Facebook. Twitter. Linked In. Google+. Its a social media perfect storm out there isn’t it? Even outside the ever increasing social media realm, it seems there’s something new every day. The new technology. The new procedure. The new method. The new ideology. The new initiative. The new leader. The new diet. The new relationship.
The new .
I love ‘the new.’ I love discovering and exploring and asking ‘what if.’ Yet, in my line of work, I’m continually teaching and encouraging a ‘back-to-the-basics’ approach. As creatives, it’s easy for us to get gaught up ‘the new,’ sometimes to our detriment.
Enter Jon Steel via Ideasicle, one of my favorite think-tanks on creativity and the creative process. Steel is a British advertising giant and all-around creative thinker, creative doer type.
He’s one of my new creative heroes. Chew on this from Mr. Steel:
“It seems to me that we’re absolutely obsessed as an industry with the stuff that’s new and all the stuff we can do. . . I bet there were people shopping in Pompeii who shopped at the places they did to buy their bread or whatever they were buying because they were treated the way customers get treated in the Apple store today. We have got to remember that there are fundamental principles of human nature, of human instinct, the things that make us happy, the things that piss us off, the things that make us excited. Those are the same today as they’ve always been.”
And…
“The great communicators, the great books, the great movies, and the great advertising campaigns are all based on those human truths. It’s why you can take Romeo and Juliet and shoot it in the modern day with Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s why you can take classic Greek literature and make modern versions of it. Because the themes that they’re talking about are timeless. I just hope that people will remember with all this change [technology] going on there are still some fundamentals and things that remain the same.”
What do you think about Jon Steel’s approach to creativity? How do we blend the new with the old in our creative process?
It’s such a great point. No matter how fast things change, a vast majority of what matters never changes a bit. Like human nature.
Glad you enjoyed the podcast. You might enjoy our new one with Jonathan Fields (author of “Uncertainty”), which comes out tomorrow. You can check that out here tomorrow: http://www.ideasicle.com/Ideasicle_Site/Blog_%26_Podcast/Blog_%26_Podcast.html
Best,
Will Burns (host of the Ideasicle Podcast)
Can’t wait to hear it, Will! Love the work you guys do!