SCABs

Simplicity helps with relevance – By @decadokhan

Tomasz Wojcik

By Tomasz Wojcik

 

Simplicity helps with relevance

 

We are approaching Christmas.  Year-long anticipation is in the air. All people I know prepare in one way or the other to relax and meet with families on this very special time. Long queues in the shops, malls and alike. The rush is on.  Our pace increases as we move closer to the deadline then it slows down until standstill at the fortnight. Ah, the feeling of approaching Christmas.

Surprisingly, I don’t feel much of it. Being away from home does not help but should not prove a severe impediment neither. I did not quite understand the emotional package I was carrying for the last couple of weeks. It appears that SCAB duty helped me with realization that the upcoming Christmas is quite different than any I had in the past. It feels awkwardly empty since SCA fills me up this year. It is a feeling of a complete submergence in a new, brave dimension of my life. Don’t get me wrong I will wholeheartedly enjoy meeting my family for that occasion. There will be a slight twist on my part though. I will be deeply thinking of SCA during those happy family gatherings. Instead of Xmas reflection I will feed my head with SCA reflection. More than that actually. I will be improving my craft skills, my strategy, planning and variety of different things that contribute to better idea development, and how to present and execute it properly. And feasting on advertising books rather than food this year, I promise.

I have learnt couple of important lessons in the past two weeks. I’d like to sum up my reflections and experiences from the last PB2 based on a few famous quotes working as a reference point.

Here it goes:

“Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.”

“If you wait for inspiration to write; you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.”

Last brief was the time where I worked the most on a brief so far. However, I’ve learnt it the hard way that the more time I spent on research and topic exploration, the more tedious it was for me to move further in idea development and execution. Endless of pages filled with ink producing no results. Acknowledge that and move along when the gut tells you.

“Libraries are full of ideas–perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”

I have not visited the library during PB2. Not even once. This has to change. Do more real research. Don’t let Internet be your only source if info.

“That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.”

There is a moment when ideas hit you. And that is all dandy. The problem appears when you force yourself on developing them. Instead, try to treat them with a reserve and feed them bit by bit. A little. Just like cats. They will return for more.

“Ideas are like legs: what good are they if you can’t run with them, or spread them?”

Some of ideas that you develop are just not worth pursuing. They bloom in your head but are somehow detached from real life. Abandon them as fast as possible. Move to the next. Check the applicability factor at early stage.

Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.”

Indeed, the execution is the struggle. The right way to do it is the simple way and the simple way seems much more relevant. The more you overthink it, the more convoluted your output becomes. KISS.

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”

Some of those ideas you have are usually naughtier and feel unruly. They are the brats of your creative process. And sometimes it feels that these ideas could make a difference. Spark the change. Embrace it, hold it in your arms for a while longer before you kill it.

“Always carry a notebook. Or a recorder. Or both. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.”

Don’t really know how many ideas can you have through the day but I daresay quite a few. Write them down or record them. They will wait for you until you need them.

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

Work hard and harder. It never hurts more than a failure.

 

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