Via Seth Godin

Where do ideas come from?

1. Ideas don't come from watching television
2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
3. Ideas often come while reading a book
4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner's mind. A little awareness is a good thing
9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
10. Ideas come from trouble
11. Ideas come from our ego, and they do their best when they're generous and selfless
12. Ideas come from nature
13. Sometimes ideas come from fear (usually in movies) but often they come from confidence
14. Useful ideas come from being awake, alert enough to actually notice
15. Though sometimes ideas sneak in when we're asleep and too numb to be afraid
16. Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we're not trying
17. Mediocre ideas enjoy copying what happens to be working right this minute
18. Bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones
19. Ideas don't need a passport, and often cross borders (of all kinds) with impunity
20. An idea must come from somewhere, because if it merely stays where it is and doesn't join us here, it's hidden. And hidden ideas don't ship, have no influence, no intersection with the market. They die, alone.

I love this dude! I attest to 9, 16 & 17 strongly!

Via Think Splendid

We are off to a busy weekend yet again : |

Shall leave you with some wise words from Liene:

"amateurs add, professionals edit"

Ciao, wishing all readers a fun weekend!

Integrity, An Excerpt

sean low's (of tbbc) latest post came quite perfectly at the right time. its an interesting article on integrity which pretty much highlights the challenges faced by those part of any type of creative business. here's an excerpt, for the whole post head over to sean's blog! and for those involved in this line, i urge you to keep this in mind as it will all serve us well while we build our little enterprises towards greater success ;)

The problem with operating without integrity is that the result (positive or negative) is never really yours. If you blindly take another’s collateral – her pricing information, packages, marketing materials, blog posts, images, ideas, etc. – you can never really be sure that it is you your clients are really hiring. While you might be able to live with it in the short run, the lie will get you in the end. The spirit of creation and individualism behind any artist and their creative business simply will not permit being derivative forever. And to go down the path of being dishonest can do nothing but destroy your own sense of self. Hard to produce great work when the confidence in having faith in who you are and what you are about is gone.

Although we seem to be recovering from the trauma of last year’s economic events, the air of uncertainty remains. In that air, the temptation to copy (i.e., steal) from someone else, do business that is not right for you or lower your standards (i.e., prices, product quality, clientele) for the sake of the business is remarkably alluring. It IS harder to stay true to yourself and your art and work to see what opportunities will present themselves during this time of transition. However, if you can know, really know, that losing your integrity will make you myopic, the choice might not be that difficult.

Moment Jars & TeuxDeux

this is so cool! at Moment Jars, you can capture 'moments' or events in your life in these e-jars. as a long-time barça aficionado, 21st December was a very special moment for me =) keep and share your moment here!



another awesome application - a to-do list! it's clean, stylish and very user friendly. what i like about this is that it's uncluttered and gives you a very clear picture of what's done and what needs to be done. apparently they are working to create iPhone and Blackberry apps =) registration process is 2 seconds long, another plus point!

Happy Lady Eats

photo by Sweets Truck via Happy Lady Eats

in my case, Sad Lady Eats More.

Oh Joy!, one of my favourite blogs has a food blog too! It may have been up eons back but hey, a find is a find =) cheers to more great reads and food pics!

Le Divan Fumoir Bohemian

do i know what it means? no. is the blog in english? no. BUT, it's got tags such as 'maison', 'londres', 'papier' and 'paris' and that's enough to get me browsing. this blog offers a sufficient dose of inspiring pictures (and those speak a thousand words) and it was through these pictures that i landed there.

beautiful bookbinders ;)

see the rest here...

The Flourish Collection

letterpress books

a small e-shop selling decorative labels to odd things like a teal & gold french tin flea market find. the whole site's pretty neat, i may get my self a letterpress-something.

shop shop shop

Jo Gets Married

if you have not been reading A Cup of Jo (why haven't you?!), let me tell you she has graciously shared with readers her wedding planning journey for months. the more i look at her pictures, the more ways i think of saving enough moolahs to fly max wanger over to singapore when it's my turn ;)

Morning Digest

Everyone should be creative. Whatever your art is, it should invigorate you and bring you joy. And if it happens to be your business, it should bring you the money you need to keep being creative - Sean Low

i've been reading this blog for some time now and its an awesome read for those involved in the business of being creative. sean low is a law graduate from upenn. his business experience stretches from investment banking, law to consulting small business owners. prior to setting up his own consultancy business, he was president of preston bailey design inc.

Lovely Layers

my latest addition to 'Wedding Resources' - 100 Layer Cake is a wedding resource site (blog) that posts many beautiful pictures and wedding ideas. i'm currently in love with the whole site's design (the typography choice and all, very martha) plus their own unique version of an inspiration board. a good daily read for sure and i can't wait for them to launch their website!

100 Layer Cake inspiration boards

Self Declared Break

why didn't we or just me, think of this? genius. chubbyhubby's 2-sink kitchen! i need this at residence figaro.

check out their new kitchen here

An Excerpt

from mrbrown.com

We Only Want Approved Creativity

That was a long speech, and I will not be able to talk about all of it at one go. One bit stood out for me though, when PM Goh talked about The Creative Society.

While I agree with the need to have a creative society to attract the best to set up shop here, I am afraid it doesn't quite work that way, wanting to see a society where creative energy is only channelled to positive and non-idle pursuits. A truly creative society that buzzes and thrives is one where you accept not just the Norio Ohgas, the Jack Neos, and the George Lucases, but also the public pubic hair snippers, the Catherine Lims, and the manglers of national songs.

Which society wouldn't want the artsy fartsy creatives and the high-tech geniuses? But the fringe types come with the territory. Some of them even express political dissent, have alternative sexual preferences, and consume contraband substances (I am not talking about chewing gum here).

And if Holland Village, Siglap, and Club Street are the best examples we can come up with as Little "Bohemias", we are in more trouble creatively than we think. Holland Village is this expat/yuppie hangout with overpriced food and bad parking, hardly a place of bohemians doing their creative stuff.

We replaced hawkers with food courts — witness the kind of food that exercise gave us. You cannot manufacture Food courts of Bohemia the way you plant instant trees along the ECP.You cannot buy creativity. You cannot spend a whole lot of money on two durians and say, look, we now have art and culture. Look, Singapore is now a Nexus for the Creative. Now we are truly like Sydney with their Opera House, and London with their National Gallery. Sorry, not even close.

Art and culture come from people, not from buildings. People like Singapore's most famous potter, Iskandar Jalil, who was forced to dismantle his gas-powered kiln of 43 years, that he had been using to fire all his works. Because of a neighbour's complaint (ahem, public feedback), the SCDF told him to dismantle it as the three 50kg gas cylinders exceeded the home limit of 30kg. When you break the spirit of an artist,and make him cry, by hiding behind the convenience of public feedback and fire safety regulations, no amount of talk will convince the global creative community that your society welcomes them, no matter how many Esplanades or Little Bohemias you build. If you screw your own, what makes you think foreigners will believe you when you say you welcome foreign talent?

Peter Hartcher, commenting on the farcical Speaker's Corner, wrote that Singapore has the "emblems of a liberal democracy without its substance" and "has all the
mechanisms of a democracy without the liberal values which give them meaning".

We seem to be the same way with creativity. We are keen to acquire the emblems of a creative, artistic and culture-rich society without its substance, and we have all the mechanisms of a creative society without the values of free expression which give them meaning.

And in the end, all we have to show for it are architectural white elephants and psuedo-enclaves that echo with proclamations of art and culture, while the potter weeps over his broken kiln.

Orwell Online

The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.

Orwell’s ‘domestic’ diaries begin on 9th August 1938/2008; his ‘political’ diaries (which are further categorised as ‘Morocco’, ‘Pre-war’ and ‘Wartime’) begin on 7th September 1938/2008.

This is another brilliant blog idea - do check it out daily here!

Colours & Palettes

if you're a big fan of The Sartorialist (like who isn't?), you should check out this blog. it belongs to a suisse graphic design student who creates color palettes based on sartorialist content. smart!

screenshot