Intrinsic Impact

In Creative Entrepreneurship, Class # 5 we talked about Marketing and Intrinsic Impact.  What is “intrinsic impact”?  Basically, it is the emotional impact of an experience.  It is an important thing to think about in evaluating your own experience of a show or exhibit but, more importantly, it provides a framework in which to gauge your audience’s experience. Here are some points to consider:

1. Captivation – did you lose track of time and get fully absorbed?

2. Emotional Resonance – how strong was your emotional response?

3. Intellectual Stimulation – did it cause you to think about an issue or topic?

4. Social bridging – did it give you a new understanding of people who are different or from a different culture?

5. Aesthetic growth – were you exposed to at least one type or style of art that you hadn’t encountered before?

These five points would be useful areas to follow up with members of your audience. The data gained from such a survey might be important in guiding your future projects.

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Make it fun to play!

I had three movements of my new brass trio “Where Three Are Gathered” read today. I was really happy about how it turned out.  I still have to complete the fourth (last) movement but it’s all coming along nicely.  I won’t have much in the way of revisions to take care of on the existing material.  And I’m pretty sure it went over really well.

My main goal for this piece was to compose something that would be fun for the players. And I think from now on that’s going to be my main concern beyond keeping the process fun for myself as composer.  This initial concern – my own enjoyment – will help ensure the piece gets written, especially where a deadline is not there to provide the extra push.  But the secondary concern – the enjoyment of the players – is important, too, and not something I really thought about as much before.  I’ve always thought more about the connection to the audience (trying not to think about this much during the composing though!)

I think if the players enjoy the piece, 1) it will get played more 2) the enjoyment will get translated to the audience.  Two birds, right?  So from now on it’s all about having fun and making it fun for the players.

Thankfully, I managed to get the reaction today that I was looking for.  Success!

Article on Improvisation and the Brain

Here’s an interesting article on what’s happening in the brain when we improvise and why this might be valuable:

http://www.creativitypost.com/arts/why_improvisation_should_be_part_of_every_young_musicians_training

I would also like to add that 1) improvising is fun in its own right 2) improvisation is a craft that can be appreciated within its own realm of aesthetics

In other words, improvisation need not be a means to an end in order to have merit in a musician’s training.

Similarly, we can all learn music because it develops our brains OR we can learn music because it’s fun, because it’s beautiful and because it can bring others joy (AND, hey, it’s good for our brains, too!)

Of course, I’m sure the author of the article would agree with me, and, certainly, it is great to explore the world of improvisation from a neuroscience perspective – it adds to the picture!

Creative Entrepreneurship Class #4

Last week’s class was golden.  Tons of great and info and stuff to think about.

We had a presentation by organization consultant, Dawn Brennan.  Some of the things she brought up included:

1. Defining core personal values. For example, hers include Art, Community, Service and Fun.  Mine include Creativity, Learning and Sharing
2. Defining a mission = core purpose, the “why”
3. Building consensus – the foundation of decision-making and moving forward.  Consensus as a value is egalitarian, inclusive and collaborative.
4. Have a conversation – the way to build consensus and to grow.
5. Get diverse people around the table
6. Who is your ‘customer’? (primary and secondary) and more of Drucker’s 5 Questions.

Brennan’s work is informed by the work of Marvin Weisbord, Peter Block & Peter Drucker.

A lot of this needs definitely warrants more discussion.  When I have more time!

Creative Entrepreneurship Class #3

Our guest speaker was film producer Stephen Hegyes.  Here’s a link to his IMDb page:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0373812/

There were several important points I drew from his talk:

1. sharing info – your production process goes much smoother AND you learn a lot more by sharing info and ideas freely.  Ed Catmull, in Creativity, Inc., has a lot to say about this, too.  I feel this sharing speaks of confidence in yourself as well as a willingness to help others.
2. asking for help – this is certainly a weakness I have and I was glad to get some encouragement in this area.  basically, in any big project, you’re likely going to have to ask for help anyway, so you might as well get used to it.
3. having discipline, a regular work ethic – self-explanatory really, but I feel it ties into the notion of putting in the requisite time of honing one’s craft.  regular, focused work ultimately means more efficient development and this applies to a specific project as well as to one’s craft overall.
4. the importance of having a clear vision – tied into our work on our vision statements
5. “why am I not in production?” – daily question becomes a way to focus priorities – the answer turns into your ‘to-do’ list.

The rest of our class was focused on Strategic Planning, and the first stage Situational Assessment.  Crucial to this stage is the ‘SWOT’ analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  We have to apply this procedure to analyzing a project idea we’d like to develop.  I’m still working on mine.