When minorities win over majorities
Posted by Zara
Here is an interesting quote from my Social Psychology textbook that gives innovative thinkers hope, where conformity rules.
There are instances in which such persons -minorities within their groups-actually turn the tables on the majority and exert rather than merely receive social influence. History provides many examples of such events. Giants of science like Galileo, Pasteur, and Freud, faced virtually unanimous majorities that initially rejected their views. Yet, over time, these famous persons overcame such resistannce and won widespread acceptance of their theories.
from Social Psychology, Eleventh Edition, Robert A. Baron, Donn Byrne, Nyla R. Branscombe. Pearson Education, Inc. Printed in the USA. Pg 353
Calling all freelancers and entrepreneurs!
Posted by Zara
Ps: This is not Flying Solo’s logo, just my approximation of it, lets see if they like it.
If you are a freelancer or are solo in your own business, you must have questions that your friends with desk jobs can’t answer. Thankfully you are not alone, there are lots of us out there and Flying Solo is bringing us together to ‘meet, share experiences and tips, ask questions, get answers and generally improve business smarts.‘ This all takes place by means of an unconference (an informal conference where the people going decide what they want to hear about, talk about, all speakers offering their wisdom free of charge.)
When is this happening?
Gauteng September 20, 2008. Details here.
What can I expect (What will I get out of it?)
I was lucky enough to attend the Cape Town event just over a month ago. We all got together at The Wild Fig in an inspiring, uplifting and friendly atmosphere. As it was a networking event as well as an informative one. I found people very approachable and ready to dispense knowledge.
The day kicked off with registration, accountants, tax and other scary stuff which left many of us reeling and reaching for an accountants phone number, but was helpful nonetheless. Another speaker that stood out was Jo Duxbury of Freelance Central, who delivered an insightful talk on, ‘What suits can teach creatives.’ She can also help us with marketing on a shoestring, where to promote yourself and excelling at client service. Pam Sykes also helps out with wisdom on this one as well as forms the group of organisers along with Jo Duxbury and Walter Pike.
All three are extremely knowledgeable and experienced …
Other things to look out for that will be dealt with in Gauteng as well are: finding and working with international clients; avoiding loneliness and how to use web 2.0 to your business’ advantage (The web 2.0 talk delivered by Jamaaludeen Khan.)
Contracts are covered as well as, editors no longer have the power, they just think they do, which will be delivered by Nick van der Leek in Johannesburg. There are so many great topics to mention but only so much attention to go around so I hope I can stretch it with this last one: recent cutbacks on hiring freelancers - how to find work.
There are a great many other things discussed and an open forum for questions, learn more about it here.
Besides the great discussions which can’t all be mentioned here, were fabulous sponsors and giveaways, like Max Kaizen who facilitated the event compliments of Huddlemind, 210 On Long gave away three vouchers for 5 hours use of their fabulous creative suites, Deirdre Hewitson gave away vouchers for a photo shoot to up your personal branding, there were also e-marketing books given away and much much more.
The good news is that you haven’t completely missed out because Joburg looks like it is going to be bigger and better. What I cannot wait for is the headline sponsor, Adobe who will be
sending two great speakers to talk to us: Alistair de Wet will discuss how to leverage intellectual property to forge better partnerships and Mohammed Jogie will be talking about the state of design in South Africa, and globally. Jogie is a high-profile speaker at conferences around the world as well as a Board Director of Think (the SA Design Council) and Adobe’s Design Evangelist for the Middle East and Africa. He has also previously started his own design company. from here.
If you absolutely can’t come but would like to meet some of the brave, driven individuals involved in Flying Solo, Walter Pike has created a social network for soloists here.
Attending Flying Solo in Cape Town I learned so many new concepts and went away with so many tools that my mind felt quite literally blown. Please join us, I’de love to meet you.
‘Fashion Forward’ T-shirts, do you have it in you?
Posted by Zara
Believe it! There is now pink ink all over my pure cotton, white duvet. Why? Because Markhams and Springleap are launching a T-shirt design competition for anyone creative, funky or inspired. I got funky all over my duvet for a possible R 5 000 cash and R 5 000 in vouchers. Dressed by the SA design talent and the big name in men’s fashion? Doable.
Who the hell are Springleap?
Springleap has just been featured on 5fm, in the Sunday Times and were nominated for the Standard 100 award.
Why?
They bring together SA cotton shirts and talented SA designers, proving that we have what it takes to be worldclass. Every month they run a T-shirt design competition with cash and fame for the winner and fine fashion for the rest.
How do I get this cash?
Your design must include one element from here, many appear in the pic above. Don’t stress if you don’t know where to start. Springleap has made it super easy with an online T-shirt wizard (magic design helper thingy.) So now you really have no excuse, unless maybe your bank account is really full and fame is like so last season. We all understand.
Springleap and Markham’s are looking for, ‘designs inspired by the current fashion forward graphic T trend.‘
What is that?
I don’t know either, so check out Springleap’s site for examples. Wolfox, the August winner is a great place to start or check out the designs @ the Curious, Whetstone & Frankley Gallery in Obz in Cape Town on the 3rd September. Nudge them nicely for an invite for opening night.
Thanks Springleap for bringing social networks and online communities the best in SA talent and Markhams for making it even bigger!
The community votes, power to the people, so get designing, voting, procrastination is dead, production starts now.
Overcoming Blogger’s Block
Posted by Zara
I am now the proud owner of a blank Moleskine softcover notebook, blank of course except for this post. Where you not a perfectly normal human being, I would not understand why it is not the most beautiful thing you have ever encountered.
An insert comes with it describing great men who went before, using this very tool. It weaves a story of european artists and thinkers for the past two centuries toting their own notepads across the globe.
I have been suffering from what I would rather call blogger’s block than say procrastination, laziness or an enthusiastic start which you now know became no blog posts for a few days.
Battling Blogger’s Block, a thourough article I found at problogger.net, inspired me to go and buy yet another notebook, but actually fill it with something this time. Now my ideas are recorded and so should yours be. Yes they are that important.
Another tip I discovered in this article is, ‘Combine Two Disconnected Ideas,’ and the only example that comes to mind is Ramon Thomas’ new initiative, ‘The Psychology of Technology,’ sounds fascinating and who would’ve paired those two?
What do your readers need? Do they have questions, do they need to know how to do something or are they craving specific info? Ask them or think in their shoes. Note to self, set up a questions link - I love feedback!
Look at something from another angle, examples elude me here, but there is always the tried and tested, ‘Best sauces for escargot,’ which could become, ‘Why do snails need sauce anyway?’
Here is one that is super scary and I love scary. Challenge is my middle name. To give this sentence its due it’ll have to have its own line to lounge on.
Tell everyone that over the next week you’ll write a post per day on a certain topic and you’ve suddenly made yourself accountable to writing something every day - other people waiting for a post can be just the motivation you need. from here
Whew, now that that’s over, Why is my mind not ticking over, what am I not doing? What is that stagnant mulch doing up in my head? Its not experimenting, not painting, not taking photos, writing, cooking or whatever it is that gets you going. Doodle if you’re desperate, but do not let the mould grow!
What time of day do you find most inspiring, energetic, creative or just clear (in the head department that is.) Write in your best time! or not.
Link Link Link
Link to people you got your info from, were inspired by and mentioned. They have their own traffic and own their words. You can use both. (If you write about someone, search engines will forever link you and them, maybe not on the first search page, but do you want to not take that chance?)
Another great idea is, ‘Lists,’ so easy to read and fun, light reading (if that’s your aim, you also get pretty heavy lists) is always a plus in this attention deficit world. Think, ‘Ten things not to do while driving,’ ‘Five ways to keep sane at work,’ paper clip animals hopefully not featuring on that list.
Memes and Projects - write a post that somehow involves your readers and gets them to replicate it in someway. Start a poll, an award, ask your readers to submit a post/link or run a survey or quiz. from here
Short posts are fine, as long as, of course, they convey something meaningful and aren’t more of a waste of time than reading a long post, writer’s discretion advised.
Keep at it, keep looking out for inspiration and motivation, self motivate and make it meaningful, (Do not run from this big word, even ants are meaningful if you look at them the write way.)
Finally, let me know if you write, comments are motivating too!
Dreamscape
Posted by Zara
With this illustration entitled, ‘Dreamscape,’ I tried to create a feeling, the feeling of ultimate calm. Let me know if I have succeeded.
Corporate is out, Honest is in
Posted by Zara
I recently attended an event called Cerebella, the third of its kind, previously called Geek Girls, an initiative for smart woman to get together, the tag line being, ‘Smart is Sexy.’
We all met at Origin Roasting in Seapoint where the coffee is arguably the best in Cape Town. David Donde, the owner, had a remarkable idea on how to run the event. He termed it an experiment in social responsibility. There were divine smoked salmon bagels and their famous coffee on offer, as well as the use of the venue for the evening. Our only instruction was, ‘Here is a glass honesty jar, put in it what you think this evening is worth.’ As you can imagine I am burning to know how that worked out, since there were also many waiters at our beck and call. Was everyone as ’socially responsible’ as David had hoped?
Maximillian Kaizen described our space at the event as a trusted space where common values were observed such as social responsibility and not spaming each other if email addresses were given out. We can always rely on Max for new idea and angles. To me she is the local ‘concept gal’, who always manages to blow my mind in one way or another.
Max who was the host for the night said something that almost brought a tear to my eye. She said, ‘There are many people in this room who are so brave that they risk looking like fools for their dreams.’ That was incredibly special because we were surrounded by brilliant women, young and old, who are forging their way in e-marketing, rising up the corporate ranks and people brave enough to make a go of it on their own.
Nikki Friedman from Big Words Scare Me, spoke at Cerebella. She is a story engineer or copy writer with a BIG difference. She believes in capturing people’s attention and imagination, by telling authentic stories, stories with a personal, creative and honest touch. This as part of your personal branding can separate you from dry corporate branding. Nikki puts it perfectly on her site, www.bigwordsscareme.com, it’ll separate you from, ‘irrelevant shotgun marketing, saint-like values or unrealistic mission statements.’ Telling an authentic story builds trust amoung your audiences and makes your story really memorable.
I met some very interesting people at the event and also saw people I had met at a previous event called, ‘Flying Solo.’ It was organised by Jo Duxbury and Pam Sykes for people starting up business’ with loads of useful advice.
Links and sponsors of the event, including information from the blog, Little Pinch of Salt @ littlepinchofsalt.com
Sponsers:
A big thank you to:
Moreson for the champagne
Origin Roasting for the venue @ 28 Hudson Street De Waterkant Cape Town
Brandseye for delivering cupcakes from Charlies Bakery with the coolest tagline ever: mucking afazing cakes
Flight Centre Seapoint for international travel vouchers
Quirk marketing for sponsoring the E-marketing book give-away.
Flying Solo South Africa - a network for those of us working alone
Freelancecentral - make sure you’re finding those clients!
Femtrepreneurs - a network for smart women
Huddlemind - Huddlemind accelerates people’s abilities to make sense of new trends and work challenges, and gives them concepts, language, tools and processes in order to deal with them.
Ephipany - A new intiative that Max is involved to bring smart people together, would love to know more about that one!
One more thing. I was lucky enough to meet Josie Stewart of Springleap. They sell T-shirts through competitions that designers would kill to win. Springleap are the only South African Company chosen as a possible winner in The Standard Innovation 100 awards, vote for them at www.thestandard.com/awards/tis100
Go Springleap!
The photo is of my coffee cup taken by Kerry-Anne Giloway.
Dandelion
Posted by Zara
This dreamlike Illustration is entitled, “Dandelion.”
Kissing
Posted by Zara
Welcome to my first attempt at digital art. For someone who loves the smell of a lead pencil and the feel of textured sketch paper it took some convincing from a digital and Wacom mad friend. Now, however there is no turning back and there will be many more digital pieces to come. Please critique it, comment on it or just leave your mark as a passerby.
Welcome
Posted by Zara
Welcome to the first post of my blog. This is a blog to showcase my Illustration work and a platform to share ideas on hopefully a very large range of topics. I have extremely diverse interests from computers to Psychology to Art. Let me know if there is anything you would like to discuss and please share, share and share some more.
