What gets you thinking creatively?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the need to have more time spent away from the normal timesinks that define our working lives. Getting more dead time. Daydreaming time. Doodling time.
My main ways:
1. DaydreamingI had 10 hours of driving time on Friday. That’s the perfect environment for me to get some thinking done, I’m unable to escape to the digital tethers of mobile phone or computer, and reading a book isn’t possible. Therefore I think, and seemingly unrelated patterns start to become apparent from different projects, people and initiatives that I’m involved in.
This fits in with an article I read on Fast Company recently, “Hard Work’s Overrated, Maybe Detrimental“.
“By most measures, we spend about a third of our time daydreaming, yet our brain is unusually active during these seemingly idle moments. Left to its own devices, our brain activates several areas associated with complex problem solving, which researchers had previously assumed were dormant during daydreams. Moreover, it appears to be the only time these areas work in unison.”
Honestly, I don’t do this daydreaming stuff enough, I need to do it more. My goal is to untether myself from my iPhone and books more often. Some of my best ideas last year came from an airplane flight where I forgot my book and my iPhone was dead, leaving me with 5 hours an pen and a notebook…
2. DoodlingI used to draw a lot, but about 7-8 years ago I just kind of stopped. I’m determined to get started again, even if it is just doodling spaceships in a notebook.
Closely related to doodling is finding crazy, yet professional and cool, images that inspire me to strange thoughts. Case in point…
Good blogs to follow for occasional posts with reams of these types of images are InstantShift or Smashing Magazine.
How about you?I’m very interested in hearing how others get their creative juices flowing. At some point we all have to shake up the norm, the status quo, in our lives or work. Is there a way that you do this purposefully?
Last weekend there was a live screencast of the 
TICAD IV
TICAD
I’m finally back after a 6 month hiatus from blogging and I want to start by addressing a very nagging question but I’ll get to that in just a moment. No doubt you’ve experienced social networking in one form or another (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, Twitter etc etc), and if you haven’t you’d better quit living in the 90’s. It’s all about creating and sharing information with friends, colleagues and basically everyone. The last 3 years especially have been witness to an explosive growth in the size and influence of these social networks. “Individuals finally have the power” - wow! (btw, that wow is supposed to be sarcastic).
These appear to be more than the normal sale-type jobs that they have hired for in the past. Particularly, I’m interested in the one that has to do with mapping. It’s interesting that Google finally thinks that’s worth doing better in Africa. (hat tip 
I’ve started to contribute (sporadically) to a new website called Thought Leader out of South Africa. Here I talk about the problems that we face in Africa with regard to running businesses online. There are no real payment and merchant options that fit the needs of Africans. 
Four of the AfriGadget editors descended upon Limuru, Kenya to visit the 
I think I’ve just about had it with these environmentalists and would love to tell them to stick their hypocritical message up their rear. Ask them to give up their cars and heated homes and you’ll be all alone in the room. Global Warming is the new Con - if you open your eyes, you’ll see that this is driven purely by marketing. I actually gave ExxonMobil credit for not pretending to be a ‘Green’ company like BP or Shell - the main purveyors of oil, the root of all our ‘problems’. Pumping gas at a BP, I noticed their new tagline, ‘Beyond Petroleum’ — ??? Ha! Give me a break.
I entered into the 