5 Things That Really Smart People Do

Don't get in the way of your own learning. Here are five ways to step aside and continue to increase your smarts.

 

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Most people don't really think much about how they learn. Generally you assume learning comes naturally. You listen to someone speak either in conversation or in a lecture and you simply absorb what they are saying, right? Not really. In fact, I find as I get older that real learning takes more work. The more I fill my brain with facts, figures, and experience, the less room I have for new ideas and new thoughts. Plus, now I have all sorts of opinions that may refute the ideas being pushed at me. Like many people I consider myself a lifelong learner, but more and more I have to work hard to stay open minded.

But the need for learning never ends, so your desire to do so should always outweigh your desire to be right. The world is changing and new ideas pop up everyday; incorporating them into your life will keep you engaged and relevant. The following are the methods I use to stay open and impressionable. They'll work for you too. No matter how old you get.

1. Quiet Your Inner Voice

You know the one I am talking about. It's the little voice that offers a running commentary when you are listening to someone. It's the voice that brings up your own opinion about the information being provided. It is too easy to pay more attention to the inner voice than the actual speaker. That voice often keeps you from listening openly for good information and can often make you shut down before you have heard the entire premise. Focus less on what your brain has to say and more on the speaker. You may be surprised at what you hear.

2. Argue With Yourself

If you can't quiet the inner voice, then at least use it to your advantage. Every time you hear yourself contradicting the speaker, stop and take the other point of view. Suggest to your brain all the reasons why the speaker may be correct and you may be wrong. In the best case you may open yourself to the information being provided. Failing that, you will at least strengthen your own argument.

3. Act Like You Are Curious

Some people are naturally curious and others are not. No matter which category you are in you can benefit from behaving like a curious person. Next time you are listening to information, make up and write down three to five relevant questions. If you are in a lecture, Google them after for answers. If you are in a conversation you can ask the other person. Either way you'll likely learn more, and the action of thinking up questions will help encode the concepts in your brain. As long as you're not a cat you should benefit from these actions of curiosity.

4. Find the Kernel of Truth

No concept or theory comes out of thin air. Somewhere in the elaborate concept that sounds like complete malarkey there is some aspect that is based upon fact. Even if you don't buy into the idea, you should at least identify the little bit of truth from whence it came. Play like a detective and build your own extrapolation. You'll enhance your skills of deduction and may even improve the concept beyond the speaker's original idea.

5. Focus on the Message Not the Messenger

Often people shut out learning due to the person delivering the material. Whether it's a boring lecturer, someone physically unappealing, or a member of the opposite political party, the communicator can impact your learning. Even friends can disrupt the learning process since there may be too much history and familiarity to see them as an authority on a topic. Separate the material from the provider. Pretend you don't know the person or their beliefs so you can hear the information objectively. As for the boring person, focus on tip two, three, or four as if it were a game, thereby creating your own entertainment.

An Inc. 500 entrepreneur with a more than $1 billion sales and marketing track record, Kevin Daum is the best-selling author of Video Marketing for Dummies. @awesomeroar

SOURCE: www.inc.com

Printing without Ink: Startup ZINK Imaging is giving inkless printing a new look.

• By Kate Greene on February 8, 2007

Last week, a number of new technologies were announced at DEMO, a conference in Palm Desert, CA, where startups are unveiled. One company, called ZINK Imaging, impressed the media by offering a new way to print pictures without ink. By rethinking printing, ZINK, a spinoff of Polaroid, claims it can make ultraportable printers that can fit in a human hand or be integrated into digital cameras and cell phones. 

The company’s trick is to use a novel type of photo paper that changes color when heat is applied, says Steve Herchen, chief technology officer at ZINK. “It’s the first new printing technology for digital printing that’s come along in more than a decade,” he says. There are a number of benefits that come with the new technology that aren’t available with today’s portable printers, he adds. At the top of his list is not worrying about running out of ink. People would still need to buy special photo paper, but the goal is to make this paper, which is expected to cost from 20 to 25 cents, ubiquitous.

Multimedia

• Watch the photo paper’s crystals change colors

Another benefit that comes out of the new printing approach, Herchen says, is technologists’ ability to make the printer small enough to embed in portable gadgets. “If you look at any printer that prints with ink, you’d see that a fair amount of space is taken up by ink cartridges, ink ribbons, and the mechanisms to manage them,” he says. With the ZINK printers, all of that bulk can be eliminated.

Historically, printing has been divided into several camps. Many home-office printers are inkjet, a relatively inexpensive technology that squirts ink from cartridges directly onto paper. More expensive laser printers use another approach that creates images using electrically charged colored powder, called toner. The third technology is called thermal printing. The most common type of thermal transfer printing uses a ribbon, similar to that in a typewriter, says Eric Hanson, manager of marking technology at Hewlett Packard Labs, in Palo Alto, CA. The ribbon is pressed to the paper, then heat is applied with a thermal printhead to transfer color. “Essentially, there’s a color that can be vaporized from a ribbon and stick to paper that’s designed for those dyes to stick to them,” Hanson says. An example of this technology is found in Kodak’s Easy Share Camera and Printer.

ZINK’s printing technology is a first cousin of these traditional thermal printers. In fact, the company uses a thermal printhead similar to what’s on the market today. “The printheads aren’t unique to ZINK,” says Herchen. “The technology to drive them is well-known. However, we’ve adapted them in a special way so that heat can be applied to ZINK media.” Unlike the existing technologies that use thermal printheads to transfer color to paper, the new media has the color embedded in it, in the form of dye crystals that are clear at room temperature. The thermal printheads have been modified to selectively bring out the color in the dye crystals. 

To make ZINK photo paper, which Herchen says feels exactly like regular photo paper, the researchers start with a white plastic sheet as a base material, then add very thin layers of dye crystals. The dye molecules that make up these crystals are structured in such a way that the crystal is transparent. When heat is applied, the molecules change their physical orientation from a crystal to an amorphous glass, a process that releases color. 

The configuration of the crystal layers–yellow on top, magenta in the middle, and cyan on the bottom–is a crucial element in the printing process. When these layers pass through the thermal printhead, says Herchen, they are heated by 300 tiny heaters per square inch. And in order to bring out the appropriate color at each pixel, the temperature and amount of time each heater is on is precisely controlled. The crystals in the yellow top layer require the highest temperature to show their color but the shortest amount of time. To turn on the cyan bottom layer, the heaters operate at their lowest temperature for the longest amount of time. Bringing color out of the magenta middle layer requires heating times and temperatures somewhere in between.

Multimedia

• Watch the photo paper’s crystals change colors

“[The printer] is doing combinations of these pulses for every single pixel,” says Herchen. To produce a green pixel, for instance, the heating element would turn on some yellow layers with a quick, high-temperature pulse, cool back down, and then turn on cyan with a longer, low-temperature pulse. It takes only tens of microseconds to deliver these pulses. In a typical two-by-three-inch picture, which takes less than a minute to print, there are approximately two hundred million heat pulses.

A technology based on thermal heating begs the question: how easy is it to ruin the paper before and after one has printed a picture? Herchen says that laboratory tests have shown that the paper–both before and after printing–doesn’t change colors at temperatures as high as 70 °C (158 °F). And if placed in sunlight, the picture will fade at a rate similar to that of other thermal printings and many inkjet printings: about 5 to 15 years. 

Some analysts think that ZINK’s technology has the capability to change the way people think about photos. “Right now, we’re still relatively formal about photos,” says Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMO and cofounder of Guidewire Group, a technology research firm. People take pictures, collect them, and put them in books, but if they’re taken with a cell phone, often they stay there, she says. “The idea that a photo can be a note, a moment captured and shared quickly, is something that ZINK enables,” Shipley says. In the short run, she says, the technology could make photo sharing more casual.

Herchen says ZINK has plans for two products by the end of the year: a stand-alone portable printer and a printer integrated into a digital camera, both producing two-by-three-inch pictures. While the printer can be designed into tiny gadgets, it can also be integrated into larger electronics, and Herchen expects that within the next few years the printing technology could also show up in computer towers, laptop computers, and even home television sets.

SOURCE: http://www.technologyreview.com

Want to Grow Fast? Then Slow Down

There's an art to maintaining a rapid growth trajectory. Ironically, you may have more success by taking things slowly.

shuttterstock

 

Every entrepreneur wants their company to grow, and grow fast. But this is a classic case of "be careful what you wish for."

Admittedly, fast growth is a nice problem to have--Avondale is a twice-listed Inc. 500 company and the fastest-growing professional services firm in the U.S. We've gone from a five-person start-up to a 30-person, international organization. But we've had our bumps along the way. We've found that we actually grow faster when we refocus on a few key priorities. We've learned that sometimes you need to slow down to grow fast.

One of the keys to our current growth trajectory has been "strategic retrenching." By pushing too hard to grow too fast in too many directions, we have ended up inhibiting our growth. One benefit of running a smaller company is the ability to take advantage of your nimbleness to venture in new directions. But if you choose too many paths or stretch into ventures that are far from your core business, it opens you up to failing at all of your endeavors.

Last year was a case in point. We started the year firing on all cylinders. We had long-term partnerships with a series of companies that were right in our sweet spot: helping companies grow a small business into a big business. Responding to this growth, we went on a hiring spree and attracted some great talent (another nice problem to have). But as we brought on the new people, rather than have them focus on serving our existing business (ostensibly why we hired them), we branched into new efforts that leveraged our new hires' varying backgrounds. We rapidly kicked off a series of brand-new ventures that were related to but not focused on our current client base and required investments of time and money.

The result was less success, rather than more. The team was working harder, not smarter, and the more time and resources we invested in the new initiatives, the further away the return moved. Additionally, our core business was beginning to plateau--we were still moving in the right direction, but at a slower rate.

After a tough look in the mirror, we realized that we were spread too thin and rather than doing a few things well, we were doing a lot of things just okay. We changed course and refocused the full team on a few things that we had the bandwidth to accomplish quickly.

Within a quarter, this refocused strategy produced huge results. We retained and reinvested in our existing book of business, landed two new partnerships in our core business and closed a partnership deal in our principal investing business. All it took was slowing down and concentrating our top-notch team on achieving a few key priorities.

Being nimble is a huge advantage of small, growing companies, but there's an art to choosing which new opportunities to chase, how and when. When we move into our next growth initiative, we'll make sure we take it slowly.

Send us your questions on managing your growth trajectory. We can be reached at karlandbill@avondalestrategicpartners.com.

Karl Stark and Bill Stewart are managing directors and co-founders of Avondale, a strategic advisory firm focused on growing companies. Avondale, based in Chicago, is a high-growth company itself and is a two-time Inc. 500 honoree. @karlstark

SOURCE: www.inc.com

5 Insider Tips for a Better Social Media Strategy

Social media analytics can be a boon for businesses that use it wisely. Two founders of social data start-ups explain what they've learned so far.

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At the Mashable Media Summit in New York on Friday, founders of two social analytics start-ups--Parse.ly’s Sachin Kamdar and SocialFlow’s Frank Speiser--spoke on a number of emerging trends they’ve seen from the heaps of social data they monitor.

Below are five points that Kamdar and Speiser think businesses should know about social media:

1. Viral content on Twitter lasts longer than it does on Facebook. “When content goes viral on Twitter, you have an influencer picking it up and then another influencer picking it up and it trends that way,” said Kamdar, whose company tracks 3.5 billion page views from content and digital media websites. “On Facebook, you’re going to hit more people but the life cycle is going to be shorter.”

Speiser added that businesses shouldn’t “beg influencers” to re-tweet their content, but instead produce “tweets” that are likely have utility for their audience.

2. LinkedIn is emerging as a distribution mechanism for content. “Right now, what we see is that business and education related items tend to do really well on LinkedIn,” Kamdar said. “I think more and more traffic is going to be coming from LinkedIn, as they start to have their own organic content and push their own editorial strategies.”

3. Don’t ignore your search strategy. While Speiser’s company focuses on Twitter data and algorithms to help companies engage users, he said companies should still value search. “There’s no way I’m going to convince you to stop spending money on search because it works,” he said. Kamdar agreed: “For any website, there’s some SEO that you just need to do.”

4. The worth of an individual "like" is not a good measure. “If you don’t build your audience with the contextual intention for them to consume that type of content, the 'likes' work against you,” said Speiser. “The 'like' itself is hard to value because the way you got it matters more than the fact that you have it.”

5. Social data is only one piece of the puzzle. Because social functions have spread across all company operations, Kamdar said social media data should be married with other data to present the best opportunities for businesses. “You want to combine social media on the brand side with sales or on the media side with users,” he said. “Businesses should really try to build social data back into other areas of their organization.”

SOURCE: www.inc.com

University of Cape Coast - Distance Education CCE Sale of Application Forms for 2013/ 2014 Academic Year

http://ucc.edu.gh/news/content/cce-sale-application-forms-2013-2014-academic-year

CCE Sale of Application Forms for 2013/ 2014 Academic Year

The University of Cape Coast wishes to inform the general public, especially basic school teachers in both public and private schools as well as clerks, secretarial and accounting personnel in the civil/public service, commerce and industry, that Application Forms for admission to the following Programmes by Distance Learning for the 2013/2014 Academic Year will be on sale from 3rd December, 2012 to 4th January, 2013 ONLY.

Please Click on the Links Below for Detailed Information
Education Programmes
Business Programmes
Sale of Application Forms – Online Applications
Sale of Application Forms – Manual Application
Mode of Payment
Requisite Applcation Form
Other Information
CCE Online Application

A. EDUCATION PROGRAMMES
1. 3-year Diploma in Basic Education (Dip. Basic Ed)
2. 3-year Diploma in Psychology and Foundations of Education (Dip. Psy. /F’dation in Ed)
3. 3-year Diploma in Mathematics and Science Education.
4. 2-year Bachelor Degree in Basic Education (B.Ed) for Diploma in Basic Education Holders only
5. 3-year Bachelor Degree in Basic Education (B.Ed) for Teachers Diploma Holders only
6. 3-year Bachelor Degree in Psychology and Foundations of Education (B.Ed P&F) for Diploma in Basic Education and Teachers Diploma Holders only.
7. 4-year Bachelor Degree in Basic Education (B.Ed) for holders of Specialist Certificates or Diplomas in subjects other than Education from recognized Tertiary Institutions.

B. BUSINESS PROGRAMMES
1. 3-year Diploma in Commerce (Dip.Com)
2. 3-year Diploma in Management Studies (Dip.Mgt.Std)
3. 2-year Bachelor Degree in Commerce (B.Com) for Dip in Commerce Holders only
4. 2-year Bachelor Degree in Management (BMS) for Dip in Mgt Studies Holders only
5. 3-year Bachelor Degree in Commerce (BCom) for HND Accountancy/GAT/ ATSWA final Certificate Holders only
6. 3-year Bachelor Degree in Management Studies (BMS) for HND Secretarial/Management Holders only
7. 4-year Bachelor Degree in Commerce (B.Com) for HND Holders only.
8. 4-year Bachelor Degree in Management Studies (BMS) for HND Holders only.
9. 3-year Bachelor of Science in Marketing (B.Sc Marketing) for HND Marketing Holders only
10. 4-year Bachelor of Science in Marketing (B.Sc Marketing) for HND Marketing Holders only

Entry Requirements for each of the programmes are as follows:
A. EDUCATION PROGRAMMES 
A1. 3-YEAR DIPLOMA IN BASIC EDUCATION
a. All applicants to this programme must be basic school teachers either in the public or private schools and must have at least one year teaching experience.
b. For direct entry, applicants must possess any one of the following:
(i) WASSCE with aggregate 36 or better in 6 subjects including English Language and Mathematics with grades C6 or better.
(ii) SSSCE with aggregate 24 or better in 6 subjects including English Language and Mathematics with grades D or better.
(iii) General Certificate of Education (G.C.E.). ‘A’ Level with grades in Two (2) subjects not lower than D. In addition, they must possess credits at G.C.E. ‘O’ Level in Mathematics and English.
(ii) G.C.E Ordinary Level with a minimum of 5 credits in 5 subjects including English and Mathematics.
(iii)Teacher’s Certificate A.

A2. 3-YEAR DIPLOMA IN PSYCHOLOGY & FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION
a. All applicants to this programme must be basic school teachers either in the public or private schools and must have at least one year teaching experience.
b. For direct entry, applicants must possess any one of the following:
(i) WASSCE with aggregate 30 or better in 6 subjects including English Language and Mathematics with grades C6 or better.
(ii) SSSCE with aggregate 20 or better in 6 subjects including English Language and Mathematics with grades D or better.
(iii)General Certificate of Education (G.C.E.). ‘A’ Level with grades in Two (2) subjects not lower than D. In addition, they must possess credits at G.C.E. ‘O’ Level in Mathematics and English.
(iv) G.C.E. Ordinary Level with a minimum of 5 credits in 5 subjects including English Language and Mathematics.

A3. 3-YEAR DIPLOMA IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
a. All applicants to this programme must be basic school teachers either in the public or private schools and must have at least one year teaching experience.
b. For direct entry, applicants must possess any one of the following:
(v) WASSCE with aggregate 30 or better in 6 subjects including English Language and Mathematics with grades C6 or better.
(vi) SSSCE with aggregate 20 or better in 6 subjects including English Language and Mathematics with grades D or better.
(vii) General Certificate of Education (G.C.E.). ‘A’ Level with grades in Two (2) subjects not lower than D. In addition, they must possess credits at G.C.E. ‘O’ Level in Mathematics and English.
(viii) G.C.E. Ordinary Level with a minimum of 5 credits in 5 subjects including English Language and Mathematics.

Entry by Special Examination:
a. Applicants who do not meet the specified requirements in (A1, A2 & A3) above can gain admission to the programme when they pass a Special Entrance Examination (SEE) and an interview to be conducted in April/May 2013 at selected Study Centres throughout Ghana.
b. Applicants should have a minimum certificate in WASSCE/ SSSCE and G.C.E ‘O’ Level with at least 2 passes in any 2 subjects.
c. Applicants who are products of Vocational and Technical Institutions and are currently teaching can apply to take part in the Special Entrance Examination.
d. Applicants should be at least 25 years and above.

A4. 2-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN BASIC EDUCATION
Applicants for the 2-year Bachelor Degree in Basic Education must possess the Diploma in Basic Education with 2nd Class Lower or above from the University of Cape Coast (Centre for Continuing Education). Applicants with 3rd Class or pass would be admitted to the programme after passing a written examination and an interview. 

A5. 3-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN BASIC EDUCATION
Applicants must hold Teacher’s Diploma awarded by UCC to graduates of the Colleges of Education.
Such applicants should have at least one year teaching experience after graduation and should have obtained a 2nd Class Lower Division and above. Applicants with 3rd Class or pass would be admitted to the programme after passing a written examination and an interview. 

A6 3-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY AND FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION
Applicants must hold 2nd Class Upper Division and above either of UCC Diploma in Basic Education or Teacher’s Diploma awarded by UCC to graduates of the Colleges of Education.
Applicants with 2nd Class Lower Division and below are not qualified for this programme.

A7. 4-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN BASIC EDUCATION
a. Applicants to this programme must be basic school teachers either in the public or private schools and must have at least one year teaching experience.
b. Applicants must be holders of Specialist Certificates and Diploma in subjects other than Education.
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B. BUSINESS PROGRAMMES 
B1. 3-YEAR DIPLOMA IN COMMERCE
a. Applicants should be in full-time employment at the time of applying.
b. For direct entry, applicants must possess any one of the following (from i-viii)
(i) Professional Accountancy Certificate with a minimum of Part 1 of:
Institute of Chartered Accountants (Ghana),
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants,
Association of Certified Chartered Accountants,
Institute of Bankers,
Ghana Accounting Technicians Examination (GAT) and Accounting Technicians Scheme West Africa (ATSWA).

In addition to the above, applicants should possess passes in Mathematics and English.
(iv) WASSCE with aggregate 30 or better in 6 subjects including passes in English Language, Mathematics and Financial Accounting with grades C6 or better.
(v) SSSCE with aggregate 18 or better in 6 subjects including passes in English Language, Mathematics and Financial Accounting with grades D or better.
(vi) Advanced Business Certificate Examination and RSA Stage III with passes in three (3) subjects including Financial Accounting and Economics with grades D or better. In addition applicant should have General Business Certificate Examination and RSA Stage II with passes in 5 subjects including Accounting, Business Management, English Language and Mathematics.
(vii) General Business Certificate Examination and RSA Stage II with passes in 5 subjects including Accounting, Business Management, English Language and Mathematics.
(viii) London Chamber of Commerce – Intermediate with three passes in subjects including Financial Accounting, Economics and Management. In addition applicants must possess passes in English and Mathematics with grades C6 in WASSCE, D in SSCE or credit (6) at ‘O’ Level or better.
(ix) G.C.E. ‘A’ Level with at least Two (2) grades not lower than D in subjects including Accounting or Business Management. In addition, they must possess credits at G.C.E. ‘O’ Level in Mathematics and English.
(x) G.C.E. ‘O’ Level with aggregate 24 or better in 5 subjects including credits in English Language, Mathematics and Principles of Accounting.

B2. 3-YEAR DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT STUDIES
The entry requirements are the same as those for Diploma in Commerce except that the subjects should include Commerce, Office Administration/ Practice and Business Management.

Entry by Special Examination:
a) Applicants who do not meet the specified requirements in (B1 & B2) can gain admission to the programme when they pass a Special Entrance Examination (SEE) and an interview to be conducted in February - May 2013 at selected Study Centres throughout Ghana.
b) Holders of Diploma in Business Studies (DBS) certificate awarded by the Technical Examination Unit of GES would be considered for admission after passing Mathematics and English at the Special Entrance Examination and an interview.
c) Applicants should have a minimum certificate in WASSCE/ SSSCE and G.C.E ‘O’ Level with at least 2 passes in any 2 subjects.
d) Applicants should be at least 25 years and above. 

BACHELOR DEGREE PROGRAMMES
B3. 2-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN COMMERCE
Applicants for the 2-year Bachelor Degree in Commerce (BCom) must possess the Diploma in Commerce with 2nd Class Lower or above from the University of Cape Coast (Centre for Continuing Education). Applicants with 3rd Class or pass would be admitted to the programme after passing a written examination and an interview. 

B4. 2-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN MANAGEMENT STUDIES
Applicants for the 2-year Bachelor Degree in Management Studies (BMS) must possess the Diploma in Management Studies with 2nd Class Lower or above from the University of Cape Coast (Centre for Continuing Education). Applicants with 3rd Class or pass would be admitted to the programme after passing a written examination and an interview. 

B5. 3-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN COMMERCE
Applicants with any of the under listed qualifications from recognized institutions will be admitted to the three-year Bachelor Degree in Commerce (B.Com)
a. Holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Accountancy or HND in Entrepreneurship & Finance with 2nd Class Lower Division and above
b. Holders of Final Certificate in Ghana Accounting Technician Examination (GAT)/ Accounting Technicians Scheme West Africa (ATSWA)
c. Holders of Part II of Professional Accountancy Examinations (ACCA, CIMA) from recognized Examination Body.
d. Holders of ICA part II or 2B in the old system or ICA part III in the new system from recognized Examination Body.

B6. 3-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN MANAGEMENT STUDIES
Applicants who are holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Management Studies/ Secretaryship and Management/ Bilingual Secretaryship and Management with 2nd Class Lower Division and above from recognized institutions will be admitted to the three-year Bachelor Degree in Management Studies.

B7. 4-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN COMMERCE
Applicants who are holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Accountancy with PASS from recognized institutions will be admitted to the four-year Bachelor Degree in Commerce.

B8. 4-YEAR BACHELOR DEGREE IN MANAGEMENT STUDIES
Applicants with any of the underlisted qualifications from recognized institutions will be admitted to the four-year Bachelor Degree in Management Studies.
a. Holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Management Studies/ Secretaryship and Management/ Bilingual Secretaryship and Management with PASS.
b. Holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Accountancy with PASS
c. Holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Purchasing and Supply with PASS.

B9. 3-YEAR BACHELOR OF SCIENCE DEGREE IN MARKETING
Applicants with any of the underlisted qualifications from recognized institutions will be admitted to the three-year Bachelor of Science Degree in Marketing.
a. Holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Marketing with 2nd Class Lower Division and above
b. Holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Purchasing and Supply with 2nd Class Lower Division and above

B10. 4-YEAR BACHELOR OF SCIENCE DEGREE IN MARKETING
Applicants with any of the underlisted qualifications from recognized institutions will be admitted to the four-year Bachelor of Science Degree in Marketing.
a. Holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Purchasing and Supply with PASS.
b. Holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Marketing with a PASS.
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SALE OF APPLICATION FORMS – ONLINE APPLICATIONS
1. The cost of a set of Scratch Cards and prospectus for Direct admission to the Diploma and Degree in Education/Commerce/Management Studies/Marketing/Psychology & Foundations programmes is Seventy Ghana Cedis (GH¢70.00).
2. Special Entrance Examination for admission to the Diploma in Basic Education/Psychology and Foundation of Education, Commerce and Management Studies Programmes which include the cost of Scratch Card, a Manual, Preparatory Classes and Examination Fee, is as follows:
(a) One Hundred and Ten Ghana Cedis (GH¢110.00) for Diploma in Basic Education/Psychology and Foundation of Education applicants, and
(b) One Hundred and Seventy Ghana Cedis (GH¢170.00) for Diploma in Commerce and Management Studies applicants.
Please Click Here to Visit the CCE Online Application Page
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SALE OF APPLICATION FORMS – MANUAL APPLICATION 
3. The cost of a set of application form and prospectus for Direct admission to the Diploma and Degree in Education/Commerce/Management Studies/Marketing/Psychology & Foundations programmes is Eighty Ghana Cedis (GH¢80.00).
4. Special Entrance Examination for admission to the Diploma in Basic Education/Psychology and Foundation of Education, Commerce and Management Studies Programmes which include the cost of application form, a manual, preparatory classes and examination fee, is as follows:
(c) One Hundred and Twenty Ghana Cedis (GH¢120.00) for Diploma in Basic Education/Psychology and Foundation of Education applicants, and
(d) One Hundred and Eighty Ghana Cedis (GH¢180.00) for Diploma in Commerce and Management Studies applicants.
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5. Mode of payment. 
(a) Application forms/Scratch Cards bought from the Centres must be by bank draft only, payable to the Centre for Continuing Education, University of Cape Coast and drawn from any of the following banks:

i. Ghana Commercial Bank
ii. Barclays Bank
iii. Agricultural Development Bank
(b) Scratch Cards/Application Forms bought from the Regional and District Branches of Zenith Bank should be by cash.


The requisite application forms can be obtained from the following places:
6. (a) Centre for Continuing Education, University of Cape Coast , Cape Coast.
(b) University of Cape Coast Guest House at Tesano, Accra.
(c) All Regional and District Branches of Zenith Bank throughout the Country.
(d) Regional offices and District Study Centres of Centre for Continuing Education:
i. Ashanti -Kumasi (Tafo Nhyiaso), Obuasi (Obuasi Snr High Technical Sch), Offinso (Dwamena Akenten Snr High Sch), Konongo (Konongo Odumase Snr High Sch) Asante Mampong (Mampong Technical College of Education);
ii. Brong Ahafo - Sunyani (North Nkwabeng), Techiman (Techiman Snr High Sch), Dormaa (Dormaa Snr High Sch), Hwidiem (Hwidiem Snr High Sch);
iii. Central – Swedru (SWESBU & SWESCO), Foso (Obiri Yeboah Snr High Sch) and Breman Asikuma Sec Sch);
iv. Eastern - Koforidua (Okorase Junction 10), Oda (Attafuah Snr High Sch.), Abetifi – (Abetifi College of Education);
v. Greater Accra - Accra (Zenith College), Ada (Ada College of Education);
vi. Northern -Tamale (Kalpohin), Gambaga (Gambaga Girls Snr High Sch);
vii. Upper East - Bolgatanga (Yikeni on the Navrongo Rd.);
viii. Upper West - Wa (Wa Sec), Tumu (Tumu College of Education);
ix. Volta – Ho (Little Bethlehem), Akatsi (Akatsi College of Education), Jasikan (Jasikan College of Education)
x. Western – Takoradi (Windy Ridge), Tarkwa (Fiaseman Snr High Sch), Sefwi Wiawso (Sefwi Wiaso College of Education).
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Note the following:
1. The closing date for sale of application forms is 4th January, 2013.
2. Online Applications:
All online applications should be submitted online, and a confirmation page printed and submitted together with photocopies of certificates, results slips/transcripts to the center where scratch cards were purchased not later than 11th January, 2013. Duly submitted applications will have reference numbers auto generated by the online system. Keep reference numbers safe and quote it when communicating with the Center.
3. Manual Applications:
All completed hardcopy Application Forms should be returned to the place where they were purchased, not later than 11th January, 2013. For any correspondence with the office, remember to quote the number on your application form.
4. Ensure that you sign and indicate the date when you purchased the application form or scratch card.
5. Ensure that you sign and indicate the date when you returned the filled application form or your confirmation page.
6. All graduates from the CCE programs expecting MBA/Mphil/Med programs by distance learning should prepare themselves for another advert that will be released by January 2013 for the commencement of all those programs next academic year.

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST - UCC ONLINE APPLICATION

http://ucc.edu.gh/news/announcements/sale-application-forms-admission-mature-candidates-20132014-academic-year

Sale of Application Forms for Admission of Mature Candidates 2013/2014 Academic Year

Application forms for the admission of Mature Candidates into programmes in the University of Cape Coast for the 2013/2014 Academic Year are on sale at the centres listed below.

-- Fri ,23rd

1. SALE CENTRES         

(a) Cashier’s Office, University of Cape Coast (Mode of payment – CASH)
(b) Ghana Post Offices at the Regional Capitals – (Mode of payment – POSTAL ORDER)
(c) University  of Cape Coast – Accra Office, Tesano – Accra (Mode of payment – through any networked branch of Ghana Commercial Bank, into GCB Kaneshie Industrial Area Branch – Account Number 1201130006903).
A copy of the payment-slip should be submitted to the Officer at the Accra Office, Tesano for the Application Forms. Cost of Application forms for Mature Applicants - GH¢110.00
The deadline for the sale of Application Forms for Mature Candidates is Monday, December 31, 2012.

2. ENTRY REQUIREMENTS FOR MATURE CANDIDATES:

(a)  i.   Age:  At least Twenty-Five (25) years old by 31st December, 2012.
      ii.  Applicants seeking admission as Mature Candidates should enclose a photocopy of birth certificate issued to them not less than five  (5) years from the day of completion of admission forms.

(b)  Entrance Examination.
i.   General Paper (for all candidates)
ii.  Main Papers
iii. Examination in Mathematics and English Language for candidates who do not have credit pass atG.C.E. ‘O’ Level (grade 6 or better) or WASSCE/SSSCE (at least grade C6)
(c)  Interview

3. PRACTICAL EXAMINATIONS FOR BACHELOR OF MUSIC CANDIDATES

Candidates applying for Bachelor of Music should note that practical examination will be held on WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2013.  Such candidates must bring along musical instruments for the practical examination.

4. 2013 MATURE CANDIDATES ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS

The 2013 Mature Candidates Entrance Examinations for the General Paper and Main Papers will be held on THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013.

5. SPECIAL MATHEMATICS AND ENGLISH EXAMINATION FOR MATURE CANDIDATES

A special examination for Mature Candidates who do not have credit passes in Mathematics and English (‘O’ Level) or (SSSCE/WASSCE) would be held on FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2013.  Such candidates should register at the Admissions Office, UCC by MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013.

6. COMPLETION OF APPLICATION FORMS

Applicants are required to carefully read the information brochure enclosed with the application form before completion.
Mature Candidates will use the scannable admission forms.  Applicants should fill only the front page (in pencil).  Supplementary admission forms (in duplicate) would also be supplied to applicants and should be filled in ink.
Three (3) pre-paid envelopes, two of which are blank official envelopes will be provided and should be self-addressed by applicants.

Applicants are required to give the following information at the back of the large EMS pre-paid envelope: (a) full name (b) postal address (c) first choice programme and (d) circle the Mature column.

A change of programme after the submission of application form would NOT be allowed.

7. SUBMISSION OF COMPLETED APPLICATION FORMS

(a) All completed application forms should be sent by POST and NOT delivered by hand.  Application forms for Mature candidates should reach The Deputy Registrar, Division of Academic Affairs (DAA), University of Cape Coast not later than Monday, January 7, 2013.

Applicants are to ensure that application forms are posted early enough to reach the Admissions Office before the deadline for the submission of completed application forms.
COMPLETED APPLICATION FORMS RECEIVED AFTER MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013 WILL NOT BE PROCESSED.

(b) No additional documents will be accepted after submission of application forms.  Applicants are to note that only photocopies of certificates or result slips should accompany completed application forms.  Application forms received without photocopies of certificates/result slips would be disqualified.  Original results/certificates of applicants offered admission will be inspected before registration.  The documents accompanying the application forms are not returnable.

8. PROGRAMMES AVAILABLE FOR 2013/2014 ACADEMIC YEAR

Mature candidates are advised to select only programmes that are listed below.

FACULTY OF ARTS

Programmes

B.A. (Arts)

B.A. (African Studies)

B. Music

B. A. (Communication Studies)

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Programme

B.Ed (Arts)

B.Ed (Social Sciences)

B.Ed (Social Studies)

B.Ed (Management)

B.Ed (Accounting)

B.Ed (Physical Education)

B.Ed (Science)

B.Ed (Mathematics)

B.Ed (Basic Education)

B.Ed (Early Childhood Education)

B.Ed (Home Economics)

B.Sc (Psychology)

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Programme

B.Sc (Tourism Management)

B.A. (Population & Health)

B.A. (Social Sciences)

B.Sc (Hospitality Management)

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Programme

Bachelor of Commerce

Bachelor of Management Studies

How Creativity Works

by Maria Popova

Inside the ‘seething cauldron of ideas,’ or what Bob Dylan has to do with the value of the synthesizer mind.

 

In his 1878 book, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Nietzsche observed:

Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration… shining down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects… All great artists and thinkers are great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering.”

Some 131 years later, Elizabeth Gilbert echoed that observation in her now-legendary TED talk.

The origin, pursuit, and secret of creativity are a central fixation of the Idea Age. But what, exactly, does “creativity” — that infinitely nebulous term — really mean, and how does it work? This inquiry is at the heart of Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer — who, in my opinion, has done more for the popular understanding of psychology and neuroscience than any other writer working today, and who has previously examined such fascinating subjects as how we decide and why we need a “fourth culture” of knowledge.

 

Lehrer writes in the introduction, echoing Nietzsche’s lament:

The sheer secrecy of creativity — the difficulty in understanding how it happens, even when it happens to us — means that we often associate breakthroughs with an external force. In fact, until the Enlightenment, the imagination was entirely synonymous with higher powers: being creative meant channeling the muses, giving voice to the ingenious gods. (Inspiration, after all, literally means ‘breathed upon.’) Because people couldn’t understand creativity, they assumed that their best ideas came from somewhere else. The imagination was outsourced.”

He notes how the mysteriousness and hazy nature of creativity have historically confounded scientists, and how its study has become a meta-metaphor for creativity itself:

How does one measure the imagination? The daunting nature of the subject led researchers to mostly neglect it; a recent survey of psychology papers published between 1950 and 2000 revealed that less than 1 percent of them investigated aspects of the creative process. Even the evolution of this human talent was confounding. Most cognitive skills have elaborate biological histories, so their evolution can be traced over time. But not creativity—the human imagination has no clear precursors. There is no ingenuity module that got enlarged in the human cortex, or even a proto-creative impulse evident in other primates. Monkeys don’t paint; chimps don’t write poems; and it’s the rare animal (like the New Caledonian crow) that exhibits rudimentary signs of problem solving. The birth of creativity, in other words, arrived like any insight: out of nowhere.”

Reflecting David Eagleman’s insistence upon understanding the unconscious operations of the brain as a key to understanding ourselves, Lehrer counters the idea that imagination can’t be rigorously studied:

Until we understand the set of mental events that give rise to new thoughts, we will never understand what makes us so special. That’s why this book begins by returning us to the material source of the imagination: the three pounds of flesh inside the skull. William James described the creative process as a ‘seething cauldron of ideas, where everything is fizzling and bobbing about in a state of bewildering activity.’ For the first time, we can see the cauldron itself, that massive network of electrical cells that allow individuals to form new connections between old ideas. We can take snapshots of thoughts in brain scanners and measure the excitement of neurons as they get closer to a solution. The imagination can seem like a magic trick of matter — new ideas emerging from thin air—but we are beginning to understand how the trick works.”

Lehrer nods to the combinatorial nature of creativity:

Creativity shouldn’t be seen as something otherworldly. It shouldn’t be thought of as a process reserved for artists and inventors and other ‘creative types.’ The human mind, after all, has the creative impulse built into its operating system, hard-wired into its most essential programming code. At any given moment, the brain is automatically forming new associations, continually connecting an everyday x to an unexpected y.”

At the heart of Imagine is an important redefinition of “creativity”:

[T]he standard definition of creativity is completely wrong. Ever since the ancient Greeks, people have assumed that the imagination is separate from other kinds of cognition. But the latest science suggests that this assumption is false. Instead, creativity is a catchall term for a variety of distinct thought processes. (The brain is the ultimate category buster.)

[…]

For most of human history, people have believed that the imagination is inherently inscrutable, an impenetrable biological gift. As a result, we cling to a series of false myths about what creativity is and where it comes from. These myths don’t just mislead — they also interfere with the imagination.”

The opening of the book’s wonderful trailer winks at Steve Jobs’s famous quote that “creativity is just connecting things”:

Lehrer goes on to explore the workings of creativity through subjects as diverse as Bob Dylan’s writing methods, the birth of Swiffer, an autistic surfer who invented a new surfing move, the drug habits of poets, Pixar’s secret sauce, the emergence of collaborative culture, and a wealth more.

 

But what makes Imagine outstanding is that the book itself is an epitome of an increasingly important form of creativity — the ability to pull together perspectives, insights, and bits of information into a mashup narrative framework that illuminates a subject in an entirely new way.

This practice, of course, is centuries old, dating at least as far back as medieval florilegia. But Lehrer’s gift — or, rather, grit-honed skill — for connecting dots across disciplines and directions of thought, and gleaning from these connections original insight, is a true testament to the role of the author as a curator of empirical evidence, theory, and opinion. In the excellent Five Minds for the Future, Howard Gardner called this the “synthesizing mind” — and Lehrer’s is positively a paragon:

The synthesizing mind takes information from disparate sources, understands and evaluates that information objectively, and puts it together in ways that make sense to the synthesizer and also to other persons. Valuable in the past, the capacity to synthesize becomes ever more crucial as information continues to mount at dizzying rates.”

SOURCE: www.brainpickings.org

A 5-Step Technique for Producing Ideas circa 1939

by Maria Popova

“…the habit of mind which leads to a search for relationships between facts becomes of the highest importance in the production of ideas.”

 

Literature is the original “inter-net,” woven of a web of allusions, references, and citations that link different works together into an endless rabbit hole of discovery. Case in point: Last week’s wonderful field guide to creativity, Dancing About Architecture, mentioned in passing an intriguing old book originally published by James Webb Young in 1939 — A Technique for Producing Ideas (public library), which I promptly hunted down and which will be the best $5 you spend this year, or the most justified trip to your public library.

Young — an ad man by trade but, as we’ll see, a voraciously curious and cross-disciplinary thinker at heart — lays out with striking lucidity and clarity the five essential steps for a productive creative process, touching on a number of elements corroborated by modern science and thinking on creativity: its reliance on process over mystical talent, its combinatorial nature, its demand for a pondering period, its dependence on the brain’s unconscious processes, and more.

Right from the introduction, original Mad Man and DDB founder Bill Bernbach captures the essence of Young’s ideas, with which Steve Jobs would have no doubt agreed when he proclaimed that “creativity is just connecting things”:

Mr. Young is in the tradition of some of our greatest thinkers when he describes the workings of the creative process. It is a tribute to him that such scientific giants as Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein have written similarly on this subject. They agree that knowledge is basic to good creative thinking but that it is not enough, that this knowledge must be digested and eventually emerge in the form of fresh, new combinations and relationships. Einstein refers to this as intuition, which he considers the only path to new insights.

To be sure, however, Young marries the intuitive with the practical in his formulation:

[T]he production of ideas is just as definite a process as the production of Fords; that the production of ideas, too, runs on an assembly line; that in this production the mind follows an operative technique which can be learned and controlled; and that its effective use is just as much a matter of practice in the technique as is the effective use of any tool.

In a chapter on training the mind, Young offers:

In learning any art the important things to learn are, first, Principles, and second, Method. This is true of the art of producing ideas.

Particular bits of knowledge are nothing, because they are made up [of] so called rapidly aging facts. Principles and method are everything.

[…]

So with the art of producing ideas. What is most valuable to know is not where to look for a particular idea, but how to train the mind in the method by which all ideas are produced and how to grasp the principles which are at the source of all ideas.

But the most compelling part of Young’s treatise, in a true embodiment of combinatorial creativity, builds upon the work of legendary Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (of Pareto principle fame) and his The Mind and Society. Young proposes two key principles for creating — that an idea is a new combination and that the ability to generate new combinations depends on the ability to see relationships between different elements.

The first [principle is] that an idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.

[…]

The second important principle involved is that the capacity to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on the ability to see relationships. Here, I suspect, is where minds differ to the greatest degree when it comes to the production of ideas. To some minds each fact is a separate bit of knowledge. To others it is a link in a chain of knowledge. It has relationships and similarities. It is not so much a fact as it is an illustration of a general law applying to a whole series of facts.

[…]

Consequently the habit of mind which leads to a search for relationships between facts becomes of the highest importance in the production of ideas.

STEP 1: GATHERING RAW MATERIAL

Young talks about the importance of building a rich pool of “raw material” — mental resources from which to build new combinations — in a way that resonates deeply with the Brain Pickings founding philosophy, and also articulates the increasing importance of quality information filters in our modern information diet. This notion of gathering raw material is the first step in his outline of the creative process:

Gathering raw material in a real way is not as simple as it sounds. It is such a terrible chore that we are constantly trying to dodge it. The time that ought to be spent in material gathering is spent in wool gathering. Instead of working systematically at the job of gathering raw material we sit around hoping for inspiration to strike us. When we do that we are trying to get the mind to take the fourth step in the idea-producing process while we dodge the preceding steps.

Even seven decades into the past, Young knew that the future belongs to the curious. His insistence on the importance of curiosity would make Richard Feynman nod in agreement:

Every really good creative person…whom I have ever known has always had two noticeable characteristics. First, there was no subject under the sun in which he could not easily get interested — from, say, Egyptian burial customs to modern art. Every facet of life had fascination for him. Second, he was an extensive browser in all sorts of fields of information. For it is with the advertising man as with the cow: no browsing, no milk.

[…]

The process is something like that which takes place in the kaleidoscope. The kaleidoscope, as you know, is an instrument which designers sometimes use in searching for new patterns. It has little pieces of colored glass in it, and when these are viewed through a prism they reveal all sorts of geometrical designs. Every turn of its crank shifts these bits of glass into a new relationship and reveals a new pattern. The mathematical possibilities of such new combinations in the kaleidoscope are enormous, and the greater the number of pieces of glass in it the greater become the possibilities for new and striking combinations.

(I once used a similar analogy with LEGO.)

STEP 2: DIGESTING THE MATERIAL

In his second stage of the creative process, digesting the material, Young affirms Paola Antonelli’s brilliant metaphor of the curious octopus:

What you do is to take the different bits of material which you have gathered and feel them all over, as it were, with the tentacles of the mind. You take one fact, turn it this way and that, look at it in different lights, and feel for the meaning of it. You bring two facts together and see how they fit. What you are seeking now is the relationship, a synthesis where everything will come together in a neat combination, like a jig-saw puzzle.

STEP 3: UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING

In his third stage of the creative process, Young stresses the importance of making absolutely “no effort of a direct nature”:

It is important to realize that this is just as definite and just as necessary a stage in the process as the two preceding ones. What you have to do at this time, apparently, is to turn the problem over to your unconscious mind and let it work while you sleep.

[…]

[W]hen you reach this third stage in the production of an idea, drop the problem completely and turn to whatever stimulates your imagination and emotions. Listen to music, go to the theater or movies, read poetry or a detective story.

STEP 4: THE A-HA MOMENT

Then and only then, Young promises, everything will click in the fourth stage of the seemingly serendipitous a-ha! moment:

Out of nowhere the Idea will appear.

It will come to you when you are least expecting it — while shaving, or bathing, or most often when you are half awake in the morning. It may waken you in the middle of the night.

STEP 5: IDEA MEETS REALITY

Young calls the last stage “the cold, gray dawn of the morning after,” when your newborn idea has to face reality:

It requires a deal of patient working over to make most ideas fit the exact conditions, or the practical exigencies, under which they must work. And here is where many good ideas are lost. The idea man, like the inventor, is often not patient enough or practical enough to go through with this adapting part of the process. But it has to be done if you are to put ideas to work in a work-a-day world.

Do not make the mistake of holding your idea close to your chest at this stage. Submit it to the criticism of the judicious.

When you do, a surprising thing will happen. You will find that a good idea has, as it were, self-expanding qualities. It stimulates those who see it to add to it. Thus possibilities in it which you have overlooked will come to light.

* * *

Years later, upon reissuing A Technique for Producing Ideas, Young recounted the many letters he had gotten from “poets, painters, engineers, scientists, and even one writer of legal briefs” who had found his technique empowering and helpful. But what’s perhaps most interesting is the following note he made to the postscript of a reprint:

From my own further experience in advertising, government, and public affairs I find no essential points which I would modify in the idea-producing process. There is one, however, on which I would put greater emphasis. This is as to the store of general materials in the idea-producer’s reservoir.

[…]

I am convinced, however, that you gather this vicarious experience best, not when you are boning up on it for an immediate purpose, but when you are pursuing it as an end in itself.

SOURCE: www.brainpickings.org

How to Break Through Your Creative Block: Strategies from 90 of Today’s Most Exciting Creators

by Maria Popova

Refining the machinery of creativity, or what heartbreak and hydraulics have to do with coaxing the muse.

 

What extraordinary energy we expend, as a culture and a civilization, on trying to understand where good ideas come from, how creativity works, its secrets, its origins, its mechanisms, and the five-step action plan for coaxing it into manifestation. And little compares to the anguish that comes with the blockage of creative flow.

 

In 2010, designer and musician Alex Cornell found himself stumped by a creative block while trying to write an article about creative block. Deterred neither by the block nor by the irony, he reached out to some of his favorite artists and asked them for their coping strategies in such an event. The response was overwhelming in both volume and depth, inspiring Cornell to put together a collection on the subject. The result is Breakthrough!: 90 Proven Strategies to Overcome Creative Block and Spark Your Imagination (public library) — a small but potent compendium of field-tested, life-approved insight on optimizing the creative process from some of today’s most exciting artists, designers, illustrators, writers, and thinkers. From the many specific strategies — walks in nature, porn, destruction of technology, weeping — a few powerful universals emerge, including the role of procrastination, the importance of a gestation period for ideas, and, above all, the reminder that the “creative block” befalls everyone indiscriminately.

 

Writer Michael Erard teases apart “creative block” and debunks its very premise with an emphasis on creativity as transformation:

First of all, being creative is not summoning stuff ex nihilo. It’s work, plain and simple — adding something to some other thing or transforming something. In the work that I do, as a writer and a metaphor designer, there’s always a way to get something to do something to do something else. No one talks about work block.

Also, block implies a hydraulic metaphor of thinking. Thoughts flow. Difficulty thinking represents impeded flow. This interoperation also suggests a single channel for that flow. A stopped pipe. A dammed river. If you only have one channel, one conduit, then you’re vulnerable to blockage. Trying to solve creative block, I imagine a kind of psyching Roto-Rootering.

My conceptual scheme is more about the temperature of things: I try to find out what’s hot and start there, even if it may be unrelated to what I need to be working on, and most of the time, that heats up other areas too. You can solve a lot with a new conceptual frame.

Designer Sam Potts suggests that heartbreak isn’t merely evolutionary adaptive strategy, it’s a creative one:

Have your heart broken. It worked for Rei Kawakubo. You’ll realize the work you’d been doing wasn’t anywhere near your potential.

From the inimitable Debbie Millman, who has kindly offered this hand-lettered version of the typeset list in the book:

1. Get enough sleep! Sleep is the best (and easiest) creative aphrodisiac.
2. Read as much as you can, particularly classics. If a master of words can’t inspire you, see number 3.
3. Color code your library. That is fun, and you will realize how many great books you have that you haven’t read yet.
4. More sleep! You can never get enough.
5. Force yourself to procrastinate. Works every time!
6. Look at the work of Tibor Kalman, Marian Bantjes, Jessica Hische, Christoph Niemann, and Paul Sahre.
7. Weep. And then week some more.
8. Surf the Web. Write inane tweets. Check out your high school friends on Facebook. Feel smug.
9. Watch Law & Order: SVU marathons. Revel in the ferocious beauty of Olivia Benson.
10. Remember how L-U-C-K-Y you are to be a creative person to begin with and quit your bellyaching. Get to work now!

Illustrator Marc Johns, whose art I have on my arm, offers:

Pretend. Stop thinking like a designer or writer or whatever you are for a minute. Pretend you’re a pastry chef. Pretend you’re an elevator repair contractor. A pilot. A hot dog vendor. How do these people look at the world?

One of my favorite musicians, Alexi Murdoch, extends an infinitely important, infinitely timely contrarian critique of creativity-culture:

Beethoven drank buckets of strong, black coffee. Beethoven was creatively prodigious. (He also went deaf and, perhaps, mad.) Sound syllogism here? I’d like to think so.

 

The idea that creativity is some abundantly available resource waiting simply for the right application of ingenuity to extract, refine, and pipe it into the grid seems so axiomatic at this cultural juncture that the very distinction between creativity and productivity has been effectively erased.

 

And so it is that, when faced with a decreased flow in productivity, we ask not what it might be that’s interfering with our creative process, but rather what device might be quickly employed to raise production levels. This is standard, myopic, symptomatology-over-pathology response, typical of a pressurized environment of dislocated self-entitlement.

 

At the risk of going off brief here, can I just ask: What’s wrong with creative block? Might it not just be that periods — even extended ones — of productive hiatus are essential mechanisms of gestation designed to help us attain higher standards in our pursuit of creative excellence?

Writer Douglas Rushkoff rebels:

I don’t believe in writer’s block.

Yes, there may have been days or even weeks at a time when I have not written — even when I may have wanted to — but that doesn’t mean I was blocked. It simply means I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, as I’d like to argue, exactly the right place at the right time.

 

The creative process has more than one kind of expression. There’s the part you could show in a movie montage — the furious typing or painting or equation solving where the writer, artist, or mathematician accomplishes the output of the creative task. But then there’s also the part that happens invisibly, under the surface. That’s when the senses are perceiving the world, the mind and heart are thrown into some sort of dissonance, and the soul chooses to respond.

 

That response doesn’t just come out like vomit after a bad meal. There’s not such thing as pure expression. Rather, because we live in a social world with other people whose perceptual apparatus needs to be penetrated with our ideas, we must formulate, strategize, order, and then articulate. It is that last part that is visible as output or progress, but it only represents, at best, 25 percent of the process.

 

Real creativity transcends time. If you are not producing work, then chances are you have fallen into the infinite space between the ticks of the clock where reality is created. Don’t let some capitalist taskmaster tell you otherwise — even if he happens to be in your own head.

Musician Jamie Lidell echoes Tchaikovsky:

Cheers. Watcha gonna do with a blocked toilet? I mean, that’s all it is, right? A bung that needs pulling to let the clear waters of inspiration flow.

Maybe. Or maybe it just takes showing up. Going back again and again to write or paint or sing or cook.

 

Some days the genius will be in you, and you will sail. Other days the lead will line the slippers, and you’ll be staring into the void of your so-called creative mind, feeling like a fraud. It’s all part of the big ole cycle of creativity, and it’s a healthy cycle at that.

As a notorious marginalian, I wholeheartedly second this bit from digital-media artist and data viz wunderkind Aaron Koblin, head of the Data Arts Team in Google’s Creative Lab:

They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you are not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies…the medium doesn’t matter, so long as it inspires you. When you’re stumped, go to your notes like a wizard to his spellbook. Mash those thoughts together. Extend them in every direction until they meet.

Philosopher Daniel Dennett has a special term for his method:

My strategy for getting myself out of a rut is to sit at my desk reminding myself of what the problem is, reviewing my notes, generally filling my head with the issues and terms, and then I just get up and go do something relatively mindless and repetitive. At our farm in the summer, I paint the barn or mow the hayfield or pick berries or cute fire wood to length…. I don’t even try to think about the problem, but more often than not, at some point in the middle of the not very challenging activity, I’ll find myself mulling it over and coming up with a new slant, a new way of tackling the issue, maybe just a new term to use. Engaging my brain with something else to control and think about helps melt down the blockades that have been preventing me from making progress, freeing up the circuits for some new paths. My strategy could hardly be cruder, but it works so well so often that I have come to rely on it.

 

One summer, many years ago, my friend Doug Hofstadter was visiting me at my farm, and somebody asked him where I was. He gestured out to the big hayfield behind the house, which I was harrowing for a reseeding. ‘He’s out there on his tractor, doing his tillosophy,’ Doug said. Ever since then, tillosophy has been my term for this process. Try it; if it doesn’t work, at least you’ll end up with a painted room, a mowed lawn, a clean basement.

But as a tireless proponent of combinatorial creativity, my favorite comes from the inimitable Jessica Hagy of indexed fame, who pretty much articulates the Brain Pickings founding philosophy:

How can you defeat the snarling goblins of creative block? With books, of course. Just grab one. It doesn’t matter what sort: science fiction, science fact, pornography (soft, hard, or merely squishy), comic books, textbooks, diaries (of people known or unknown), novels, telephone directories, religious texts — anything and everything will work.

Now, open it to a random page. Stare at a random sentence.

[…]

Every book holds the seed of a thousand stories. Every sentence can trigger an avalanche of ideas. Mix ideas across books: one thought from Aesop and one line from Chomsky, or a fragment from the IKEA catalog melded with a scrap of dialog from Kerouac.

 

By forcing your mind to connect disparate bits of information, you’ll jump-start your thinking, and you’ll fill in blank after blank with thought after thought. The goblins of creative block have stopped snarling and have been shooed away, you’re dashing down thoughts, and your synapses are clanging away in a symphonic burst of ideas. And if you’re not, whip open another book. Pluck out another sentence. And ponder mash-ups of out-of-context ideas until your mind wanders and you end up in a new place, a place that no one else ever visited.

Marvelous.

At once practical and philosophical, Breakthrough! promises to help you burst through your own creative plateaus. Whether or not it succeeds, one thing it’s guaranteed to do is make you feel less alone in your mental struggles — and what greater reassurance than that could there be?

SOURCE: www.brainpickings.org