Strands of Genius: Creativity and Innovation, One Useful Thing, Tiny Desk Concert

Guest curated by Tim Brunelle, Creative Entrepreneur/Educator

Dec 19, 2024

:: A BIT MORE ABOUT GUEST CURATOR, TIM BRUNELLE ::

LOCATION: Minnetonka, MN

I honestly can’t remember if I met Rosie first through her agency work in NYC in the early 2000s, or was it Faris via Twitter? Either way, I was hooked. Their willingness to share insights and connections is such a generous gift. At one point in 2010 I convinced someone to pay for Faris to fly to Minneapolis to speak at Conversations About The Future Of Advertising (CATFOA.org - there's video!), a speaker-series I instigated. Years later, we got BBDO and another entity to fund the nomadic duo’s appearance in Minneapolis. I'm grateful for their continued enthusiasm and connection-making. Today, I am a generalist consulting across marketing, in-house agency operations, generative AI, and education. I write a weekly newsletter about creativity that began as a blog back in 1994. And I’ve been an adjunct faculty at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design inside the Creative Entrepreneurship program since 2008, where I have occasionally required students to read Faris’ Paid Attention.

Editor’s Note (Genius Steals): Tim is a lovely man of great wisdom and indeed the reason I have been to Minneapolis twice (very nice, v cold in winter). As a self indulgent aside this ended up being oddly influential when the founder of Fallon [Pat] emailed Faris to see if he would consider heading up strategy there and Faris replied he’d love to chat but it was simply far too cold there in winter. LOL. Faris thinks he met online as part of early blogging / twitter and they’ve kept in touch because, as mentioned, Tim is lovely and wise. Do check out his newsletter Curiosity&Courage and thanks so much for a wonderful edition mate. Get in touch if you have bandwidth and appetite to speak to students. Faris just did a portfolio review for some VCU students and got way more from it than they did. Hope to see you soon Tim, ideally when/where it’s warm. Rosie adores Tiny Desk concerts and fear is indeed the “mindkiller - the little death that brings total oblivion”. And yeah, as we are learning, home renovations are a game all home owners need to play.

:: THE LINKS ::

THE GRACE OF GREAT THINGS: CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION BY ROBERT GRUDIN

If you and I ever do a Zoom call, you’ll see a few of my favorites; including the one listed down below. (But describing the importance of #1 requires a much larger context.) I read Grudin’s Grace of Great Things near the beginning of my copywriting career. I think I was in St. Louis, MO. Boom—all of a sudden I realized writing headlines was actually part of the much larger world of being an ideas person. Grudin professionalized me. Or at least he helped me realize having ideas was a broad responsibility, an environment containing self-reflection, aspects of politics and power dynamics; and it was fragile. Now, if you read Rosie and Faris’ newsletter with any regularity, you understand why and how being a creative person day in and out is a clear choice, sprinkled with risks, chaos and emotional tumult. Just re-read Mark Pollard’s epic contribution to this series. But that doesn’t make it easier. Grudin’s work won’t either, but he does unlock a lot of useful philosophy around societal rules, the history of innovation, the purpose of beauty, the danger and necessity of liberal arts education—woven throughout with gritty realism. To wit: “Creativity is dangerous. We cannot open ourselves to new insight without endangering the security of our prior assumptions.” Try telling a client that. (Good Reads)

ONE USEFUL THING - ETHAN MOLLICK’S BLOG

This link takes you to his most popular posts. I suggest “Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier” as a sort of quintessential starting point, but then hop over to a later post (November 24), “Getting started with AI: Good enough prompting.” Like it or not, AI is disrupting the work many of us do. But I believe that disruption is also opening up new ways of solving problems and enabling even more creativity. I felt the same way about the arrival of the Internet, then social and mobile. I’m seeing artists in every media, as well as strategists and marketers arrive at inventive new solutions with AI which they couldn't have otherwise. Mollick writes about this evolution with a pragmatic voice, often within the context of his entrepreneurship classes taught at Wharton. Earlier this year he published Co-Intelligence, a book based on his blog writing. Mollick's enthusiasm gives me hope for a world even further enhanced by human creativity. (One Useful Thing)

CA7RIEL & PACO AMOROSO: TINY DESK CONCERT

I have watched and shared this performance maybe a hundred times. I've been down the rabbit hole... TikTok is convinced all I want to watch is this band from Buenos Aires. As a musician, I admire how the Tiny Desk arrangements differ from their original recordings but do justice to the mix of reggaeton, trap, jazz, and funk. I appreciate the skill of the individual singers and musicians (that keyboard solo and horn arrangement in "El Unico," the guitar solo in "Bad Bitch!"). And I love their style references (yes, the t-shirts are hilarious but—who can name the Camille Saint-Saëns harmony these conservatory-trained kids quote in "La Que Puede, Puede?") And apparently, half the band had the flu while they played this show. 😵‍💫 I might need to visit Coachella this coming April. (YouTube; NPR Music )

Looking for more from Tim? Coming Friday, look for an interview from him in your inbox!

:: AND NOW… SOME FAST FAVORITES ::

:: Game :: If by game you mean home renovation projects then yes, home renovation projects

:: City :: New York City

:: Book :: Awareness by Anthony De Mello

:: Podcast :: Today it's a History of Rock Music in 500 Songs by Andrew Hickey (tomorrow it will be something else).

:: Song :: “Bright Future in Sales” by Fountains of Wayne

:: FEAR EATS THE SOUL ::

This image is from the entrance to my 82 year old mother’s painting studio. Wise words.

I value networking above most things. And as an educator, I’m reliant on guest speakers. If you’ve got a scintillating story to share about strategy, creativity, craft, and/or entrepreneurship, let’s please connect.
Wishing you joy and resilience,
-Tim

LinkedIn | Newsletter | tim@timbrunelle.com

Strands of Genius is currently read by more than 15,000 subscribers. Support us by sponsoring an issue, encouraging friends or colleagues to subscribe.

It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)

Strands of Genius