All posts by Evan Hamilton

Evolving into Creativity

Misc, Tech

Just read Tara Hunt’s blog post regarding bite size data and broken attention spans.  As a multi-tasker who has a family member with ADHD, I felt compelled to wade in.

To be clear: I’m not a doctor.  I’m not a scientist.  I’m not a psychologist, though I work with people and what they think.  But let’s face it, doctors consistently change their views on even the most important things.  This isn’t bad; this is medical research progressing.  But with that in mind, let’s look at what’s going on without any of the current medical research gumming up the works.

Split Attenion

I spend most of my day doing at least 3 things.  I constantly have chat windows open (AIM, MSN, IRC, and Gmail chat), I receive regular email notifications, I’m busy in Office applications, I’m Twittering, I’m checking my SNS and blogging and working.  This is normal at Flock.  This is normal in most places.

If I had told my father when I was a kid that I’d be doing this, he would have laughed at me.  He grew up in a time when you did maybe two things at once.  These days, however, he’s forced to multitask.  He drives his container-carrying trailer to the job while talking to clients on the phone and getting pages from others.  He wouldn’t have chosen it, but even his two-task-trained mind has adjusted to handle this.

By comparison, I grew up multitasking.  TV and computer (a habit I’ve tried to break and mostly succeeded) were my evenings.  While I absorbed theatrical elements and plot development from the tube (the original tube), I spoke with friends online, played games, found random stuff online, and/or worked on my own little projects.  I felt bad about this at the time; kids weren’t supposed to do this.  We were supposed to concentrate on our homework.

Cons

To be fair, I didn’t come out of this as a multi-million dollar champ who laughed in the face of parents and old teachers.  In fact, my grades were less than good and my college options were limited.  When I took my first difficult college class (Astronomy) I nearly failed because I simply couldn’t absorb that much straight data.

Like Tara, I learned to focus my energy.  In a way, it’s a sort of balance.  I now enjoy the concentration taken to focus on a single piece of writing (reading or creating) because I know I’m really getting something out of it.  Once I finish, I relish the dive back into multiple streams of data and creation.

Is this for everyone?  No.  Figuring out how to concentrate my multi-tasking brain wasn’t fun, and if I had screwed up badly enough I would have regretted it.

Where is this all going?

So what is the answer?  Are we all crippling ourselves?  Tara disagrees.  “It sounds a little like evolution to me.”  YES!  I think one of the most-overlooked elements of evolution is the evolution of thought processes.  It is a much faster evolution than that of our bodies.  Frankly, I think this has been labeled Anthropology and Psychology and left alone by scientists of evolution.  But it’s fascinating to think of all the unresearched gaps here.  Why is it that I (with my inferior single concentration) can figure out a technical device that I have no experience with, while my father (with superior concentration) can’t?  I refuse to attribute this all to “experience with technology”.  My dad has plenty of technology and has had it for awhile.  It’s our BRAINS that are different.

So, is this good?  I think the truth is that no one knows.  Is all evolution good?  No.  Evolution is a reaction to environmental circumstances.  It does not take into consideration how things might change in the future.  It doesn’t take into account that this change might be temporary.  If all computers died today, we might be crippled.  We might die off, leaving only the John Locke’s.

What do I think the result of this will be?  I think increased creativity is the most fantastic element of this.  Previously, one had to dedicate specfic time to creation.  Only those with lots of time or the ability to concentrate and create in short periods really revolutionized things.

Now, we all have the time (due to multi-tasking) to imagine and create.  “User-generated content” is a big buzzword right now, but nobody seems to be thinking about it on a deeper level.  Is the internet or technology the real reason for more user-generated content?  No, the real reason is these people have the ability to create and imagine in the space between moments.

This isn’t all good.  In fact, I attribute it to the creation of many crappy, crappy bands.  They have time to work and work on songs until they’re just enough above craptastic to be slightly marketable.  But I think that, by far, the result has been positive.  From the fantastic collections of data on the internet to the myriad of blogger opinions to the startup businesses created in spare time or an afternoon…we’re truly experiencing a renaissance, and it’s because of this ability to split our concentration.

The end to this enormous diatribe is rather simple: don’t fight this.  We’ve stifled evolution as much as we can with chemicals, confines, prosthetics and the like.  Let’s not kill the one, amazing evolution occurring in our brains right now.

As Tara said: “Information overload is painful, yes, but it is necessary, I believe, for our personal advancement.”  Amen.  And now I’m off to Twitter, Gmail, and Flock.  Hm, maybe a little IM too.

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NEW Monsters are not Myths song

Music

Hey folks,

In case you missed our podcast (for which I wouldn’t blame you), check out the new Monsters are not Myths demo, “She”.  It’s available on our MySpace page, thanks to a rather clever marketing move (you get 5 songs on MySpace if you add what is, essentially, an advertising platform as a friend).

It’s a bit rough but I’m rather excited about the new direction.

Also, don’t miss us at The Catalyst Atrium for the 2007 Battle of the Bands in Santa Cruz, CA on April 6th at 9pm.  Show us your ticket with a vote for us and get a free, recently re-designed bumper sticker.  Nifty!

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Confessions of a Lost addict

Tech

I’m a Lost addict.  I’ll be the first to admit it.  No need to have an intervention where my friends and family sit me down and say, in low voices, “Evan, you have a problem”.  It’s true.  Claire and I stay up hours past when we should be sleeping to find out what will happen next with the hatch, the others, the island.

Part of the problem is that we’re still catching up; I saw Season 1 of Lost and then got too busy to watch it weekly.  Claire only recently got interested, and so we’ve been sprinting towards the third season.  We just finished the second season (three words: what the hell!?!?), and now we’re in a pickle: Netflix, our Lost dealer, does not have the yet-to-be-completed season 3 on DVD.  When we realized this, we broke out into a cold sweat.  I started to itch and Claire began to convulse and tear apart the apartment looking for a forgotten disc.  There had to be more, had to be!

We tried the next line of attack (bearing in mind that I have not the time, will, or bandwidth to use bittorrent or the like): iTunes.  I bought an episode and we watched it on my 15-inch screen.  Small size aside, there were slowdowns during the large pans and some audio/video syncing problems.  Not to mention it cost me $2 an episode.

Luckily, a friend let us know that you can watch episode of Lost for free (!) on ABC.com.  Awesome, good move ABC.  Unfortunately, they’re smarter than I expected: you can only get the most recent 10 episodes.  The season is probably 20 episodes in, so we’ve been reduced to buying the episodes on the iTunes store.  I’m trying to not be bitter, but I feel like Netflix has let me down.

With that in mind, here’s what Netflix should do:

In addition to the collected season discs, Netflix should release “singles” of Lost: single episodes on a disc.  As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t even need to have a unique menu (as classy as the Lost DVD menus are).  It just needs to work.  I’d be perfectly willing to use one of my Netflix slots for this.  Sure, some money would be spent creating these discs (which I suppose would have to eventually be sold for very cheap on the Netflix store), but I think fellow Lost addicts will agree with me: we will have incredible loyalty to Netflix if they support our addiction.

I’m off to rob my best friend so I can buy more Lost on Netflix and smoke it.

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Money and music

Music

I guess I thought I was a smart marketer/musician, but (as always) I still have more to learn.

From this point on I vow never to take money to support my music unless it is officially a gift (which means no-strings-attached) or a loan with a contract.  It’s impossible to deal with ambiguities amongst friends, fans, or even companies.  Until your band becomes incredibly successful, bartering, haggling and negotiating every dollar at the merch table (or at your office, or at the record store) is the name of the game.  Without it, your merch sales will plummet (not that ours are very high).

The guy at your show who only loved the last song but only has $4 isn’t going to go down the street to the ATM for the extra dollar, but if you give it to him for $4 he will wear that shirt everywhere and talk about how cool the guys in your band were.  He will evangelize you and generate more fans/sales than the $5 you would have charged for the shirt.

Bottom line is, when I’m dealing with merch and money I either need to know that I answer only to myself/my band or that I have a specific dollar amount I need to reach to not get my knees broken.

If that means I have to write “Monsters are not Myths” in sharpie on a thrift-shore shirt, so be it.

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Lack of innovation in the petroleum industry

Marketing

I heard the ED of Shell on NPR this morning talking about how Shell is going to start supporting cleaner fuels.  The NPR host made the mistake of asking if Shell might become a petroleum free company anytime soon.  His answer was not surprising:  “I don’t see Shell becoming a non-petroleum company for a long time”.  That’s because, as much as they say they want to help, they don’t.  That and they’re unwilling or incapable of thinking outside of the barrel.

Why not accept the fact that in a few years the earth will either be submerged in melted ice caps and fire or will be using cars that are primarily electric?  Start the marketing now!  Think of how far ahead of the competition you’ll be.  Here’s a couple freebies.

“Charge your car here and get a free coffee and donut!”
With all the money you’re saving on expensive offshore drilling and hiring lawyers to sicc against the environmentalists, throw in some freebies that consumers will never get at the locations with gas for $5/gallon.

“Pet the seals you’re saving!”
Instead of worrying about which environmental disaster you’ll cause next, have a petting zoo where consumers can pet the animals that aren’t’ being killed by oil tankers.

“Celebrate Iraq pullout day!”
Enjoy yourselves on the anniversary of the U.S. getting their dirty, oil-covered hands out of the middle east.  Take a sip of clean, cold water and pat yourself on the back for stopping your destruction of the world as we know it.

Either that or I’ll see you on the day that electric cars collectively destroy your gas stations in an adult version of bumper cars.  I’ll buy you some cotton candy, because you will be poor and bitter.

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