come about most often when a society’s back is against the wall. It’s when rules get broken that people start doing interesting, daring things.

This isn’t just executive-level challenge. Real creativity—the kind that makes things, and makes them better than before—has to take root in every level of an organization.

Six ways to remain creative and passionate about getting things done

By Patrick Gant

In business, it can be hard at times to maintain an unwavering focus. Even the most accomplished pros will admit that at times distractions get the best of them. Let’s face it, you don’t have to look too hard in any office to find things that can pull you away from your work.

There’s this great piece by Tony Schwartz, author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, that sums up how to best keep your eye on the ball and remain passionate about the work you do. I’ve included my own thoughts as a writer and business owner to accompany each of their six points:

Do the hardest work first.
This is one that took me a long time to fully appreciate, but it’s vital. It’s better to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work when your energy level is at its peak, plus it helps to give yourself an excuse to reward yourself later.

Practice intensely.
In my line of work this means write every day. Not all day (even writers need a break), but for a sustained period until the words start to flow. I’ve stuck to this principle for over 20 years and it is without a doubt the #1 thing that has helped me improve my craft so that I can do better work in less time.

Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses.
I’ve had mentors throughout my entire career and each one has provided me with insights that have reshaped what I do and how I approach problems. Often it has been a much-needed shot in the arm, but at times the feedback has been tough to hear. You need both.

Take regular renewal breaks.
One of the most common mistakes to make is to assume that breaks are to be taken when you’re tired. The trouble with that approach is that it conditions you into thinking that problem solving only happens in the office when you’re not on break. Go for a short walk during the day, or even just put on headphones for a bit and listen to a podcast or a song or two. Some of my best ideas and most comprehensive solutions to problems have come to me while I was doing something other than work.

Ritualize practice.
This is related to the point about practicing intensely, but it deserves its own mention. As Schwartz notes: “Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it.” When you make a habit of doing something, it eventually stops being a task and becomes a natural part of your day such that you don’t even have to think about why you’re doing it.

Pursue what you love.
Sounds trite, but really it isn’t. Doing what you love is really about finding something you give a damn about. That’s where your ability to gain mastery over a subject can truly take hold.

Writing advice: what to do when you’re stuck

By Patrick Gant

[Updated] Anyone can be a writer, it’s true. But sometimes—whether you’re writing for the web, crafting an article, a direct marketing piece or a book—you’re going to get stuck and it can seem as if no amount of rewriting is going to fix your copy.

Don’t wait for that sinking feeling to set in.

Here’s the first thing you must do.

Keep writing.

Don’t give in to that feeling that says you need to walk away.

Giving in is easy. It’s what many people do.

There are cases where you need to shift gears for a bit (and I’ll come back to that). But unless you keep working at your craft and your ideas, you’re going to lose any momentum you started with.

There’s an even bigger danger.

Unless you’re in the deadlines business like I am, there is also a good chance that if you put that writing project away, you might not come back to it. Ever.

Stop with the Point-A-to-Point-B thinking. Be more abstract.

Ideas and the business of writing them down is not a linear practice. In fact, it’s rare to be struck by a fully formed thought that’s ready to share. That’s just the low-hanging fruit, my friends. The rest takes time to ripen. And often it’s going to take you in directions that may surprise you as much as your reader.

Here are a few methods I use when I get stuck. You can use any of these, too.

The tangential method

Find a good quote about the subject you are writing about. Don’t just slap that quote into your copy.

The writer’s first devotion is curiosity and you feed it by asking questions.

Who is the speaker behind the quote? Are there any articles posted online about this person? Book reviews?

How might what they have to say about one thing relate to another thing in an entirely unexpected way?

A few minutes of satisfied curiosity can provide you with an entirely new angle on what you’re writing about.

Here’s a secret: it’s one of my most reliable ways of coming up with new topics for my newsletter.

The switching gears method

I said earlier that you have to keep on writing when you’re stuck. But that doesn’t mean you have to keep bashing your head against the wall and wishing for a different result. Some ideas need to simmer. In the meantime, write something else.

Creativity is a weird visitor (click to tweet). It often walks into your house, puts its feet up on the sofa, grabs pen and paper and tells you it’s working on something. Let it do its job. Just don’t let it switch on the TV.

Switching gears means that you might not be working on the thing you started on in the first place, but you’re still producing.

Practice and discipline. These are your best teachers.

The backstory method

This one applies to fiction writing. Having trouble making a character believable? Invent a backstory and write it down. Need help asking the right questions? Go to one of those free online dating sites and look at the questions they ask of people when creating a dating profile. Fill it in. The answers you’re being asked are meant to help other people decide if you’re likeable and compatible. This is a good resource if you’re stumped.

With a fact-filled backstory (okay, made up facts, but I’m sure you get where I’m going with this), you have new ways to approach your subject and write convincingly. After all, you totally know this guy now.

The undoing method

Some ideas are just not ready for primetime. Some are just crappy ideas. A good way to test yours is to turn them inside out. Play devil’s advocate. Write a short piece arguing the opposing point of view.

One of my business lines is speechwriting. I sometimes use this method when I’m finding the copy isn’t as persuasive as I need it to be.

Undo your arguments.

You’ll quickly reveal the cut line that separates the facts you know are true from the rest of the points that you simply feel are true.

The business of writing in the realm of self publishing: a review of “Write. Publish. Repeat.”

By Patrick Gant

In the span of less than half a decade, self publishing has been radically transformed from its humble indie origins and is now a viable first choice for professional writers. That includes consultants and professional speakers who want to grow their audience and help people along the way.

A few of the reasons for this shift are obvious: the meteoric growth of tablets and the shift to online book selling has helped nudge the ebook side of publishing into the tantalizing realm becoming impulse buys. For Amazon, Kobo and the iBookstore, it means they are plenty happy to meet demand with titles that readers want to buy—be it from independent writers or others.

But there’s another reason for this shift, and it’s one that up until now hasn’t really drawn as much attention as it deserves.

A self published book used to carry a stigma. For many readers, it was synonymous with lousy writing, half-assed packaging, typically fitted with a gaping black hole where a publishing and marketing strategy ought to be. [Read more…]

The case against comments

By Patrick Gant

I’ve revised this post because I’m open to having my mind changed.

Originally, I had titled this “Why you shouldn’t enable comments on your site anymore.”

Maybe that was too broad of a brush.

I’m still not a fan of comments on blogs. I post on a few myself, but more often than not, I skip them altogether.

I have a few reasons for that and I’ll get to those in a moment.

But first, a point about you.

As my reader, you value great content and creating a fantastic reading experience as much as I do.

I want your readership here to be a great experience every time. I’m always happy when my readers tell me what they have to say in response to my posts. Those comments are good. And the idea behind doing that is a good one.

That’s not why comments have fallen out of favour with me.

I just don’t think they are for everyone who has a blog. The default position should be don’t do it.

Before you enable comments, you should ask yourself why you’re doing this in the first place.

Does it add to your reader’s experience?

In its infancy, the web was small and operated like a community of communities. Comment-enabled blogs were very handy for people to share thoughtful ideas to help build on what you were saying. It also was a place where diverging opinions could hash things out. It also tended to be a key place for link exchanges.

There was, in many ways, self-enforced civility in what people had to say in their posts. Just like that old maxim: reputations are made and undone faster in a small town.

That’s often not the case anymore.

Have a look at the calibre of comments that populate the bulk of newspaper websites, for example.

Much of it borders on being unreadable.

If you’re in the business of finding ways to create the best possible reading experience for your reader, comments are the last place you are going to find inspiration.

It’s a telling point that Seth Godin and John Gruber–well-read people with no shortage of opinions–don’t have a comment-enabled section to accompany their posts.

Does it contribute value to your reader?

Sure, there are still websites and blogs out there today where built-in comments still add value to original content. But for every good example, it is no effort at all to find tens of thousands of bad ones.

You are in control of your content. But there are considerably more constraints on what you can do about who posts and what they have to say in the comments section of your site.

Look past the pointless arguments, the self-promotional replies and the “great-post-I-agree-completely” responses. Does any of what’s left in comments really help your reader? I’m less and less convinced.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some great examples of comment-enabled content out there. I even comment on a few. But in each case, it is clear that a blog moderator has asked themselves the hard question about who is benefitting from having this feature in the first place.

Do you have the time for this?

Remember that in many countries, you can be held legally responsible for what gets posted in your comments section. Couple that with your wish to create great content, and you can quickly find yourself spending a large chunk of your time moderating discussions and writing reply posts. Is that really the best use of your time, both in terms of product and serving your audience?

Can you address authenticity issues?

Anonymous posts are troublesome. I struggle with this myself. Inauthentic content equals zero value.

And poor-calibre comments aren’t independent of your content. They become part of your product.

Is this something you’re doing because you can or because you should?

I’m always tempted to call this the JBYCDMYS principle. But that would look really awkward. Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should is a principle that ought to be exercized far more than it is these days.

Our world online is crammed with this kind of thinking: features and ornamentations that look nice at first glance or do things that initially seem like good ideas, but deliver questionable long-term value.

So what if your new content management system makes it easy to enable comments? So what if this is something that everybody else is doing? The only measure that really counts is whether it helps your reader solve a problem.

You can only determine so much of that with metrics. You can’t measure good taste.

Are there better alternatives?

There are many alternatives now to commenting (and the hassles of registering to do that). Tweet about it. Or write your own post. Or post something on Google+. You can even kick it old school and email somebody. There are plenty of great ways to engage people that do a better job of ensuring authenticity while delivering a better experience for readers.

Having asked all these questions…

There is one more question to ask and it’s a biggie.

What do your readers have to say?

Mine are telling me that comments matter to them. And a few were peeved that I shut off comments on this blog.

Well I’m all about doing right by my readers, so I’m ready to be proven wrong about this.

I’ve re-enabled comments on this site (and hopefully have addressed the spam-comment issue, too).

So how about it, reader? Are you still using comments on your site? If so, are you asking yourself the tough questions first about why you’re making this available?