DennisDemori.com

This weekend I was fortunate to be one of the lucky people in attendance at TEDxHollywood, “a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.”

The event was held at the LA office of TBWA/CHIAT/DAY, which is basically the kind of cool, funky, creative environment where every ad guy and girl dreams of working.

An office park...literally

The event was organized by Creative Director Tito Melega, who said during his introduction (I’m paraphrasing) on the evening’s theme, Creativity In The New World: “Instead of creating stories people want to hear, we create stories people want to tell.”

The event moved forward with the first guest speaker, photographer Jay Mark Johnson, who creates stunning visuals through the use of what he calls “Space-time Photography.”

Next up was Rob Schwartz, Chief Creative Officer at TBWA/CHIAT/DAY who talked about some of the work that went into the Pepsi Refresh Project, an excellent case study for brands who want to behave as a tool for positive social change. What was really inspiring is the number of incredible ideas people submitted to the campaign: “There’s so much creative potential in this country coming from regular people.”

I loved when Rob showed us a messenger bag created from a billboard that was used doing the Refresh project. It was a great example of a brand using their marketing to literally create something in line with the campaign message. He closed with this Behance-esque quote.

IDEAS WORTH SHARING —> IDEAS WORTH DOING

Mark was followed by singer/songwriter Elizaveta, who pretty much left everyone floored during her performance with her amazing voice. You can download four free tracks here.

The last presenter of the night was Tears For Fears co-founder Curt Smith, who talked about how social media has changed both the music industry and how he behaves as a musician. The key takeaway for me was when Curt said, “I don’t HAVE to record an ALBUM.” He’s realized that the album format is inefficient and outdated, something Bob Lefsetz has been saying for some time now: people nowadays prefer cherry-picking their favorite tracks over buying albums.

Looking back, I’m incredibly grateful to have been a part of this experience. I met some terrific people and I think that it’s great Tito was able to gather such a colorful group of presenters to educate, entertain and inspire us for a short evening — pretty much everything I could ask for in a TED event.

LINKS:

Check out my full Flickr set here

TED X Hollywood Tweet Stream

A lot of people say that this is their favorite Ted Talk, and I really enjoyed it too. I just watched it for my first time today. A few quotes from the presentation:

“Kids will take a chance – they’re not frightened of being wrong…If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

“Picasso once said all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. We don’t grow into creativity..we grow out of it.”

“If you think of it the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued or it was actually stigmatized.”

“We know 3 things about intelligence: 1) It’s diverse 2)It’s dynamic 3) It’s distinct”

It’s interesting how right on Sir Ken Robinson is during this talk. He basically says the educational system – not just in the U.S.,  but everywhere in the world, is fundamentally flawed, because it mirrors itself after its educators. Professors, he says, “Live in their heads.” They’re focused on Mathematics, Literature and Science, and the Arts are always placed at the bottom of the educational hierarchy. As a result, students who excel at the Arts and creativity aren’t celebrated – they’re perceived as inadequate. This thinking stifles our creativity instead of nurturing it.

One of the key insights author Elizabeth Gilbert has goes back to the times of Ancient Rome and Greece. In those days, people believed “genius” came from a divine source. This theory evolved from having genius to being a genius. She says that this tremendous pressure to live up to the expectations of being a genius puts an unnatural burden and expectation on creative people, which inevitably leads to their burnout or early demise.

She says,”I think the pressure of that has been killing off our artists for the past 500 years.”Although I don’t wholeheartedly agree with her argument, I think it is important for people to distance themselves at times from their actions and behaviors to gain perspective. NOT to shun responsibility or accountability when things don’t go well, but to understand that WHAT you do will vary in success despite your greatest efforts. Creative people are often defined by their creative output (or lack of) and I think the key takeaway here is by putting less pressure on themselves they can rebound more easily and dive back into the creative process.

What do you think?