The End Of Add-Ons

Garth Beyer

It’s difficult to add something to a swiss army knife. It’s difficult to add something to a WordPress theme that seems to already have it all. It’s difficult to add something onto a fishing lure that already reflects light, has popping color, and makes noise.

I’ve written about stealing like an artist and combining the work of other geniuses. I’ve shared how to take “the next best thing” and add onto it. However, what I recently noticed is that it is getting ever more difficult to add something onto what is already remarkable. Note: this doesn’t necessarily mean you need to start from scratch.

You may find there is no room to add-on to a swiss army knife, but you can take what you don’t think is regularly useful out and insert something new. For me, I’ve never used the scissors in a swiss army knife. If I need to cut something, I just use one of the multiple blades.

There is only one question I need to ask after I take out the scissors – what do I replace it with? What do you wish a swiss army knife had? The goal is to add an entirely new dimension without changing the size. For the fishing lure, you can take off the noisemaker and add feathers or googly eyes.

Making something unique isn’t just adding onto something; it’s what you remove and what you replace it with.

No one is going to buy a swiss knife that doesn’t fit in their pocket, but someone will choose your swiss knife over another if you have something different.

 

Stay Positive & Destruction Is Fun, Anyway

Garth E. Beyer

We Are Not All In The Same Boat

Garth Beyer

1133650632_a878b67e3f

There are people in the water swimming in place, waiting for a boat they want to climb in.

It’s your responsibility to build that boat.

 

Stay Positive & Go Find Yourself A Crew

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

Tell Me What

Garth Beyer

I walked around campus earlier today and saw a couple of people (separate instances) giving something away. They had stacks of something and that was it: them and a stack of something. How could I ever be intrigued to know why I should take it if I have no clue what it is.

Show me a sign. Hollar out what you’re giving away. Tell me what it is.

People rarely express any interest or start to care about something if they don’t know what it is. News writing is a perfect example. Before a writer develops the nut graf (the why you should keep reading paragraph), they tell you what has happened, what the focus is, what the story is.

“Free Bible”

“Pocketbooks for students”

“2014 calendars”

What was it that they were handing out? If they had told me, then I would have been curious why they wanted to give me a free bible, why I need a pocketbook, why they were giving me a calendar when I only ever use the one on my phone.

I’ll never ask why if you never tell me what.

 

Stay Positive & Yes, There Can Be Mystery, But At Least Say You’re Giving A Mystery Box Away

Garth E. Beyer

Don’t Fund It

Garth Beyer

Don’t try to find funds for your venture, don’t pursue investors, don’t take out loans, don’t sell your soul. The moment you make a promise to deliver if you receive funds for it, they own in some instances part of what you deliver, but in most instances, all of what you deliver because you have to shape it to please the investor.

Discover what else you have available,

  • friends.  What skills do they have that can help you?

  • interns.  Who can you help by asking them to help you?

  • space.  Where can you collaborate, experiment, brainstorm?

  • tools.  What do you have that someone else can use better?

  • internet.  This isn’t a question. This is a demand. Leverage the web.

  • knowledge.  What un-used knowledge can you share?

 

Stay Positive & You’ve Got What It Takes

Garth E. Beyer

Why Are Manhole Covers Round?

Garth Beyer

google_manhole

I once heard that those who interviewed at Google were asked why manhole covers were round and not any other shape.

I can’t help but say it’s because the artistic ability to work with something round (rather than the traditional square canvas), which allows for some phenomenal creativity.

The real answer is that a round cover is the only  shape of a manhole cover that no matter how it is turned, it won’t fall into the hole.

But, you know, design still matters after choosing a shape.

 

Stay Positive & Shape Is Only Part Of Design

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

Art Isn’t For Squares

Garth Beyer

and this story isn’t only for painters. We’re all artists.

whitespace

Being an artist is simple:

1. You have something that you use

2. You have something that you use it on

“But the painter’s basic challenge, the manipulation of colors and forms and metaphors on the flat plane with its almost inevitably rectangular shape, is no longer generally seen as art’s alpha and omega, as the primary place in the visual arts where meaning and mystery are believed to come together,” said Jed Perl, art critic for The New Republic

The square canvas has become the sign of an amateur. So has PowerPoint slide themes and fill-in-the-blank business plans and pre-written sales dialogues.

I’ve written almost exhaustively about the age of redesign that we are in. Artists of all kinds are experimenting not only with what they use, but what they use it on. I have noticed a fault, though. There’s a whitespace that needs to be filled.

3. Something new to say, express, or feel.

Michael Levenson, writer for The Atlantic said, “Brilliant new forms are good in themselves. But they’re even better when they inform new ethics, showing us how to acknowledge our contradictory modern selves and still marry for love (Woolf), or how to go on when you can’t go on (Beckett).”

Art isn’t for squares,

but it is for people who understand their “how” of making a difference.

 

Stay Positive & Find Your Whitespace And Fill It

Garth E. Beyer

Here are two articles that compliment one – another.

Photo credit

I Don’t Care If You Come Up With A Defintion For Journalist, But I Do Care That

Garth Beyer

you come up with a universal definition for “mass shooting,” rather, a set of definitions.

FBI defines “mass murder” as one where at least four people are murdered during the same incident. People base “mass shooting” off that definition by saying that a mass shooting is when four or more people are shot during the same incident.

That’s like saying a person living in poverty thinks the same about a five dollar bill as a billionaire.

If you asked anyone on the streets to attach a number to the word “mass.” No one is going to say one, two, three, or four.

Take a step back from all the news you’ve read in the last 10 years. Now think about all the times you read or saw “mass shooting.” Was it really mass?

I think the FBI and laypeople can learn something from the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory System. They have levels of risk alerts. Instead of stating there will be a terrorist attack, they rank the possbility.

HSAS

Or maybe the FBI can pull from the Fujita Scale. A scale that classifies the level of severity of a tornado. For example, a tornado producing gusts of 90 mph would be considered an “EF 1.”

Fujita Scale

Imagine if you switch “mph” with “deaths” in the Fajita Scale. Then you substitute each EF 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 with something that expresses the range of deaths in that category.

Mass Shooting

Which “X” would you substitute with “mass shooting”?

Certainly not them all.

1. Why not call the situation what it really is. If four people died, it’s a four person killing spree. If 36 died, it’s a 36 person killing spree. Now we don’t have to deal with which is a mass shooting and which isn’t. Calling a four person killing spree a mass shooting then calling a 36 person killing spree a mass shooting is insensitive to those closely connected with the 36 person killing spree.

2. If it’s a matter of word count or syllables to the media, I would rather have a lengthy accuracy than a short generalization. Wouldn’t you?

3. Notice how throughout this article, you felt the same for a “mass shooting” that involved four people versus a “mass shooting” that involved 36 people. Just because you get specific, doesn’t lose the impact. Any number of people dead hits those closest to them the same.