Ever since I was a little kid I have thought of life as a business. It may seem odd, but it is true. I was always interested in business and studied people carefully. That is how I learned… just by watching other people. I saw that there were certain things I would want as an adult which were very expensive. Such things as a house. So at the age of 13 I started saving for a house. I think it was at 13 that I started to look at my life as a business… that is when I wrote my first draft of my life business plan.

So what is “The Business of Life”? When I really think about life, it is made up of decisions… calculated steps to a conclusion. The same is true in business. Thinking about your life as a business just means thinking and planning those steps a little more carefully. As a business you have a business plan, money, profit, etc. The same thing is true in life, for me. I have a plan, a budget, goals, profits, etc. Running a business and “running” my life are not all that different. A couple examples from my life:

• Cycling – I first got into cycling as a way to reduce my gas consumption… mainly for cost savings. It turns out that I really love cycling for other reasons.
• Budget – I have a pretty strict budget based on projected net income. This allows me to save for the things that I really want and need. Keeping debt at 0.
• ROI – I always look at the things I buy based on projected return on investment. Say I want a new car. I think to myself… will this add or detract from my overall worth? To me there is a fine point with cars. Since they depreciate in value I won’t spend a lot of money on them, but at the same time, I use my car for business, so perception is important. I find a middle ground between depreciation, what I can afford and outside perception. Other things are a little easier. I want a laptop. Easy, get one. It will allow me to blog and work remotely. ROI = extra productivity. With that, I don’t need a crazy expensive computer. So I am waiting for the perfect one to go on sale.
• Choosing to marry my wife – Now this one may seem odd, but it is true. If you really think about it, choosing a mate is a life business decision. Yes there are a lot of other things here first… such as love (which is the main thing)… however choosing to spend the rest of your life with someone needs more analysis. How do both people feel about: money, kids, the future… etc. A careful analysis of all of those things needs to be done to help forecast a lasting relationship from a fleeting passionate spark. Just as in business it is important to pick the people you choose to work with and do business with carefully.

To some it may seem odd, that I think so much about business. I am a visual artist. Artists are supposed to be free willed, care-free creatures, right? I think some may be, but successful artists need to think a lot about business. And in all reality, artists are the most involved people in their business. Often an artist’s business is their life.

I think the more I learn about business, the more successful I am in life…

I think there are two extremes to living: Purely emotionally and purely analytical… kind of the right and left brains of living. I think living life as a business is a great in between. There are a lot of emotional decisions that need to be made in business and life… and there are a lot of analytical decisions that need to be made. Sometimes I find myself straying too far to one side or the other and I need to re-evaluate my life plan. I think we can learn a lot if we just step back from the emotions and really analyzing the situation. If we think too emotionally, make some steps to analyze things and put plans into place. If we are over analyzing things, make some emotional decisions based on gut…

Think about it for a second. What side are you on? Could you benefit from a life business plan? Do you have one already?

I have tried many different types of list programs, everything from the notebook list to the online list management programs. One thing I have come to learn, at least for myself… it needs to be easy and quick, or I will never keep up with it. For about the past year I have come up with a system that works for me. It is based on the main ideas of the GSD – or the “get shit done” time management practice. Basically, a main list of everything, and a smaller list of things to get done right now. Prioritized and do-able.

Main List: I use TeuxDeux for my main list. Read more about it here. TeuxDeux is a simple list service, and here are some reasons why I like it.

I make a point to note the simple use, because, for me, if I can’t add something to my list quick… it doesn’t make it (but it probably should be on there). I have tried a lot of other to-do apps, and each one of them seem to be cumbersome, with un-needed steps to add something to the list. With TeuxDeux, I can add something to a day real quick. I usually just add things on the go, from the iPhone app… and then later when I am at a computer I start to organize things. I use blank entries to seperate items into categories… the main category being “Important”. Things that need to be done asap, go there.

The Breakout List: From the main list, I organize smaller, more manageable daily lists. From my organized TeuxDeux list, I make a hard copy post-it list for the day. Sometimes this list can span a couple post-its… morning, afternoon, evening. I use three colors for the lists, and start the day.

Google Calendar: I also use Google cal to help me stay on task for things like meetings or important deadlines. I use Google cals, because I can share them with other people.

That is pretty much it. Main list, breakout list, and calendar. The main thing again… simplicity.

Tip: When something pops up in the middle of the day that is not on your list. Prioritize the item. Can it wait, or does it need to be done now. If you do it asap, add it to your list anyways, so you can check it off. Sometimes the simple task of checking something off your list is a great motivational boost.

What is your time management/productivity work-flow look like?

“My job is ok and safe”
“But you don’t love what you are doing where you are at”
“No”
“Why stay?”
“It seems safe”
-repeat year after year

In 2011 I need to change my thinking. I have always been interested in art, deign and photography, but there had always been something in my way of being happy. Could it be the agency life? Trying to fit into a mold of someone else’s thoughts. Or trying to fit everything into a 9-5 interruption driven model? Maybe. So I ask myself:

“What do you really want”
“A Good Life”
“So quit your job and start living your good life”
“But that would be scary”
“So what”
“Good point, but I am safe here”
“Not a good reason to stay”
“Good point”
“I Quit”
-start my path to living my good life.

2011 has proven a good start to my journey towards my good life. The good life is different for everyone, and I hope to define mine over the next year. I am done playing it safe, because that has gotten me nowhere and comfortable. Comfort in any art form is not necessarily the best place to be. So I have set out on my own. Look for more work here and at Valo Photography.

In honor of my journey, I will be starting a new digital painting series called “The Good Life” to explore the things that have been rooted in my brain as to what constitutes a good life. In painting these things, my memories of what people have told me I need, I hope to be able to think more clearly on what my good life actually consists of, and start to re-program my brain to reject the paths others have wanted me to take. I will also be starting a new “shared” thread, which will be work created for the purpose of use. Basically I want to share with you some of the things I am making, and allow you to download them and use them. I am not quite sure what this will look like yet, but it could be fun.

Wish me luck in my journey, and start yours today. Don’t wait any longer to follow your dreams. I have waited to long.

This interactive billboard in Time’s Square made by space150 is very cool. The crowd is first presented with a live video of themselves, followed up by a Forever 21 model walking on to frame and taking a Polaroid picture of the crowd and then showing it to them. In some cases the model picks up a person and puts it into her shopping bag. space150 used high tech video surveillance equipment to create the real time masks of the people, and allow for the on the fly digital manipulation of the real time crowd.

Pretty cool right? I thought so. But things got a little more interesting for me when I took a look at the original Vimeo page for this video. Check it out for yourself. It seems this marketing effort has flamed a huge debate over inspiration and copying…

In short it seems a digital artist, by the name of Chris O’Shea, did something similar a while back (Sept 2009). Take a look at his work titled “Hand from Above” here

The debate over on Vimeo is interesting and brings up a lot of thoughts. I have not yet been able to figure out my own thoughts on this project. I think writing this post is kind of a way for me to think through some things. Chris himself starts out the debate in a very polite way. It seems in his response that he would have been open to the project, if it was presented in a better manner, and credit was given, even just as inspiration… Later in the comments space150 comes out and says they contacted Chris in the early stages of the project, and he declined. Should they have dropped the digital “pick-up” part of the campaign? Is the work a complete rip-off or an inspired derivative?

A couple quotes from Chris in the Vimeo post:

Was there any mention of my piece in their press? No. Should there have been? Well, that’s the part of the debate isn’t it?

Ad agencies claiming originality and innovating new tech becomes transparent when its clear where ideas were borrowed from or which programming open source frameworks were used (without acknowledgement).

Advertising agencies are often lifting/borrowing/using the ideas of artists, and there are many examples online. The amount of content on youtube makes these sort of situations common now. It is easier to sell to a client something that has been done before, rather than invent something completely new. However such is the creative community, that people will notice and call an agency on it if the idea is too similar.

So if the creative community are tired of having their ideas lifted into commercials, what are the issues up for debate?

1) originality of ideas and ownership of those. If no ideas are truly original, where does the grey area of originality sit?
2) Should artists be credited for inspiration? Should ad agencies claim to be original knowing they will be told otherwise by social media later?
3) What should an ad agency do in an ideal situation in terms of working with artists?
4) What do artists want from ad agencies?

So what should we think about this? Copyright issues are not new, and I would say they are more and more prevalent these days. As more ideas are generated, do new ones just become that much harder to create? Are creatives just becoming lazy? Do ad agencies need to start hiring artists, and pay them accordingly, to play and experiment on their dime? Do we need to listen less to our client base when they say things like “I want something just like that…”?

Chris’ comment about artists using advertising as a flip…

If an artist had copied an advertisement on tv for example, making it into a video installation, then becoming popular, wouldn’t the advertising company sue the artist for copyright? Would be interesting to hear if there any examples of this.

…confused me a little. I think artists have taken ideas, images, and thoughts from culture since the early days of time. Andy Warhol would be a good example of this, taking logos and advertisements, and making them into art. Pop Art revolves around the concept of taking something from pop culture and re-purposing it for artwork. Is this different? I think so. I suppose the artist isn’t really trying to hide where they got the idea from. A more recent example would be the work: “Untitled (300 x 404)” by Greg Allen. This is what Greg has to say about the work:

The original of Untitled (300 x 404) is a thumbnail-size jpeg of Untitled (Cowboy), 2003, Richard Prince’s rephotograph of a Marlboro ad, which I grabbed from the web. An online magazine had (ridiculously, I thought) been denied permission to reproduce Prince’s version so, following his example, I declared the copy my own work and offered it to them.

You can read more about this debate here:

• 20×200
• Blake Andrews
• dinosaurs and robots

So what are the differences between an ad agency being inspired from an artist work, and an artist being inspired by a work that already exists? They are both in ways making money, but does the artist have more “rights” to copy, as long as they attach a meaning to it? Or a different meaning than the first meaning? It is hard either way, for me, I think. Sometimes a copy or derivative can be clever, and sometimes get marked as a rip-off? Who are the ones to decide?

I guess for me it comes down to a “gentleman’s gesture” of sorts, and transparency. In any world; art, design, ad, photography, fashion, etc – there will always be inspired ideas. If the product of an idea comes too close to an already existing product, give that person credit, change something, team up with the original creator to make something even better, find a way for the original creator to not only get credit, but share in the profit of the idea. Credit is great and all, but being paid for an original idea is even better. Just be honest and open.

This blog post started as a finding, something cool I found, and turned into a lot more than that. I would love to hear what other creatives, of any sort, think of this subject. I am still trying to sort through my own thoughts…

So there it is.