"Party on, Wayne." (Wayne's World)

How many activities can a human brain consciously perform at one time? I once heard it was around 7 things. Right now the activities going on in my head are:
Typing and the mechanics involved in that.
Watching what I type and absorbing peripheral vision.
Listening to my typing, people approaching my cube, other office noises.
Thinking about this immediate post, and thinking about what my next project is.
Eating and breathing; basic life activities.

And that's all right now. It's not even 7 activities. If someone breaks into a varying discussion nearby that I can hear, that begins to infiltrate my activities. If a phone rings, it jumps into the list.

I would say I'm at my limit with 5. Any more and I get distracted and lose my concentration on the task at hand. Conversations are the worse for me. I break what I'm doing, dive into the conversation, then move onto projects associated with the conversation, ignoring the earlier, and ultimately unfinished, project.

Some call the ability to do all those things (and sometimes more) "multi-tasking" but I've read some opinions that multi-tasking actually makes people take longer to accomplish projects. I like to hunker down and go through projects; I like having a tangible project at the end of the day.

"Where does he get such wonderful toys?" (Batman ('89))

Here's a brief rundown of some stuff and how we do it (or don't do it)

1. Print small quantities in-house (usually 500 or less)
2. Order from online vendors like overnightprints.com
3. Use blogger and utilize feedburner
4. Use professional-grade programs (cause we are professionals) like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Final Cut. (Gimp is free for a Photoshop-style app)
5. Avoid Publisher, Clip Art, Word Art. Like the plague.
6. Buy a domain for $10, through Google and use Google Apps for our email, online documents, instant messenger.

Ahem...Announcing...Musical Guest...

Falling Up will be performing at the November Fuel! WhooHooooooo!

And one of my Amazon.com books came in yesterday: 101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques. Where's my other one Mr. Bezos?

In passing, I saw a promotional tool today that is not very clear. No date, just a titled day, which was confusing enough. And the location of the event was a very busy street. And the event was for children. Hmmm. Not exactly the best of ideas.

"There's a mystical bond between a man and his machine." (Transformers)

Creative block? What are ways around it? I ordered a couple of books from Amazon.com to help. Reading blogs of other creative people? Surf YouTube?

I tend to stay away from straight jacking someone's idea or creative element. Sometimes you just have to. Although I would rather spend a few days trying to think of an alternative.

To come up with a truly creative element, I think we have to widen our creative perspective. For lack of better term, our "sphere of acceptability." That means come up with ideas you know are too expensive, too technical, too offensive, too cheesy, etc.

Creative ideas that are lasting and have a "WOW" effect fall in this category. Apple "1984", Honda "Cog", Pets.com "Puppet" are examples of this. Of course, everything you produce can't be up to this standard. But it's where you start.

"Paint the fence, Daniel-san." (The Karate Kid)

Number 1: I've had a week to calm down. Apparently Will Smith's production company is obtaining, or has obtained, rights to remake an American Cinema Classic: The Karate Kid. And who will be starring as Daniel LaRusso? Jaden Smith. Who, Mr. Smith, will play Mr. Miyagi, since Pat Morita has passed? Chow Yun-Fat? Mako? Like I said before: Is there nothing sacred anymore?!

Number 2: After a few weeks of new television, and new series, I'll chime in with my thoughts, mainly for NBC shows, since ABC and CBS are tripping over their dial-up phone cords on providing an adequate Internet viewer.

Life: Good show, similar to last year's Raines, and we all know where that went. Hopefully NBC will keep it a bit longer.
Journeyman: No wonder Sci-Fi didn't pick it up. Too lame for even them.
Chuck: Funny, not hilarious, but still kinda funny. Adam Baldwin (no relation) is funny as the "bad" good guy.
Bionic Woman: A wonderful, well-produced TV show. For TBS. On a good day.

Right to bear arms - t-shirt

Regional Reach Teams(RRT) started this week. Across the board it was a successful launch. We are still working on getting everyone plugged into a RRT and utilizing our new database management software.

In the creative mode for coming up with a theme for our Christmas series and one we're going with in November.

It's going to be awesome. Once people stop to think about it, the theme will make complete sense.