Sometimes I wonder if life is merely an accumulation of things shipped. I realize, of course, it is much more.
The pile of tiny Post-It Notes around my desk is vast. (I really do enjoy the tiny Post-Its. And I use a regular Sharpie, so I can’t notate a novel.) Combined with Evernote and calendar blocking—I manage to ship a decent amount. The business of creativity is nothing if not the management of opportunities.
Also, I think I have strong procrastination skills. By which I mean Task 17 [“schedule the thing!”] suddenly looms large while I’m deep in a Deliverable [“editing the presentation”]. I have learned to accept my brain for its unique approach to project management. And I’ve come to realize some of these interruptions are just my subconscious Gantt chart processing itself. There’s a post about procrastination coming in the future.
I was supposed to ship the latest episode of the podcast Renaissance Man - Philip Brunelle and Music two weeks ago. Good news, the episode is now streaming (Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon, TuneIn, Stitcher)—just before Philip heads to Istanbul for the 2023 World Choral Symposium. If you’ve ever been curious about the business of being a choral director, this one is for you. By the way, choral direction is really just three things: Rhythm (i.e. you might spend the first few rehearsals with your choir just humming the rhythms of a piece), then Notes and finally Words.
I’ve also had the opportunity to share and refine Generatively Better a few times now. This is the one-hour class designed to help marketing leaders and teams leverage AI-generative technologies. And there’s a CEO-specific iteration of the class launching in three weeks.
Then there’s the brand campaign coming to fruition for one client. And a series of coaching steps coming together for another. A series of videos coming into production. And preliminary interviews for potential opportunities. Today I count 19 Post-Its keeping this life organized enough. One of them is a reminder the 16 year old’s band has a show this evening and he goes on at… 12 a.m.? 🙄
Meanwhile, I am hopeful my MCAD students have made progress on Assignment 1. At this point, I would have wanted the Why solved enough, and initial ideas on the table. But every creative person has their own pace.
Next week the students will present their work. We’ll get briefed on Assignment 2 (“Retain Loyalty”) and we’ll welcome the amazing CEO of The Brandlab, Kelli Williams, to class.