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One Creative Moment

by James E. Turner

One Creative Moment is a daily email for founders, owners, and creators. You'll get insights, irreverence, and inspiration to help you build a better business & live a more creative life.

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The more you know about something, the harder it is to learn

This is a frustrating but understandable truth. It comes courtesy of Everett Rogers (who coined the term “Early Adopters”). “The more someone knows about how to do something, the harder it is for them to learn to do it a different way.” I don’t know about you, but I can totally relate. I can think of a number of things I do where I’ve completely turned off my sense of curiosity and wonder, and now just go through the motions. I’m sorry to say I don’t have any particularly good advice on what...

2 days ago • 1 min read

If you work with clients on custom projects and have ever toyed with the idea of using value pricing, perhaps this framing will help you too! In a recent piece, friend of the list (and Ditching Hourly host) Jonathan Stark cleared it up for me in a big way. He pointed out that people want to work with you because they believe that what you do “…will improve something that contributes to the bottom line.” (They wouldn’t be spending a part of their one wild life talking to you for no reason,...

4 days ago • 1 min read

You won’t get emails like this from me often—because this sort of thing isn’t really my bag. But I was recently asked about boosting social media posts for a Tactics Roundup article, and I thought my answer would make a good email. (Plus, it references a previous One Creative Moment piece, which makes this quite meta.) My answer to the question, “How have you enhanced the virality of a marketing campaign?” was this: Engage a large account in a way they’re not accustomed. For example, I...

5 days ago • 1 min read

Sometimes things just line up perfectly, don’t they? Last week, I came across Christopher Lautemann on LinkedIn. According to his profile, he makes “Brand Story Songs.” Cool, right? Based on the description alone, I knew I had to reach out. I sent a connection request, and he accepted it shortly thereafter. Once we had connected, I told him why I had reached out. It was because the closest I—also a musician—have come to connecting my two “work” worlds (music and my business) has been using...

6 days ago • 1 min read

It’s a nature three-pack today, in belated honour of Earth Day, which I, predictably, missed. I mean, every day is/should be Earth Day, right? (Like Mother’s Day.) Thing the First: An apt reworking of one of my favourite Monty Python bits. (Done, I hasten to add, with the blessing and endorsement of the Pythons.) Watch it here. Thing the Second: A thought-provoking article from Thomas Klaffke. In it, he asks what “would happen if we invested as much attention, time, and money into Natural...

9 days ago • 1 min read

Lloyd Alter’s new book came out this week, and even the title alone is interesting. The Story of Upfront Carbon: How a Life of Just Enough Offers a Way Out of the Climate Crisis. If you aren’t familiar with Lloyd, he’s a Toronto-based architect, professor, and writer whom I’ve talked about before (here and here, for example). His writing lives at the intersection of many things I care about. Such as architecture, “green” living, sufficiency, design, urbanism, planning, spaces, living, aging...

11 days ago • 1 min read

If you've been getting One Creative Moment for any amount of time, you'll know that I almost never "sell" in these pieces. And that's because that's not really what it's for—not directly. However, I've been working with friend of the list, Danny Ruspandini, to develop a new offer. Yes, and we've reached the point where the next thing I have to do is tell people about it. So this is me telling you :) -ahem- Do you wish your website did a better job of telling your customers precisely what you...

12 days ago • 1 min read

Is it that you can’t do something or that you don’t? It may sound like mere semantics, but hear me out. If you “can’t,” you lack the skills and/or authority to do something. It implies you are unwilling or unable to do something. If you “don’t,” you’ve decided not to do something. It implies you have the authority (and gumption) to make a choice and stick with it. This came up in an exchange I had recently with one of our kids’ friends. I asked about what she’d want to eat, and she said, “I...

13 days ago • 1 min read

Sometimes, you just want to hear about something good and heartening going on in the world. This week, on a call with a group helping to hone and develop an eco-anxiety app, Wildya, someone brought up Be My Eyes as an example of a tech + volunteer effort to make the world a better place. And I was blown away. With 7MM+ volunteers and 600K+ users, Be My Eyes “connects blind and low-vision users who want sighted assistance with volunteers and companies anywhere in the world, through live video...

16 days ago • 1 min read

You may have heard that having an accountability partner improves your odds of getting things done. Perhaps you’ve even experienced it. If not, here’s a great way to try it out today. Courtesy of friend-of-the-list Kevin Freidberg’s recent piece, Shatter Your Glass Castle. Here’s how it works (my paraphrase of Kevin’s idea): 1 - Determine the work you need to do (e.g., a webpage, an email, a blog post). 2 - Email a friend and tell them you’ll send a finished draft in 25 minutes. 3 - Do not...

18 days ago • 1 min read
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