I have heard a lot of people say things along the lines of “I’m really good/interested at X, but I can’t seem to get inspired to do X” or “I’m waiting for inspiration to strike” or one of a hundred other, similar quotes that all boil down to the same thing: They are *waiting* for something to happen *to them* in order to be creative. I know exactly what that’s like, but I think by breaking through this, it’s making me a better creator.

Things inspire me every day, but I used to ignore it or, maybe more accurately, I didn’t really know how to pay attention. Then I stopped waiting for something to strike me and say “THIS HERE!” and instead started asking “WHAT IS IN THIS?” Doing this has changed most days from mundane to magical. There wasn’t some particular moment where I changed, it was just recognizing a pattern of behavior in myself and addressing it. Once in a while, I would get back from a walk or a trip to a museum or market or a night out and feel refreshed and excited. Other times I didn’t, and even when I did, I still usually ended up sitting in front of a screen of some kind, allowing that energy to drain away. The first realization I made is that, by and large, the times I was inspired were when I was connecting with the world around me, seeing and hearing and conversing, thinking and sketching and investigating. The second realization is that the difference between the times I connected with the world and those when I did not was largely a state-of-mind, something within myself, and something I can control. This had led me to the strong belief that if I seek inspiration, I will find it. Everywhere. All the time.

And I do.

While in New York, I finally attended MoMA which was a fantastic experience and I have a lot of notes and snapshots to review later. The people, the stores, the smells – it all inspired me in different ways. Architectural elements became jewelry in my head. Plants on the High Line were sculptures and some of the most revered art in the world left me flat from 10 feet away, but woke me up to the amazing minutia in brush strokes.

This morning — a gorgeous, sunny spring day — I looked for inspiration as I walked to my studio. I often find focusing on a single type of stimulus works best for me, and I’m a visual guy, so I was, basically, paying attention to anything that caught my eye. I’m playing with architectural influences so my eye was drawn to buildings and details, like an excellent molding design that I think I can use and an interesting set of arches that attached together a bit too soon and had a wonderful truncated look which should be useful to think about. Since I’m also working with illumination in some of my work, the way the silica flakes in the concrete sidewalks flashed and flickered with reflected sunlight gave me some ideas about random flickering and how to recreate it. Trees, ever a source of inspiration for me, caught my eye more than once and I “found” a new, magnificent oak, five stories tall that brought on a true sense of awe. (I’ve walked that stretch of road dozens of times and never noticed it, but I’m sure to most times in the future!)

This is all to say that I now LOOK for inspiration and I accept it from everything around me. Sure, there will be times when I have blocks in areas or feel uninspired, but there will never have to be a time that I stop and WAIT for inspiration unless I’m choosing to do so. Just this morning, I had seven exciting flashes of inspiration just walking to work, and I have more pages of notes to look through when I’m designing something new.

That references the an entire additional part of this puzzle, and would classify as realization number three: If I don’t *do* anything with the things that inspire me, what’s the point? But that’s an entire post of its own.

Today, I had a professional, therapeutic massage. The experience was one of my best, with a therapist who was not afraid to really lay on the pressure and who had a laser-guided precision in her strokes. While the specific act of having a massage is, I can finally admit, important to my overall well-being, it’s the idea that taking care of my body is a necessary thing for me to do. As I sit here creating today, I find that I am more focused, less distracted, happier, more energetic and generally just more excited to be doing just what I was doing yesterday. I have taken the time to care for my body for a change, and it has highlighted the need for more attention to be paid there.

This has also let me realize that I have other parts of me that need time too. My literary and writing interest has, once again, lay dormant for too long and I am itching to write. I have a lot more desire to be social than I once was, and, believe it or not, I have to make time to go to parties and gatherings. A lot of my life, I’ve kept my sexuality in a bottle, but that, too, is important to embrace and care for as needed. My wardrobe, cleaning around the house, correspondence with friends – you name it.

I used to look at lists like this and become overwhelmed with the time and effort involved just in keeping up, but these days I look at it differently. Taking care of these parts of my life allow me to connect with my primary passions much more fully and effectively. Staying healthy lets me work more. Staying connected with my friends inspires me to create more. Spending time with my sexual partners keeps me more focused when I’m working and dressing the way I want to dress makes me more confident in all aspects of my life. And the feeling of going home to a clean, organized home cannot be understated. Caring for all the facets of my life isn’t a chore, it’s just part of being a fiercely creative person.

Ads wrap all around this bus - and likely every surface inside. Flickr user hercwad

Why I say Marketing and Advertising

These are different but interconnected activities and phenomenon. I think it’s important to enforce the distinction between them.
The term Advertising, in my book, refers to observable public announcements of a product or service. This can include all manner of physical manifestations, from TV commercials and web ads to sponsorship messages and skywriting. Advertising is a pervasive part of our society. Here in America, we see hundreds advertisements every day.
Marketing, to me, is a larger collection of activities which include creating a desire for a product or service, providing opportunities to act on that desire, managing competition for customers, and communicating publicly and privately with potential (and sometimes current) customers. Marketing includes advertising, but it also includes many other activities – some of which are nearly the exact opposite of advertising, attempting to influence us not publicly but rather very quietly, nearly invisibly. A store display announcing a new brand of soap is clearly advertising. Waxing fruits to make them look brighter and more appealing is not advertising, but is surely still a marketing activity.

I think it’s important to make it clear that Marketing and Advertising are not the same thing, primarily so that we don’t lose sight of what kinds of non-advertising marketing we are subject to. Advertising is (often) easy to spot and, therefore, easier to build some immunity against (but not really – more on that later) but the broader marketing activities which are harder to see nonetheless effect us deeply and have an eery presence in our daily lives.

Money, money, money!! Flickr user Tddy's

Advertising costs us money

I believe advertising-supported products and services are some of the most expensive things we have in our society. We have come to rely upon “free” TV, email, magazines, web services and more which are supported by advertising. This model has been working for decades for publishers and content providers and has mushroomed with the pervasive use of the web. Google, one of the richest, most powerful companies on the planet makes nearly 100% of its revenue from advertising while providing numerous “free” services as delivery channels for those ads.
This model works because we, as users of these services and media products, buy things we see in the ads. In fact, we buy enough of that stuff that the content deliverers are able to make enough money to pay for the services they provide to us and turn a nice profit — and the actual manufacturers and sellers of that stuff being advertised STILL make a profit. That means that every time you use, say, $1 of resources from Google, they are making *more* than $1 from the advertising shown to you and the party doing the advertising is *also* making money. This means that, on average, you, personally, are spending well over $1 for every $1 of Google services you use. If it didn’t work like this, no one would be running an ad-supported service or offering ad-supported content. Of course you have generally received other benefit for that $1+ you spent (like a product you purchased) but would you have spent that $1+ at all if you had not been exposed to the advertising for the product?

But the real expense doesn’t come just with the (extremely simplified and extrapolated) dollar-for-dollar concept above. Consider the emotional toll that ads take on each of us – especially considering some of the most effective ads prey on our insecurities and basic instincts to create desire. Consider the amplitude of the marketing messages and how every ad campaign must be loud enough to be heard over the previous campaigns and competitor’s campaigns to be noticed at all. Consider that advertising – messages designed to create desire and crafted to manipulate non-conscious feeling – is considered protected “free speech” because, remember, corporations are people too. And consider many other costs that come with the pervasiveness of advertising and marketing in our society and you can see I have a lot to talk about.

In fact, almost always, I get something like this:

I’m purchasing it for my cousin as a gift.  I’m presently out of town (offshore) so I can’t pick up, but I will offer you $[MORETHANYOUASKED] including shipping expenses via USPS Express Mail to him as he schools in Belgium
Let me know if we can make the transaction asap, and I’ll send the money through my paypal account.
Regards
Susan

So, recently, I’ve starting responding like this:

Oh, wow, that sounds great!  However, I looked into it, and it’s going to cost US $4963.00 to send this ITEM overseas. If you send me that amount, plus the $1750 I’m asking for the ITEM, plus a US $3722.00 packing fee, then once the cashier’s check has cleared (in about 90 days) then I will send the ITEM right out to you!

Let me know if you agree.

I’m hoping I get a bite one of these days and make a nice return on my time…

I have thought about taking one up on their offer some day, and then sending them wet phonebooks instead of the “item” but since I don’t go to great lengths to hide my identity, I just figure that would backfire and find me in trouble. Dang legal system!

~w

That upset me a bit because Cambridge is a very pedestrian-friendly town, the van was in an area that has no less than five crosswalks crossing Mass Ave within about a three block section, and with behavior like that, the driver is going to hurt someone some day. I like to look after my fellow humans, and my righteousness was flaring, so I ducked around the corner where the van was parking and began to write down the number to the plumbing company that the van belongs to along with the license plate. The driver jumped out at that point and began yelling at me, telling me to be sure to tell the company that I jumped out in front of him when I call and that he would have killed me had he tried to slow down since he would have locked up the brakes. Yes, apparently he was unable to slow the vehicle over a 2/3 block distance without locking up the breaks. Honestly, if he thought that it was too rainy for me to be using the crosswalk normally, then doesn’t it follow that it was too rainy for him to be driving so fast as not to be able to safely stop in that distance?

Anyway, at that point he started getting belligerant. He claimed to have a witness who would testify that I jumped in front of him and demanded my name so he could file a police report before the morning. Of course, that is just a waste of resources for a petty situation, so I told him we could just drop the whole thing and leave it be. He would hear none of it and instead called me a douchebag. Yes. A douchebag. It’s funny, he looked older than 12, but I guess not.

I left at that point, unwilling to put up with any more from this silly person. After talking with my husband, I did choose to call his workplace and leave a message, calmly explaining the situation, stating that I was calling them because it was their vehicle that was being driven irresponsibly and dangerously, and mentioning that I would be happy to let the situation pass if the driver would as well. Then I shrugged it all off and headed home. I can’t imagine that anyone of sound mind would make anything of this, but if he choses to do so, I wanted to put down my recollections of the incident while it was fresh.

Now for some pure speculation…

I have no idea what was going on in this guy’s head, but I imagine that he legitimately thought that I was misusing the crosswalk because he was in a situation where he needed to make accommodation for a pedestrian. (comments he made like “I know you pedestrians think you own the road” made it clear where he stands in regards to the most healthy and environmentally friendly mode of transportation we have) I imagine, though, that he quickly realized he was in the wrong when he noticed me taking down the information on his van, and in typical macho-man fashion, chose to embellish, expand, and vigorously defend his story so as to have something to fall back on if he got called on his actions. Unfortunately this is a vicious kind of person – the person who knows he’s wrong but has followed the lie so far that he can’t get out of it. I find these people to defend their positions so irrationally and vehemently as to be scary, impossible to deal with, and dangerous.

I made only one mistake in this entire situation. I gave him my business card when he demanded my name. I have absolutely nothing to hide, and so I should not be worried about this, but, honestly, when dealing with an irrational person like this, I do have some misgivings having given him too much information about myself. It will all work out, of course.

The Obama administration essentially must grant permission for this pipeline and they are likely to do so without a lot of pressure. With the money thrown around by the large corporate stakeholders, it’s essential that those of us who oppose this short-sighted and dangerous project are even louder so that we may be heard.

Late this August and into September, volunteers will be marching and protesting at the White House in an attempt to get President Obama to pay attention to non-corporate, non-profit-driven interests. I was scheduled to go, but my injury has prevented that from happening. I am inviting and encouraging as many others to take action and join in the protests as possible.

Please take a moment and read more about this critical issue here: http://www.tarsandsaction.org/invitation/

There may be some “alarmist” speech on that page, but I, for one, have begun to feel that raising the alarm is no longer premature.

~w

There are a few things you should know about when looking for spaces. (Warning: this could get a little long)

What kind of zoning fits your needs?
This can be a big one, and is going to vary a lot depending on your location and goals. If you are just getting a private space to have a few people share as a studio, lounge, hackerspace, etc. then you may well be able to get by with a residential place. This will generally keep everything cheaper, but you could run into issues with the landlords (who often frown on non-traditional use of residential space), neighbors (people coming and going at odd hours, suspicious of what you are doing, noise complaints), and government agencies (running many businesses out of a residence is illegal, gathering of people for commercial events is problematic, etc.).
A popular co-working facility I know started in a residential area, which served them well for a while. But with their growth and popularity on the rise, friction with the neighbors and landlords have forced them to look for a new space.

How much space do you really need?
Space is a paradox. It simultaneously goes further than you might expect, and is always smaller than you think. It pays to think this one out well. Get too little space, and you won’t have anything better than the corner of your bedroom where your soldering iron is threatening to send the bed up in a blaze. Get too much space and you may not be able to afford it long enough to get your community off its feet.

I highly recommend pulling out a program like Visio, Illustrator, or even just a sheet of graph paper. Mark out a reasonable space, say, 300 square feet. Now measure out some of the average pieces of furniture you would like to have – chairs, couches, desks, workbenches, server racks. Make shapes (either electronically or physically) and arrange things in the space. (Allow for things like doors, clearance for chairs, etc.) This will give you a much better idea of how much space you need and want. Scale up or down the room as needed – and keep in mind, you may not get a single, big rectangle of space, so be prepared for odd corners and niches. (Great for mini lounge areas!)

What amenities do you need?
This is where you decide if you need a bathroom (or if the one down the hall will work), a shower, utility sink, kitchen, lots of windows, no windows, 220V power, and more. There are a lot of things that fall into this list, and it’s easy to go overboard. (Of course we need a full bathroom, kitchen, back yard, porch, parking, hardwood floors, 220V, fiber internet, and a live-in housekeeper!) Prioritize things into “requirement”, “important”, and “nice-to-have” lists. No space is likely to have everything, but you can use this list to evaluate what it does have against other potential spaces. And, depending on the space, landlord, and funds, many of your amenities could be added after you move in.

Where should your space be located?
This can make or break your space. Put your hackerspace down a dirt road four miles from the nearest place to buy coffee and snacks with no parking for visitors and a scary/grimy back alleyway leading to the entrance and you’ve likely doomed yourself from the start. (There are exceptions to this, especially if you have a closed group of people who *like* grimy alleys, like to be left alone, and you aren’t looking at starting a open/public group.)If you live in a car-centric area, make sure you have parking. If you live in a transit-centric area, make sure you are convenient to the bus or subway. If most of your members live on one side of town, don’t put the space on the opposite side. The convenience of getting to/from the space is key in making sure people use it regularly.
I don’t think you can overestimate how important this is. (But it’s all a balancing act – you probably can’t get a floor in a high-rise downtown no matter how convenient it might be!)

What kind of lease are you willing to settle for?
There are a lot more to leases than just the length of the lease term. Residential leases are going to be about the same from place to place in your district, but they all need to be read carefully. (What if they don’t like what you are doing and kick you out on a technicality – are you still responsible for paying for the rest of the lease?) Commercial leases are a different ball of wax and will vary greatly from place to place and landlord to landlord. If you are going with a commercial place, you are probably going to be better off going with a space that you lease directly from a person. They are more likely to work with you to understand your needs and to give you reasonable terms on a lease. Corporate lessors are often more interested in tenants they can put into a pre-defined category (“office workers”, “restaurant” or “manufacturing”) and their leases are often much more strict owing to the army of lawyers who have made their mark on them.
One of the most important things you can understand about commercial leases is the concept of a “Gross Lease” vs “Net Lease” – and the variations between. In the residential lease world, if your stove breaks or toilet leaks, you are used to calling the landlord who (usually) comes and takes care of it. Not necessarily so in the commercial world. Residential leases are usually gross leases which means the landlord takes care of pretty much any expense that arises from the ownership of the property, including repairs and taxes. There are commercial gross leases available. On the other hand, a full net lease could leave the lessee holding the bag for all repairs (regardless of original condition of the property) and even the taxes! Often, you will find leases fall in the middle somewhere, but you should expect to take care of some of the repairs of the space that come up over time yourself – and by that, I mean you foot the bill for the plumber or electrician unless you are *well* qualified to complete such repairs.

Also, a note on pricing terms. You may see commercial spaces advertised at “$25/sf” or “$3/sf” – this usually means “per year” or “per month” depending on the going rates in your area. Once you get a feel for what space is renting for around you, you’ll know at a glance whether they are talking per year or per month rates.

Landlords and listing agents lie in online ads.
Ok, so that’s a bit harsh, but in my experience it’s true more often than not. They aren’t always big lies, but things like the convenience of the location (especially when an address is not supplied), the total square footage, the actual lease payments, and even the city in which the property is located are misrepresented more often than I ever expected. I remember calling on a series of promising properties listed on Craigslist only to find that it was the same property, listed by three different people all likely on commission. That same location varied from 250sf to 600sf and the rent fluctuated by $200 depending on who I was talking to. So, don’t dismiss ads you see, but be prepared for some part of the property to be dissapointing. (Really, this isn’t much different from apartment hunting. At lease commercial listers don’t usually use “cozy home” or “cute apartment” as euphemisms for closets.)

Branch out beyond the online ads.
If your community still has printed papers, check them. Visit real estate agents. Drive/bike/walk through the neighborhoods you are interested in. Non-tech-savvy landlords may be your best find as they may be more willing to deal with you on a person-to-person basis. (I don’t know about you, but I like to be treated like a human.) Keep in mind that going through an agent may mean paying a fee or commission, but that can be worth it if they have the perfect space for you. And these fees can be negotiable – try to get the landlord to foot the bill, split it with you, or lower the rent a bit to compensate.

Check out the property thoroughly and make sure it meets your needs.
Make sure it’s sturdy. Be sure the sinks/toilets work. Check the outlets, A/C, heat and anything else you need and may be responsible for repairing. Make sure it’s going to work for your purposes – big tools generally don’t work well in third-story walk-up wood-framed units from 1902 no matter how beautiful the crown moulding is. It’s not worth taking a space simply because it’s available and well-priced if it’s not going to work for you.

Think carefully before entering into a lease – it’s a legal contract.
Consult a lawyer if you can. Consider who will be named on the lease – a person, or do you need a partnership/LLC/etc? Think about how long you and others can commit to paying the lease – and if those commitments are feasible. What happens if half your members walk away on one day and take their rent payments with them?  Defaulting on a lease can have real and terrible repercussions – especially in our credit-score-centric society. You don’t want your experimental hackerspace to keep you from renting an apartment next time you have to move.

Whew – and that’s just what I can say about searching for a space. There will be more coming. I hope someone finds this helpful.

AFP has a moderately sized, but rabidly loyal fan base. This is not an accident, she is not simply “lucky” – she reaches out to her fans, cultivates the fields and, above all, remains honest and approachable. Such an interested and loyal group of fans seems to be a far more valuable asset to AFP than any record company ever will. And recently, she has really begun to figure out how to tap these fans for what they will gladly, emphatically give to see their favorite artist continue to create.

Unlike many other smaller-scale artists, AFP know how to do merchandising at her shows, on her website, and, more recently, on Twitter. It’s more than just being able to pick up a “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” t-shirt or album at a show or even snagging a “WKAP World Tour” poster. She makes merchandise that is tied to the specific event, the actual performance, and other items that while less specific, are nonetheless honest reflections of AFP, her music, and her fans. (You will find military-punk style shoulder bags and screen printed “Property of AFP” thongs. You won’t find cheap, gaudy crap or silly “tour date” posters.) At a recent concert at Wellesley College she had the entire audience feign a 2-minute nap and then produced a couple hundred t-shirts emblazoned with “I slept with Amanda Palmer at Wellesley College.” (Not the first time she has done this.) It was very popular and it seemed many, many more people were buying a shirt than would have otherwise. It was unique, tied to the experience, and meant something to the buyer that a generic WKAP shirt would not.

Recently, Amanda Palmer took this idea even further, though an inspiring, organic “meeting” of hundreds of people on Twitter. Being alone at home on Friday night, with her computer (AFP is a very tech-savvy artist) and, of course, a bottle of wine, she began tweeting, quite simply, about how she was alone at home on a Friday night with her computer. Thus was born the #lofnotc hashtag – losers of friday night on their computers. It spread, hit the top spots on Twitter’s trending topics, pulled in hundreds of people to the “party” and went on for a couple of hours of AFP asking and answering questions, making observations, and avoiding cleaning her apartment. There’s that honesty again.

What came of this – again, quite organically – were a couple of simple drawings AFP made as a “logo” for #lofnotc and posted webcam pics of. This quickly became the idea for a printed t-shirt, which even more quickly became available to purchase via her web site though a simple paypal cart. Keep in mind that this took less than a day from conception to ready-for-purchase. She began giving away prizes (like the original artwork) for the 100th shirt sold, then the 200th, and it continued through the 400th(!) shirt sold. At $25/each, as AFP put it, “you’re all paying my fucking rent!!! i love life.”

I cannot imagine how many copies of WKAP would have to sell for Amanda Palmer to net the same amount that she has off a couple of hours on Twitter. And this was all without her record label, and made possible though her amazing fan base who can see where their money is going and are happy to support their favorite artists.