2013 - exploring prolific

You might think with a word like "prolific" as my theme for the year that being 22 days into the new year with only 2 posts is a failure. I choose to look at it as the reality of the year - building, clearing and finding the architecture that supports me in moving freely in whatever direction needed.

It also seems intriguing to find prolifically quiet and introspective as well as prolifically active and engaged this year. It's time to move on from seeing "doing" and "output" as the only metrics of a prolific life.

There are many people who inspire me in this quest.

Luke Wroblewski comes to mind. I greatly admire his ability to create containers for his writing and experiments in the form of his brand, templates (blog, presentations, books) and prototyping practices (Bagcheck, Polar). Awesome. I really appreciate seeing how he clears the path to getting his adventures out into the world where others can continue to build off of them in an ever renewing and prolific conversation.

Zaha Hadid inspires by the way she moves between mediums to explore across all dimensions - 2, 3 and 4D. The fact that she incorporates painting into her process makes the squishy artist side of me and the grid architect happy. This expansiveness in process no doubt helps her reimagine the way space and matter work together - allowing her to reshape form in so many amazing ways.

Each time I attend the balcony talks before an ODC performance, I fall in love again with the amazing minds and explorations of the choreographers Brenda Way, KT Nelson and Kimi Okada. Keeping a dance company moving AND tending active artistic lives over 40 years is no small feat - these women inspire me to live life richly in the midst of life's traffic as well as prolifically.

And then there's my Mom. She'll be surprised to be included here. She feels like she never gets much done but when I see how much she accomplishes in a day in terms of care for each of us, explorations in healing and wholeness and just her way of being in the world - I begin to understand prolific in a whole new way.

What is prolific if you move away from doing and output as its defining success? Is it possible to be prolific without ever writing another blog post, talk or book? Taking another picture or tweeting another link? If prolific was a way to satisfying my own enjoyment of moving through the world rather than a way to try and gain approval and love from outside of myself - would it lose it's charge? Is there a quality or shape of life that allows prolific to simply appear?

I always love a good lived question, don't you?!

Inspired: blogging simplified

It was a post on January 2nd that inspired me to come back to my blog again.

Chris Coyier wrote:

I wish everyone in the world would blog.

Did you solve a tricky user interface problem today? I’d love to read about the options you considered and why you picked the one you did.

...

I enjoy living vicariously through you, even for a moment.

Read the full post. Read more by Chris at The Pastry Box Project

I love all of the examples he gives. And that's the same reason that I read other people's blogs. Given my daily prototyping and other play-in-progress, getting back to blogging will be a welcome relief. And some other daily writing might be in order in other formats as well. As Chris points out so beautifully...it's fun and potentially valuable to others to share the adventure.

I'll be playing here this year. Expect things to move around a bit as I attempt to find some fun ways to allow myself to get more of my writing out into the world. I've grown frozen and it'll feel good to thaw back out, shake myself off and get moving again.

How do you do that in your life - get unstuck, unfrozen, pry your foot off the brakes in your life?

Zoe Keating - integrating IA and music

Taking process and understanding from one part of your life and applying it to another - this is exactly what I'm attempting to do with quietAction. By being able to choose from hundreds of techniques and methods from every discipline and experience you have had or will have, your life becomes one big interconnected sandbox.

My friend Alexa sent me this link to Wired.com's series of interviews with Zoe Keating that I wanted to pass on. Zoe's story about her wandering path and what the interconnectedness in her life has wrought mirrors my experience of working in tech and design in the 90's. I think the era spawned a whole lot of integrators simply by allowing all of us to practice being versatile. I particularly love her clarity on the intersections between information architecture and creating her music.

This is a perfect example of how fascinating each of our stories are and how we can connect with and find "our people" in life. And companies should pay attention as well - look what happens when you recognize what you are good at, continue evolving, trying new things and speaking authentically. It's not always about doing it perfectly - often it's about showing your work. We, as your customers, appreciate that. I went and bought her music on iTunes...she might need an addition to her house or a new MacBook Pro.

To see the other two vids, one of Keating performing and the other an abridged interview, visit the Wired.com vid site page

Anybody else you'd like to point us at that inspires you and is doing this kind of integrating and synthesizing?

innovating in traffic

Following on my last post about making it up better I wanted to give an example that a friend turned me on to in December about a company in Seattle that was facing a shutdown and then got in there, looked at the situation, discussed it as a company and happened upon a solution that not only saved them from bankruptcy, it flooded them with orders.

What companies or people do you see that inspire you in the ways they are adapting and evolving?