Cultivating Creativity Through Imagination

By Walt Carvalho

I enjoy reading. I always have. While growing up I would be involved in the regular activities along with the other kids but I also always looked forward to the trip we would make to the local library.

Through the years I’ve read many books. I can remember reading about sports legends, famous people, mystical distant lands, just to name a few. It always presented worlds to me through the power of the written word.

As I got older the reading became more serious. It gave me more information on topics of interest. It gave me opportunities of growth and understanding. It helped me build as well as repair. It gave me tools.

The online social environment we share today, that is accessible through digital platforms, provides us with great amounts of content. There are new authors sprouting up every minute with stories to tell and experiences to share. It’s nice to find an author, either in book or online form, who is able to spark ones imagination.

Through the practice of imagining we cultivate creativity. As we cultivate creativity we begin to open the door of fresh ideas and having the power to bring to life things that are new. Give your imagination a workout everyday. Find whatever it is that makes it come to life. Use it as a great gift.

There are many social tools available online for us today. The magic really happens when those tools are mixed with creativity and imagination.

The Circa 1992 Phone Tree

By Walt Carvalho

Chris the local little league coach has just gotten a call from the league president. Apparently a tree had fallen because of high winds the night before. The sixty two foot sycamore was lying across Chris’s opponents baseball field. It is now 8:22am. Chris now has a problem. He is scheduled to meet his team for their playoff game fifty two miles from home at 10:00am to meet and warm-up. The first pitch is scheduled for 10:45am.

Now Chris is realizing that the clock is ticking. To make a growing problem even worse the president notifies him that due to schedule restraints the game time cannot change. The final piece to this puzzle is a new game location. It is a ballpark Chris has never been to before, twelve miles further than the original field and it’s in a different town.

Special problems require special solutions! He needed to notify his entire team quickly before they left home. Chris goes quickly to his handy notebook and retrieves the home phone number for his team mom Sarah. She is the leader of The Phone Tree! The phone tree system was used mainly to reduce the time of one person on the phone calling everyone. Instead, it was created like a chain. The first person (Sarah) would call two people and they would call their two people and so on, till everyone got the message. Good in theory, not always in practice.

You see, not everyone had cell phones in 1992. Phone calls were generally made on landlines. If someone on the chain was not home to answer the call they were generally left uninformed. It still created time-consuming work to confirm who got the message and who didn’t. Communication without a cell phone was then lost once they left home. Is there any doubt as to the problems that could come out of such an antiquated system? As the number of participants grew in this format the problems increased.

So the question today is; Why then is it that with all that is available to us in the form of communication, many of us still think of things with a phone tree mentality? Why don’t some of us begin taking advantage of all the possibilities to not only link better to each other, but to also share and grow? Today Coach Chris and Team Mom Sarah could have done a lot more in a lot less time.

What are you missing by living with a phone tree mentality?

Social Media: Breaking the Sleep Cycle

By Walt Carvalho

Let’s talk habits. Good habits. Bad habits. We all have them, some more than others.

Habits are protected and maintained. I’m sure you heard this or something similar:
“I always eat dinner at 6pm sharp!” or “It’s Happy Hour!” or “I need that cup of coffee first thing in the morning!”

Maybe you or someone you know will do the following: Get to work and find many parking spaces available but will still park in the same one you have every day for the last seven years!

It’s time for dinner and you sit in the same chair at your dining room table as you’ve done for countless dinners before!

You are free to go for a walk anywhere you wish but you choose the same route you have walked many times before. Yes my friends that is us being habitual.

We even repeat greetings and responses such as “Hi. How are you?” Answer: “I am fine, and you?”
Household chores have become no different “I always cut the front lawn before I cut the back!”
The lists go on and on and on. Filling our precious life with habits.

We all have habits. They are the places we can go to sleep. It’s where we can turn our minds off for a little while and just cruise on autopilot. It’s where creativity, zest and growth momentarily stop. It’s a place of in-between. It’s a place that protects us from change. It is that place where repetition is our master.

Our social media landscape has developed, through recent years, as a source of creative thinking and exchange. Many of the old habits of doing business are finding it harder and harder to continue on its same road. Decisions to grow are being made by some, while the rejection of letting go to old habits is the plan for others. Awakening from sleep and the ability to grow is what matters most in these times.

Those who are awake will go out and harvest while the others sleep.

Social Media vs. The Television Time-Out

By Walt Carvalho

Is it my imagination or is there disconnect between posted air times and posted recording times in the television world today?

Have you noticed a recent trend of posting the programs start time and ending to television programming? It seems, for some unexplainable reason that if you record a show or game lately the very end of the program is never recorded. Hmmm. Interesting isn’t it? Could it be that it is our punishment for not sitting through the entire process live and in HD? Could it be that television is starting to feel the impact of the social media experiences in all of our lives? Can it be that the television broadcast foundation is being diminished?

Someone should let our broadcast friends know that you can’t grow an audience with punishment and take-aways.

You grow an audience with value and trust. We now speak to each other in our world today. There are fewer people today who want to be just talked at!

The Next 60 Years in Advertising

Another great presentation from Paul Isakson

Social Media: It's Not What You Say That Matters

View more documents from Paul Isakson.

http://wearesocial.net/blog/2009/09/matters/

Here We Go Again!

By Walt Carvalho

You know, in taking the time (which is always a pleasure) to talk with people, some very interesting patterns have begun to surface. There seems to be a well-defined line being drawn in the sand today, a very clear launching point, a new beginning.

There are those who look at what there is to lose, while there are others who see the opportunities laid before them and reach yet further to attain their goals. There are those who seem to rise in times like this and those that run for cover. There are companies, which thrive in these conditions, which we all face. For instance does a company like Nike only ask; how much will it cost? Or do they also ask; what can it do for us? We are talking vision! Does a business like Apple ask; how much should we cut back? Or do they ask; what is our next great creation? We are talking innovation! The list goes on and on of companies like these two examples, pushing forward while others hold back and wait!

So what is the pattern here? Well I guess that line in the sand is like dividing two runners. One runs to, while the other runs from.

So here we go again!
Yes there was a time even tougher than today. The Great Depression was the hardest of times for many. As we step back to view this catastrophe, we come to realize one extraordinary fact. The years following till now were some of the most remarkable years ever! The years following the Depression were filled with innovation beyond people’s wildest dreams. We had amazing discoveries in medicine, science and engineering. We traveled through space and even landed men on the moon. We explored the depths of our oceans, while flight took us around the world.

Things came and went. It seems like over time everything got smaller yet was able to accomplish the same task if not even better than it did before. We have witnessed an amazing transformation since the Depression.

So now, as we look at the changes to our landscape in how we live, work and communicate we find information is everywhere. We have discovered the most powerful communication structure ever! Our media is no longer having us only talked at. It is now a time we all talk to each other as well.

So here we go again!
It’s time for innovation, discovery and the creation of many new and exciting new ways of doing things. It’s time to be that runner that runs towards his dreams not the runner who runs in fear!