Macworld

Video: Merlin's Talk, "Toward Patterns for Creativity"

Merlin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:27:38 -0500

Merlin Mann - “Toward Patterns for Creativity” - Macworld PULSE

Here’s a video of my presentation, “Toward Patterns for Creativity,” from earlier this month at Macworld, here in SF.

My slides were kind of a mess thanks to a bonehead technical problem on my part, but you can follow along ﬁne below.

As I said, I’m very interested in seeing where a topic like this could go. Because I truly believe it’s an idea that could help push a lot of people to the next level.

Related: if you’re interested in where my head was as I prepped for this, be sure and catch the previous post, The Problem with “Feeling Creative”.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, do yourself a favor, and pick up the book I highlight in this talk: The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharpe.

Addendum: 2009-01-28 06:42:03

It should not go without mentioning ﬁve (5) John Gruber-related things:

Seriously. I really did like John’s talk, and I think he’s totally onto something with the Auteur thing. (cf.)
John very kindly let me borrow his laptop after my learning that my own was un-dongle-able.
The slide problem stemmed from my preparing the presentation on a newer version of Keynote than John had installed.
I’m pretty sure John did have Helvetica Neue installed. Because he’s a giant type nerd.
John invented Markdown. In which I write everything. Including this.

Which is just to say that John is a friend as well as my favorite person in the Apple universe. So, upon watching this a second time, I realize I’d hate to leave you with the impression that I feel anything other than embarrassingly abundant aloha for him.

Thanks, John.

[video via: Macworld Pulse: Merlin Mann | Macworld]

Like the Talk?

A big part of what I do these days is delivering talks like this and others all around the US and beyond. If you’d enjoy having me visit with you to present at your company, event, or conference, drop a line and my ninja assistant, Erica, will be happy to take your details and check for availability.

”Video: Merlin's Talk, "Toward Patterns for Creativity"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 27, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

The Problem with “Feeling Creative”

Merlin — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:47:26 -0500

If your mall’s bookstores look anything like mine (and it’s probably safe to assume that they do), you’ll ﬁnd numerous sections devoted to helping writers, painters, musicians, and other aspiring artists to become successful in one way or another. There are books chock full of tips on ﬁnding an agent, on painting like the masters, and on composing and selling a hit song.

There are also dozens of books on “creativity” itself. Guides that are meant to help you access and unlock the artist within and to see the world in more creative ways. How to “be” creative, how to generate ideas, and how to learn to think “laterally.”

Some of these books are just terriﬁc, many are atrocious, and, at least in my anecdotal experience, only a handful challenge their readers with a fundamentally unmarketable premise:

Creative work only seems like a magic trick to people who don’t understand that it’s ultimately still work.

Bad for Business

But, let’s be honest. This is a tough idea to sell to folks with “real jobs” who are just looking for a diverting bit of creative tourism or who ﬁnd themselves yearning for a nostalgic amble past a mostly-abandoned adolescent arts hobby. People who want to learn how to feel creative. To feel successful. To feel like an artist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

My sense, though, is that for most people who repeatedly do (and sell) creative work, this all seems a bit like wanting to feel like a world-class athlete. Because “feeling creative” produces great work in approximately the same way that “feeling like a doctor” makes you a gifted thoracic surgeon.

Let’s Talk About My Feelings

The athlete got good not by reading reviews of headbands, but by waking up early, lacing shoes in the dark, and hitting the track to train hard. While the surgeon got good not by watching reruns of Trapper John, M.D., but by slogging through medical school, residencies, and hundreds of hours of face time with patients, colleagues, and mentors. “Feeling” had nothing to do with it.

But is it fair to compare creative work with physical and mental achievement? Having strong legs and support from a young age helped the athlete, and any aspiring doctor who couldn’t pass 10th grade Biology is likely headed for a career outside the surgical theater. But, what about artistic “gifts?” And “talent?”

The Labored Metaphor About Mineral Mining

Even (or especially) for people with a notional gift for their chosen ﬁeld, talent — like luck, rich parents, and unmined gold — is just a raw material. It’s not the one-bit switch that determines artistic success. And, any “talent” one theoretically possesses is likely to stay stuck under a layer of river rock unless and until its claim-holder learns to repeatedly pan, sluice, or dredge it into something that can be reﬁned, polished, and, in most cases, vended. Fancy ladies buy gold jewelry; not drawings of mining equipment.

Still, unlike metaphorical mining, it’s rare for any artist who “strikes it rich” once to simply stop working. That’s not how the temperament operates. You slake a thirst for creating by ﬁnishing projects, then ﬁnding new ones. Again and again.

It’s this ability to create a long-lived career in creative ﬁelds that’s gotten me wondering about design patterns. And, it’s also apparently the topic I’ll be standing in front of a bunch of people, trying to ﬁgure out, next Friday at my Macworld PULSE session. Oh, yeah. That’s right. I’m doing a presentation in seven days, aren’t I? Hm.

Right. Macworld Presentation. Check.

Anyhoo, I’m working on the talk right now (and for poor Paul Kent’s sake, let’s agree that it’s “mostly done”). I expect I’ll report back soon as the talk develops (or, for poor Paul Kent’s sake, as it “gets one ﬁnal bit of polish”). I haven’t decided whether the whole thing is just a terrible idea to begin with, but I guess we’ll ﬁnd out in a few days.

Here’s what the proposal looked like late last summer:

Toward Design Patterns for Creativity

“Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem in such a way that you could use this solution a million times over without doing it the same way twice.” – Christopher Alexander, 1977.

For over 30 years, “Design Patterns” have been been used by architects, designers, and software engineers to share useful ways in which the recurring problems of their ﬁelds can be identiﬁed and solved. By documenting and categorizing the things that “tend to work” within a given context (and within a given set of constraints), individual patterns can provide the basis for a pattern language that encourages ﬂexible problem-solving that discourages the costly and time-consuming tendency to reinvent the wheel.

This presentation addresses the opportunities and challenges around developing design patterns for creativity. Is creativity simply an innate ability that one either has or lacks? Or, are there demonstrated habits, practices, and approaches to one’s work that tend to help produce more consistent output (along with a more healthy and long-lived career for the creator)? Are there environmental and cognitive changes that can improve the quality of our work? Ultimately, could patterns for creativity help us learn to stop relying on an unreliable muse to inspire (and complete) the work that matters to us?

We’ll look at the common myths of creativity and talk about ways in which the hard work of making anything might be improved by the application of patterns that have been shown to work for artists, writers, and makers of all sorts. We’ll also address some of the ways in which OS X applications might be used to apply and support patterns for creativity at the point of implementation.

Wow. That’s pretty ambitious for a 20-minute talk about a topic I don’t really understand, isn’t it?

All Downhill from Here

Well. If you’re going to Macworld, do stop by and say hi. I’ll be at PULSE and in a few other places that I’ll announce soon, but I should be pretty easy to spot. I look like this and am easy to recognize as the middle-aged man with the amazingly polished presentation about design patterns. And a giant tote bag full of unintentional irony. As usual.

Yep. Pretty much just dotting i’s and crossing t’s at this point, Paul.

”The Problem with “Feeling Creative”” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 02, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

MacBook Air: Specific Machines, Specific Uses

wood.tang — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:03:12 -0500

The new MacBook Air announced at yesterday’s Macworld keynote doesn’t disappoint; it’s pretty much the laptop I’ve wanted ever since I stupidly broke my 12” Powerbook trying to replace the hard drive. All things remaining the same, I’d buy it simply for the difference in weight, a full two pounds less than a MacBook. As someone who’s put a lot of miles on his kicks with a laptop bag on his shoulder, that would make a world of difference.

What’s interesting though, is what the MacBook Air isn’t: it’s not simply a sexier MacBook Pro on Jenny Craig, it’s a different class of machine. John Gruber rightly points out that it’s clearly designed as a secondary machine for people who do their heavy lifting on a desktop. Without another machine standing by at home or the ofﬁce, only a select group of geeks could really get by without an optical drive, not to mention the diminished overall specs of the MacBook Air may not please a power user without reinforcements (a.k.a., the folks willing to spend upwards of $2000 on a laptop).

What Apple seems to be increasingly good at is designing machines with a speciﬁc purpose in mind. Rather than differentiating their products on matters of style or incremental horsepower like so many PC manufacturers, they make you look at their stuff and say, “I want one of those, and I want to use it for this.” In the case of the MacBook Air, it’s made for travelers, commuters, and other wandering souls who want a slim machine for checking email, web browsing, writing, and maybe some lightweight coding while they’re away from the mothership. For the people who want to use a laptop as more of a primary machine, there’s an obvious choice in the clearly differentiated MacBook Pros, or even MacBooks.

The same goes for the Apple TV, which I was glad to see get a new lease on life. I love mine, and I’m happy that it won’t be relegated to the ghetto of second-hand eBay trading and parts hacking, at least for another year. Apple could have chosen to discontinue it and market, say, the Mini + Front Row as a multimedia computer suitable for attaching to a home entertainment system, a la Windows Media Center, but instead it chose to put its money a device that is speciﬁcally designed for doing so, not just a general purpose computer with a few remote control-friendly screens pasted on front.

To return to the same note I always manage to hit here, the key is simplicity. Apple makes it easy for people to simplify their computing environment–“I use my iMac for this, I use my iPhone for this, I use my Apple TV for this,” etc, etc. I made a promise to myself that I’d stop buying computer gear without a speciﬁc purpose in mind for it, and I’m not currently in the laptop market because I rarely stray from my home ofﬁce. But damn if they aren’t making me rack my brain for a reason to need one again.

”MacBook Air: Specific Machines, Specific Uses” was written by Matt Wood for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 16, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Macworld: Mac Gems Picks

Merlin — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:15:41 -0400

Macworld Feature: Connect with the world

Macworld Magazine asked me to pick out a few of my Mac Gems, and I was happy to respond with four favorites.

Default Folder, for example, is a PreferencePane that I’ve used and loved since Christ was a corporal:

Default Folder X (****½)

You can tell Default Folder X is a classic because you start missing it the second you sit down at a Mac that doesn’t have it installed. It reduces the tedium of a handful of annoying dialog-box tasks, and it’s worth its price solely for the ability to set a per-program default location.

”Macworld: Mac Gems Picks” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 24, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Merlin & MacBreak @ Macworld: Cocoalicious, Yojimbo, BBEdit, MacUser's Dan Moren, Entourage, MemoryMiner, Pen-it, and Luiza the

Merlin — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 07:50:25 -0500

Here are the ﬁnal 5 episodes of MacBreak I reported from the Macworld Expo ﬂoor this week:

MacBreak 59 Macworld 2007: Show Floor Tour de Force - (MOV) - 11:38 - “Alex and Merlin round out our coverage from the Macworld 2007 expo.”
MacBreak 57 Macworld 2007: MemoryMiner - (MOV) - 08:01 - “Merlin interviews the creators of MemoryMiner.”
MacBreak 56 Macworld 2007: Macworld with Merlin, cont’d. - (MOV) - 11:02 - “Merlin continues his tour of the show ﬂoor, speaking with Dan Moren from MacUser, Brian Johnson from Microsoft and indulging in his most relaxing interview.”
MacBreak 54 Macworld 2007: Bare Bones Software - (MOV) - 09:23 - “Merlin chats with the folks at Bare Bones Software, makers of BBEdit and Yojimbo.”
MacBreak 53 Macworld 2007: Cocoalicious - (MOV) - 05:11 - “Merlin speaks to the developer of cocoalicious about his del.icio.us client and the software possibilities of the new iPhone.”

Here are the previous 4 segments and here’s a pointer to all of MacBreak’s Macworld coverage.

Thanks to everybody at Pixel Corps who put this together, and most special thanks to everyone who talked with us, came to the meetups, or just said hi on the show ﬂoor. It was a really fun week for me.

You can ensure you never miss an episode of MacBreak by subscribing for free.

”Merlin & MacBreak @ Macworld: Cocoalicious, Yojimbo, BBEdit, MacUser's Dan Moren, Entourage, MemoryMiner, Pen-it, and Luiza the” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 13, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Merlin & MacBreak @ Macworld: Omni Group, MailTank, AppZapper, Pzizz, Cha-Ching and Flip4Mac

Merlin — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:31:08 -0500

A few more of my MacBreak segments from the Macworld Expo ﬂoor are now available for download:

MacBreak 51 Macworld 2007: The Omni Group - (MOV) - 8:03 - “Merlin chats with Ken Case from the Omni Group about their products and the application development possibilities for the iPhone.”
MacBreak 50 Macworld 2007: MacTank - (MOV) - 07:44 - “Merlin chats with the developers of MailTank and MailTemplate.”
MacBreak 49 Macworld 2007: AppZapper, Pzziz and Cha-Ching - (MOV) - 8:58 - “Leo and Merlin continue their tour of ‘Tiny Town’, visiting with the makers of Cha-Ching, Pzziz and AppZapper.”
MacBreak Macworld 2007: Flip4Mac - (MOV) - 5:59 - “Leo and Merlin chat with the makers of the Flip4Mac suite of digital media tools.”

More episodes coming later today. Never miss an episode of MacBreak by subscribing for free.

”Merlin & MacBreak @ Macworld: Omni Group, MailTank, AppZapper, Pzizz, Cha-Ching and Flip4Mac” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 12, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Spectators at the iPhone Display

Merlin — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:57:54 -0500

Spectators at the iPhone Display
Originally uploaded by x180.

Wonderful photo by Duncan.

”Spectators at the iPhone Display” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 12, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Let OS X developers at the iPhone. Please.

Merlin — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:56:25 -0500

Sixfoot6 Archives: 30 Things the iPhone Could Do That You Haven’t Thought of Yet

Ryan’s list contains a lot of the tear-inducingly sexy fantasies that were going through my own mind on Tuesday morning when we all heard that the iPhone was going to run OS X.

Like a lot of my friends, I (probably naively) took the announcement to mean that, as on my own Mac, I’d be able to install Cocoa applications built to take advantage of announced features like WebKit, Core Animation, and so on. Sure, given the foreseeable hardware limitations, these wouldn’t be the exact applications that we’re each running on our MacBooks today, but, hell, I’d take “OmniOutliner Mobile” or “iTerm Lite” or “Textmate for iPhone” in a heartbeat. No question.

Yesterday morning, though, I started to hear rumbles about the “inability for users to install additional applications of their choosing.” And then later, after Brian from Gizmodo got a hands-on demo along with a sit-down with ofﬁcial Apple honchos, he noted…

It isn’t OS X proper, as you’d expect. And like an iPod, it won’t be an open system that people can develop for. Remember, this is both an iPod and a Phone.

…and I died a little inside.

Yes, there’s still months for this to change, and yes, this is a 1.0, and yes, one reason the iPod became the iPod is because Cupertino retained 100% quality control (up to the point of individual musical taste). So I would completely understand why user-installable applications are off the table. Or how, as my friends have speculated, third-party functionality might be handled in a tightly controlled and for-pay way (ala iPod Games).

Yes I’d understand, but I’d feel like Apple was abandoning an opportunity to make this more than a phone, and more that an iPod, and even – let’s be frank about the elephant in the room – much more than a Palm or a Pocket PC. There’s the potential here for some serious George Jetson shit and it would be a pity not to capitalize on that as early as possible.

I hope our friends at Apple will clarify what we can expect this phone to do for us as Mac users and share that information with developers as soon as possible. To be more honest I guess I wish some C-level would pop in to say “Oh, silly. It’s OS X: of course you can just drop mobile versions of your applications onto iTunes and they’re installed for you!” But, regrettably for now, I think that ain’t gonna happen. And it’s a bummer.

This week there are a lot of excellent software companies wandering around the ﬂoor at Macworld scratching their heads and muttering to themselves about the under-development products that could really beneﬁt from having OS X mobile functionality. They’re anxious and thrilled to start doing what indie developers have always done for Apple – provide the software that answers questions, solves problems, and gives us the personalized affordances to love using Apple hardware all the more.

When it hits stores this summer, the iPhone will be reaching thousands of people who “hate macs.” And, as with the iPod, that’s obviously the idea (note that this is not a “Mac Phone”). If our beloved OS X developers can introduce people on the other side to the richness and variety of the OS X Mac experience via this lovely phone, you can expect to make an extraordinary number of those former haters into new evangelists for the former “Apple Computer, Inc.”

[ Ryan’s page via mathowie ]

”Let OS X developers at the iPhone. Please.” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

43F Podcast: Snell & Gruber on iPhone applications

Merlin — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:28:23 -0500

Jason Snell and John Gruber on iPhone applications

Merlin talks with MacWorld Magazine’s Jason Snell and DaringFireball.net’s John Gruber about the likely future of applications for the recently announced iPhone. Who will be allowed to play? How does it affect the ostensible competition? Will this end up feeling more like a phone with an iPod, a Mac with a phone, or something altogether different? (5:48)

Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here:

”43F Podcast: Snell & Gruber on iPhone applications” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 10, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

MacBreak Weekly taping tonight at 21st Amendment

Merlin — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 07:12:50 -0500

Upcoming.org: MacBreak Weekly Live @ 21st Amendment at 21st Amendment (Tuesday, January 9, 2007)

Directions to 21A, from Moscone Center

Just a reminder that tonight’s live taping of MacBreak Weekly takes place at 21st Amendment starting at 6pm. If you’re planning to come to the taping, my advice is to get there early, because we’re anticipating a capacity audience (that’s a big reason everyone agreed it was better not to do this event at the Apple Store on Steve Day).

Leo, Alex, Scott, and I will be discussing today’s announcements and may even have some guests.

A propos of nothing, I will also take this opportunity to remind Mr. Bourne of his (often repeated) promise to buy everyone on MBW an iPhone on the day that they come out. Just saying.

If you come out tonight or see me on the Macworld show ﬂoor with MacBreak today, please say hi and introduce yourself.

”MacBreak Weekly taping tonight at 21st Amendment” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 09, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"