Artists and designers around the globe are building communities in their cities, encouraging creative growth.

My obsession, however, is not a television show.  Instead, I’ve spent the past week or so compulsively watching “Creative Mornings” lectures.  If you’re unfamiliar with Creative Mornings—and too many are—it is essentially a monthly lecture series occurring in 47 cities across the globe.  In each city, creative artists of all disciplines gather one morning per month to hear a short lecture from a member of their city’s creative community, followed by an opportunity to mingle and network.

Creative Mornings began in New York City nearly five years ago, the brainchild of designer Tina Roth Eisenberg.  After attending several professional conferences, she was left with the observation that “they were somewhat elitist and not very accessible.”  On her blog, she has written that she began Creative Mornings because she “wanted something that celebrated local communities that are accessible and free of charge.”

The result has been explosive.  What began as a gathering of designers, thinkers, and entrepreneurs in her Brooklyn studio has now grown into 47 chapters in cities around the world—with five more on the way.  Creative artists of all stripes have participated, and all of the videos are posted at CreativeMornings.com, which has created a global following.

Creative Mornings is exploring what it means to be creative.

Now, back to my obsession.  I’ve long been interested in the creative process.  In this space, I’ve written several columns on creative endeavors, and the fickle nature of inspiration—its tendency to arise without warning, and evade an artist when it’s needed most.  That phenomenon fascinates me.  I consider myself a creative person, but I’m also a man of few talents.  What I lack in artistic ability, I make up for with a passionate appreciation for the arts.  I’m wholly intrigued by street art, photography, graphic design and typography.  I’m a fairly capable writer and poet, but there’s so much more I’d love to learn.  I’ve tried my hand at photography and graphic design, and though I sometimes get lucky, I’ve got a long way to go.

All artists, at some level, are driven by this need to create, and that need often arises in unexpected moments of inspiration.  There appears to be no formula to create that nearly-mystical moment, and what works for one artist might leave another unmoved.  Still, I’m constantly intrigued to hear about what has worked for other artists, what drives them to create.

Creative Mornings fuels that for me.  Each lecture tells a story about an artist, an entrepreneur—someone who doesn’t see the world quite like the rest of us—and explains what led him or her down that path.  There’s a lot to be learned about the creative process through the Creative Mornings videos.  There’s a lot that we can learn from the artists in our midst, the creative community at large.

In the coming weeks and months, I’d like to explore that a little further.  But right now, I’ve got another video to watch.

Originally printed in “Pulse,” 06/06/2013.
© Damien Willis, 2013.  All rights reserved.

It’s no secret that the brand is struggling.

For instance, 24/7 Wall St.predicted the collapse of MySpace in its 2011 story about brands that wouldn’t survive 2012.  Just a week after that article was released, News Corp sold the once-great social network to Justin Timberlake and Tim Vanderhook.  In 2013, MySpace is still hobbling along, still trying to reinvent itself.  (24/7 Wall St., for its part, saw this as an accurate forecast—since MySpace no longer existed in its previous form.  I won’t deny them that small victory.)

That being said, I suspect that any high school student in 2011 could have told you that MySpace’s future wasn’t particularly bright.  That year,24/7 Wall St.also predicted the imminent demise of Sears (and its subsidiary, Kmart), and despite store closures nationwide, the brands remain.  The editors also predicted that Kellogg’s Corn Pops would not survive 2012.  The cereal did survive, and even added a new variation—Cinnamon Corn Pops.

With last year’s list,24/7 Wall St.nailed a little more than half of their predictions.  They accurately predicted the demise of Current TV, Suzuki, and MetroPCS.  They posited that American Airlines would fall, and it probably would have, if not for the merger with U.S. Airways.  They botched their predicted collapse of Avon, the Oakland Raiders, and Salon, however.

If there’s a shocker on this year’s list, it might be Nook.

So their track record, though not embarrassing, is a little spotty.  Still, I’d argue that the annual predictions are useful and interesting.  The report is often picked up by mainstream media outlets, and it’s often the first time the average American consumer becomes aware that a brand is not doing well.  Unless you follow the quarterly earnings reports and track market shares and profit margins, you might be blissfully unaware that a brand is struggling.

If there’s a “MySpace” on this year’s list, it’s probably J.C. Penney.  It’s no secret that the brand is struggling.  Revenue has fallen almost 25 percent in the past year, and online sales are down 33 percent.  The brand was recently damaged with the “no-sales” PR fiasco, and the business minds at 24/7 Wall St.say “there is absolutely no reason to believe that J.C. Penney’s prospects will improve.”

The biggest shocker on the list, to my mind, was Nook—Barnes & Noble’s e-reader.   I suppose I didn’t realize the stranglehold that tablets were putting on dedicated e-readers, or that Amazon’s Kindles had left Nook in their dust.  According to Quantcast, a company that quantifies web traffic, Amazon gets more than 130 million visitors a month, while Barnes & Noble is only drawing about 6 million.  It’s incredibly hard to compete when you’ve got that kind of disadvantage.

Two magazines made the list of brands that are not expected to survive 2014—Road & Track, and Martha Stewart Living Magazine, though the merchandising arm of Stewart’s brand remains strong.  Two car manufacturers, Volvo and Mitsubishi, are predicted to cease American operations. Olympus, Leap Wireless, LivingSocial and the WNBA also made this year’s list.

If 24/7 Wall St.’s track record holds, four or five of these brands could pull off the improbable.  Some may get saved in a merger, others may fold.  But if these brands are near and dear to you, we’ve reached a critical mass, and the time to support them is now.

Originally printed in “Pulse,” 05/30/2013.
© Damien Willis, 2013.  All rights reserved.

Late last week, a relatively popular new app called Bang With Friends was booted from the Apple App Store.  While an official explanation has not yet been issued—well, some speculate it may have been on moral grounds.  Bang With Friends is a fairly new app that allows you to discreetly decide which of your Facebook friends you’d like to share a casual sexual encounter with.  If a friend that you choose is also using the app, and also chooses you, you’re both alerted via e-mail and can go about arranging the encounter.  In short, it’s a “friends with benefits” app that sidesteps any potential rejection.

Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert applied his unique brand of satire to the subject recently.

Bang With Friends is still available on Facebook and Android, and there’s a web version as well.  The app has been an overnight success, boasting over a million users in just a few months.  While very little anecdotal evidence exists to determine just how well Bang With Friends works in practice, users are clearly intrigued with the concept.  Critics of app suggest that it promotes loose morals, and—well, I suppose it doesn’t take a mighty imagination to figure out what the critics would be critical of.

And maybe they’re right; maybe Bang With Friends is morally reprehensible.  Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert applied his unique brand of satire to the subject recently:  “Folks, this is a slippery slope.  Today it’s ‘Bang With Friends,’ tomorrow it’s ‘This Was A Huge Mistake With Friends.’ Then ‘I Feel Really Awkward With Friends,’ and finally, ‘I Have No Friends With Friends.’”

But what happens when we take the “Bang With Friends” model and strip away the casual sex component?  Some are suggesting that it could begin to revolutionize social interaction.  A recent article on TheVerge.com explores the potential of  Bang With Friends’ premise, applying it to other aspects of our life that we might not be willing to share openly.

Let’s pretend that you’re a perfectly well-adjusted adult who happens to love Dungeons & Dragons.

For instance, let’s pretend that you’re a perfectly well-adjusted adult who happens to love Dungeons & Dragons, or SpongeBob, or Yanni.  These may not be things that you’d openly boast on your Facebook page, because of the assumptions people might make about you.  But what if there was an app like Bang With Friends—a sort of umbrella app that allowed you to privately share the things you would otherwise keep to yourself?  And what if your friends did the same thing, and the app alerted you when a friend shared the same embarrassing interest?

It seems safe to assume that we all have these sorts of passions that we aren’t quick to share publicly.  Therefore, certainly there are common interests that we share and never discuss.  Such an app would make that safe.

Think what you may about Bang With Friends, but its double-blind approach could serve the world of social networking well.  Whether or not an app developer will seize this opportunity remains to be seen, but the idea has already begun to circulate.  In this world of startlingly-quick technological advances, I wouldn’t be surprised if such an app appears over the horizon.

Originally printed in “Pulse,” 05/23/2013.
© Damien Willis, 2013.  All rights reserved.

The Great Record Industry Freak-Out became evident fifteen years ago, in the days of Napster, and it has never completely recovered.  I won’t beat that dead horse too much this week.  Instead, I want to address something that has been making the rounds on the social networks.  It’s loosely related, and might play into that narrative a little, but examines the problem from a uniquely different angle.

Dave Grohl recently ignited a fire with some of his thoughts on American Idol.

Dave Grohl, the iconic Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman, has recently received a lot of attention for something he said in the March issue of Delta’s Sky Magazine.   “When I think about kids watching a TV show like American Idol or The Voice, then they think ‘Oh, okay, that’s how you become a musician.  You stand in line for eight f****** hours with 800 people at a convention center and then you sing your heart out for someone and then they tell you it’s not f****** good enough.’  Can you imagine?  It’s destroying the next generation of musicians!  Musicians should go to a yard sale and buy an old f****** drum set and get in their garage and just suck.  And get their friends to come in and they’ll suck, too.  And then they’ll f****** start playing and they’ll have the best time they’ve ever had in their lives and then, all of a sudden, they’ll become Nirvana.  Because that’s exactly what happened with Nirvana.  Just a bunch of guys that had some [crappy] old instruments and they got together and started playing some noisy-ass s***, and they became the biggest band in the world.  That can happen again!  You don’t need a f****** computer or the Internet or The Voice or American Idol.”

Everyone responds to Grohl’s assertion a little differently.  Some believe that it rings with profundity.  One incredibly smart friend of mine—a fan of The Voice—thought that it reeked of elitism, suggesting that the only way to “make it” was the way that Grohl’s bands did it.  I can certainly see both sides, but I don’t believe that our reality-show culture—and, more specifically, the televised auditions—teach would-be musicians that it’s okay to “suck,” and that practice and persistence can pay off.

I’m not so quick to dump all of the responsibility on the singing shows.

But I’m not so quick to dump all of the responsibility on the singing shows.  I think that the record label deserve some of the credit for their own shortcomings.  It’s easy to watch these shows from the comfort of your living room and scout for talent.  It’s easy to offer a recording contract to the latest YouTube sensation.  It’s more difficult to scour the nightclubs of Seattle, or comb though hundreds of demos, and see the potential in the next Nirvana.

With that being said, I think that it’s important for aspiring singers and musicians—artists of every cloth, for that matter—to remember that no failure should be final.  Even if Mariah Carey tells you that you don’t have what it takes, it’s okay to go back to your garage and keep honing your craft.  It’s just another audition, another rejection—and another reason to keep practicing.

Clearly, I don’t have a lot of faith in the music industry.  I think it’s guided by bad intuition, built on a dysfunctional business model, and has become a culture of laziness and greed.  On the whole, I think it’s risk-adverse, and stifles creativity while promoting homogeneity.  And, quite frankly, I believe that the reality TV shows groom artists to succeed in that culture—a culture that serves no one well.

Originally printed in “Pulse,” 05/16/2013.
© Damien Willis, 2013.  All rights reserved.

Reading and literacy have always been important to me.  So when I first learned of a new trend that has begun to take root over the past year or two, I was intrigued.  All across the country, Little Free Libraries have been springing up, part of a coordinated initiative to improve access to literature and encourage reading.

Little Free Libraries encourage literacy.

These miniature libraries are generally just a little larger than a mailbox—although designs vary.  They are generally weatherproof, and big enough to hold about twenty books.  Little Free Libraries operate on the honor system.  You’re welcome to take a book, read it, and return it to the library from which you borrowed it.  Most are installed at the edges of private property, adjacent to sidewalks for easy accessibility without having to secure all of the permits that would be required to erect one in a public space.  They are in often in residential neighborhoods, sometimes near schools or churches, and are available to all.

I first learned of Little Free Libraries a couple years ago, but at the time, they were very few and far between.  Nearly all of them were built by private homeowners, and the effort was not exactly a coordinated one.  About six weeks ago, I visited some friends in Portland,Oregon, where I first laid eyes on an actual Little Free Library; I had completely forgotten about them, honestly, until I saw one for myself.

Then, last week, I saw a story in “The New York Times” about a joint effort between the PEN World Voices Festival and the Architectural League of New York.  This past Saturday afternoon (May 4), they installed ten intricately designed Little Free Libraries—created by the Architectural League—acrossNew York City.  The libraries, assuming they aren’t vandalized or stolen, are scheduled to stand until September 1, when they’ll be taken down for the winter.

Reading and literacy have always been important to me.

As it turns out, New York City only had one Little Free Library before this installation.  (It was a self-installed location in Brooklyn.)  Portland, by contrast, has dozens scattered across the city—so many, in fact, that Portland’s “Oregonian” recently ran a satirical piece on the societal ills presented by the ever-growing number of Little Free Libraries.

This made me wonder if Las Cruces had any Little Free Libraries that I might have missed, or failed to notice, so I directed my browser to LittleFreeLibrary.org—the website that tracks, facilitates and coordinates the increasing network of libraries.  As it turns out, we don’t have any.  The nearest one is in Canutillo, and El Paso has about twenty-five.  As for the rest of New Mexico: Santa Fe has two, and Albuquerque, Los Alamos, and Carrizozo each have one.

If you are interested in establishing a Little Free Library, you can find out more at LittleFreeLibrary.org.  (And if you’re not much for building your own, you can order readymade libraries there, as well.)  It seems to me like a really cool way of improving our community, and if you should decide to install one, I’d like to write a follow-up column about it—and I might even donate a few of my beloved books to get it started!

Originally printed in “Pulse,” 05/09/2013.
© Damien Willis, 2013.  All rights reserved.

Pleyer has been shooting portraits and landscapes for thirty years.  He has perfected the art form; he knows all of the tips and tricks to capture a beautiful photograph.  He understands what makes a camera great, and knows how to unleash its full potential.

*  *  *  *  *

One of the photos Pleyer took with his smartphone

For years, I’ve been interested in photography, and have always wanted to learn the ins and outs.  I’m not much of a photographer, but sometime I luck into a good shot.  Recently, I made the commitment to begin relying less on luck and more on knowledge.
As I’ve mentioned before in this space, it isn’t hard to learn about something when you decide to do it.  In the digital age, we have a wealth of information at our fingertips.  So I made the commitment to begin educating myself on aperture settings and exposures, ISOs and f-stops, metering and white balance and all the rest.

A couple weeks ago, I went out and bought a new thousand-dollar camera—a state-of-the-art DSLR, capable of almost anything.  I brought it home, and started reading up on it.  I’m no expert, but I’ve learned a little in the past couple weeks.  And I’ve committed to learning a lot more.

*  *  *  *  *

  And then, last weekend, I learned about Alfred Pleyer.  Alfred was a finalist in the Mobile Photography Awards, an international contest for smartphone photography.  Recently, Alfred has been relying more and more on his cell phone when traveling abroad.  And he’s discovered that he can capture some great shots on his Android.

Another Android photo of Pleyer’s…

In fact, on a trip to Italy last year, Pleyer carried a large backpack full of camera equipment—yet constantly found himself reaching for his Android to snap photos.  “After one day I was so fascinated that I always wanted to use my phone,” he recently told a blogger.  “For a few days I was confused—I walked around with the camera bag, [but] always used the smartphone.  I could not believe what happened, after 30 years with big cameras, and now I use a crappy smartphone.”

On a few recent trips toIndia, Alfred again carried his trusty camera bag, but took 95 percent of his photos on his Android.  I emailed Pleyer—who is in India again this week on a photo shoot—and, again, he’s shooting on his smartphone.  “I’m using my smartphone because it’s easy to carry,” he told me.  It fits in my pocket and I’m not recognized as a photographer.”

Alfred uses the ProCapture app for his Galaxy S3.  The full-featured version will run you $1.99, but a free version is also available.  Both are incredibly comprehensive, allowing you to tweak the shutter speed and aperture settings, with several handy presets for point-and-shoot convenience.  It can also stitch together as many as twelve hi-res photos for the widest panoramic shot you’ve ever seen.

I began using the free version this week, and the quality and controls are stunning.  It’s incredibly easy to use—even for a novice like me.  And the on-screen display shows you exactly what you’ll get when you snap the photo.

Pleyer edits his mobile photos with Snapseed, which isn’t compatible with my S2, but there are scores of available photo-editing apps that are.  He told me that he enjoys shooting on his phone because he can immediately edit and share his photos.  “My smartphone is kind of a like a Swiss Army Knife for me,” he said.

Alfred has mentioned that he’s considering selling his camera equipment if he continues to rely so heavily on his Android.  “If it works again and I am satisfied with my smartphone, I will probably sell my gear and use my smartphone for all of my photography.”

Originally printed in “Pulse,” 02/21/2013.
© Damien Willis, 2011.  All rights reserved.