Creativity

Last Sunday we had a quiet and rewarding visit by the Twisters.  Abdiel is not doing too well at school and needed some help with the multiplication tables.  His teacher, mother, father and a mentor have been unable to help him memorize the 12 basic multiplication tables.  This knowledge is crucial for his elementary school education.

According to Abdiel, “they” don’t know how to teach.  The problem is not “him“.  The problem is “them“.  In an effort to intervene in Abdiel’s education, I decided to give it a shot.

I devised a number’s game with bright colors, photographs, Powerpoint slides,  and witty games with my cellphone to attract his attention and then ushered him gently to the multiplication tables.  In a subtle way, I explained the use of syllogisms and critical thinking to memorize the tables.  Obviously, I avoided using these specific semantics.  I was interest in the concept of critical thinking rather than the words themselves.

Abdiel is nine years old and starting fifth grade.  I was interested in finding out how developed his brain was to handle abstract thinking.  I was satisfied to learn that he has the cogitation skills to understand this kind of thinking.  For example, I asked him, “Abdiel, if Juan is the same height as Pedro, and Pedro is the same height as Oscar, can you tell me if Abdiel is taller than Oscar?  Abdiel smiled and sheepishly answered, “Omar, all of them have the same height.”  “Excellent!“, I exclaimed loudly.  The logical conclusion was correct.

Then I explored further and presented the following thought quiz.  “Abdiel, if all birds fly, and a humming-bird is a bird, this means that…”  He was quiet for a while and then asked.  “What do you mean?“  I patiently asked again, “Abdiel do you have any comments about what I just said—anything?”  He looked puzzled for a while and then finally answered, “Omar, I think that a humming-bird can fly.”  At age nine, Abdiel is using principles of Logic to think.  This is great and it will definitely help him down the road as his education becomes more and more complex.

Anyway, going back to my story, Abdiel is now ready to take an arithmetic exam next Sunday, March 24, 2013 completing the multiplication tables from 1 to 12.  I know he will do well.  Games, a cellphone, colors, logic, and Powerpoint did the trick.  Numbers can be fun; they don’t necessarily have to be arid and boring as most people think.  Teaching has to be fun if you want students to learn.  Memorization is “Out”, Critical Thinking is “In”.

After the tuition session was over, we went over to McDonald’s and each one enjoyed a nice and cool vanilla  ice cream cone and a delicious apple pie.  The Twisters were jubilant as you can surely imagine.

Before they left, they played Nintendo Wii for a while and made interesting toys with Angry Birds assembly pieces.  I was amazed how they were able to build these colorful and creative “suns” and “planes“, using their own words.  I had no idea you could do that.  For us, it’s always a wonderful experience having these kids at home—albeit for a short while.

Below are some of the enticing creations of the Twisters.  Here we go.

Snapshot of three interesting “suns” created by the Twisters during their last visit. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a toy plane built by the Twisters with colorful plastic assembly pieces. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

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1 Cent Sale

Snapshot of an ad placed on a window of a store at El Dorado Mall. I liked the originality of the design. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

The English translation of this sign is, “Everybody happy.  Return of the 1CentSale.  When you buy one item at the regular price you take home a second item with the same or lower price for only 1 cent.”  The two cents resembling the eyes and the creativity of the title of the sign caught my attention.

I love to explore street and stores’ signs when I go out hunting for new pictures for my blog.  People are so creative.  It’s pretty cool.  I love it!  Good Day!

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Sapporo Beer Ad – Legendary Biru

The human capacity to create is unfathomable.  Take a look at this YouTube drum beer ad which is absolutely amazing.  I used to be a heavy beer drinker in my prime years, and this original commercial brings back happy memories of the golden liquid.  Enjoy creativity at its best.  Sayonara.

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Ads in Panama City, Panama

Snapshot of an ad depicting a young kid playing with a rustic plane. The caption on the ad reads: “Europe or South America. Millions of wishes, only one S&L.”" Caja” is the Spanish word for a Savings and Loans institution. La Caja de Ahorros is the largest S&L in Panama. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of an ad showing a fashion shoe with blue toes. Notice the URLs of Facebook, Twitter and the official Web page of the commercial entity at the bottom of the street sign. BBB is a well-known shoe store in Panama City.  (Bueno, Bonito y Barato.)  The social networks have taken Panama City by storm. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

The signs reads:  “You, yourself, with 8 centimeters more of attitude.”  Good Day.

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Witty Street Signs in Panama

Snapshot of a street sign designed by an employment agency called Arka. I’ve seen real people holding up these signs in Europe and the United States. Sometime they work and people actually get employed this way. In times of uncertainly, creativity will get you out of the hole. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a street sign promoting a high quality furniture store in Panama City, Panama. Decolosal is the Ferrari of Panama, as far as fashion office furniture is concerned. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

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Cinemagraphs: The Art of the Animated GIF

A cinemagraph, a.k.a. cinegraphs is a still image that moves, developed by photographer Jamie Beck and visual graphics artist Kevin Burg.  The idea for cinegraphs came up when the pair was preparing for Fashion Week. They wanted to tell more of a story than a single frame but didn’t want the hassle of creating a video.

These two outstanding artists have may have finally found a way to elevate the animated GIF to a level approaching fine art, with their “cinemagraphs”—elegant, subtly animated creations that are “something more than a photo but less than a video.”

Credit: Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg.

A cinegraph that pretends to be a video, looped footage endlessly repeating, is somewhat less interesting.  However, this image of New York City subway cars continuously passing through a station; a train that never ends is absolutely mesmerizing.  I had never seen anything like it before.  For more awesome images of cinegraphs, please click here. 

Good Day and remember that you should never go out without your camera tied up to your waist.

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Think Different

Credit: Apple Inc. and Gizmodo

Yesterday afternoon I turned the last digital page of my Kindle Fire’s book dubbed, Steve Jobs written by Walter Isaacson.  It was a long biography approximately 600 pages long.  But each one of those pages was worth reading.  Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries:  personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

Steve Jobs has been one of my favorite American icons since I started following Apple computers in the early eighties.  Even though I never bought a second Apple computer, I read everything I could lay my paws on about this one-of-a-kind visionary and his roller-coaster life at Apple Computers.  The book was easy to digest, since I was very familiar with the names of the characters mentioned by Isaacson and the evolution of Apple since the late seventies.  Of course I was well aware of the Apple I and II, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, Shuffle, Nano, iTunes, Apple Stores, Apple Apps, Apple Retail Stores, iPhone, and last but certainly not least, the iPad.  However, knowing what was happening inside the well-guarded walls of Apple was indeed an informative experience.

I was deeply touched by the narration of Apple’s marketing campaign identified as Think Different.  It’s an eloquent piece of poetry, vision and determination.  This is what Hollywood actor Richard Dreyfuss said in the TV ad.

“Here’s to the crazy ones.  The misfits.  The rebels.  The troublemakers.  The round pegs in square holes.  The ones who see things differently.  They’re not fond of rules.  As they have no respect for the status quo.  You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.  About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.  Because they change things.  They push the human race forward.  And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.  Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”—Apple’s Think Different brand image campaign designed by TBWA\Chiat\Day.

From computers to smartphones, Apple products are known for being stylish, powerful and pleasing to use. They are edited products that cut through complexity, by consciously leaving things out — not cramming every feature that came into an engineer’s head, an affliction known as “featuritis” that burdens so many technology products.

Great products, according to Mr. Jobs, are triumphs of “taste.” And taste, he explains, is a byproduct of study, observation and being steeped in the culture of the past and present, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing.”

His is not a product-design philosophy steered by committee or determined by market research. The Jobs formula, say colleagues, relies heavily on tenacity, patience, belief and instinct. He gets deeply involved in hardware and software design choices, which await his personal nod or veto.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair.  But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system.  His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

He was passionate about the quality of Apple’s products, and Apple as a lasting company of excellence.  This is what Steve Jobs said drove him to search perfection in everything he did in an area known as the interception of technology and humanities in Apple, NeXT and Pixar:

“What drove me?  I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that’s been done by others before us.  I didn’t invent the language or mathematics I use.  I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes.  Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on.  And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow.  It’s about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how—because we can’t write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays.  We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow.  That’s what has driven me.”

Steve Jobs, of course, was one member of a large team at Apple, even if he was the ultimate leader. Indeed, he has often described his role as a team leader. In choosing key members of his team, he looks for the multiplier factor of excellence.

Truly outstanding designers, engineers and managers, he says, are not just 10 percent, 20 percent or 30 percent better than merely very good ones, but 10 times better. Their contributions, he adds, are the raw material of “aha” products, which make users rethink their notions of, say, a music player or cellphone.

“Real innovation in technology involves a leap ahead, anticipating needs that no one really knew they had and then delivering capabilities that redefine product categories,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “That’s what Steve Jobs has done.”

Mr. Jobs is undeniably a gifted marketer and showman, but he is also a skilled listener to the technology. He calls this “tracking vectors in technology over time,” to judge when an intriguing innovation is ready for the marketplace. Technical progress, affordable pricing and consumer demand all must sell to produce a blockbuster product.

I will certainly read this book again.  It should also be read by college students around the world so they can understand the meaning of innovation, creativity and business administration.  There’s so much to learn from this man from Cupertino.  As the Off switch was activated by the One Above, Steve Jobs ascended to the stars where he will shine forever.  He made his dent in this planet while he was here.  Good bye Steve, you are being missed already.

My next book is Moby Dick; or, the White Whale by Herman Melville.  Good Day.

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Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

“A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”-–William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

On October 5, 2011, Apple Inc. announced that co-founder Steve Jobs had died.  He was 56 years old.  The news exploded all over the world.  People were in a state of shock.  The man who was able to merge artistry with technology with a touch of gusto was longer amongst us.

Steve Jobs was a patron who could appreciate artistry and knew how it could be interwoven with technology and commerce.  Artistic creativity energized him, especially when it was connected to technology.  Jobs was enamored with beauty and wanted to reflect it in all his products.  His passion for perfection was so obsessive, that he would demand that even the parts inside the products out of the view of the consumer, had to be perfect as well.  Of course his clashes with people around him were classical.  He was abrasive, rude, cold, ironic, arrogant, narcissistic and a whole lot of other negative attributes.  But one thing you can’t deny is that he had a taste for beauty.  He used to say that “Great art stretches the taste, it doesn’t follow tastes.”

Jobs squeezed as much as he could the concepts of the minimalist movement.  Minimalist is one of the most significant movements of the 20th and early 21st century.  It isn’t the flashiest, or the most popular, but it arguably penetrated more fields than almost any other art or design trend.

Everything from user interfaces, to hardware designs, to car, to films and games, to the web and visual designs of today—all those fields and more were influenced by minimalism.  Industrial design should be simple, yet have an expressive spirit.  The Bauhaus movement emphasized rationality and functionality by employing clean lines and forms.  “God is in the Details” or “Less is More” were words often said by Ludwig Mims van der Rohe and Walter Gropius of the Minimalist movement.

Minimalism has been a business strategy for Apple Inc.—and maybe their most successful business strategy of all.  Minimalism built the brand that made their gadgets lust-worth to begin with.

I’m currently reading in my Amazon Kindle Fire, Steve Jobs’s authorized biography written by Walter Isaacson, dubbed Steve Jobs.  Many of the passages of his book are familiar to me, since I have been following Apple since the early eighties, when I acquired my first computer.  It was an Apple II-e.  Since then I have been an ardent follower of Steve Jobs and his roller-coaster ride both inside and out of Apple.

I still have an Apple pin which was given to me by the manager of Xerox Panama, which was the main distributor of Apple products in Panama.  He found out I was a heavy user of the Apple II-e and asked if I could provide seminars to their dealers about Apple’s hardware and software.  I was appalled at the request, and immediately accepted.  They paid me generously.  Apple products sold in Panama were in my hands before they went out to the dealers.  It was a most rewarding experience.

Below is a picture of this Apple pin which is very dear to me.  I later sold my Apple to a friend of mine after it couldn’t handle the workload I had as a Comptroller at Compañía Azucarera La Estrella, S.A. (a large sugar mill in the countryside).  I still have with me a spreadsheet program dubbed Multiplan, which Microsoft elaborated for Apple IIs.  Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel were not even on the drawing board.  During those early days of personal computers, the spreadsheet everybody used was Visicalc, conceived by Dan Bricklin and refined by Bob Frankston.  Visicalc was the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers. It is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool.

Snapshot of an Apple pin which was given to me by the manager of Xerox Panama when I was selected to provide seminars for Apple dealers in Panama. It is a cherished treasure for me. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Apple’s famous colorful logo was designed by Rob Janoff, art director working for Regis McKenna.  Janoff came up with a simple apple shape in two versions, one whole and the other with a bite taken out of it.  The first looked too much like a cherry so Jobs chose the one with a bite.  He also picked a version that was striped in six colors, with psychedelic hues sandwiched between whole-earth green and sky blue, even though that made printing the logo significantly more expensive.

Thank you Mr. Steve Jobs for making a dent in the world and proving to us that “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”  Leonardo da Vinci and you were right.  Both of you belong to the same exceptional breed—Masters of the Universe.

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The Inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci

“A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”—William Wordsworth, English poet (1770-1850)

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination.”

Leonardo Da Vinci applied his knowledge in a practical way to the creation of mechanical devices.  In this exhibition, I found many schematics and models for the kind of devices he designed.  They include ball bearings, gears, a wind meter, a spinner machine, a printing press, a block and tackle, clocks, a coin stamping machine, and other devices I couldn’t get the description of.

It is interesting to highlight that many of the inventions he created in the early sixteenth century only became practicable in the twentieth century.

While walking through the halls and aisles of the venue, and seeing all these ingenious inventions, the name of Steve Jobs revolved around my head.  He was also a visionary, and together with Leonardo Da Vinci, has made a dent in the world.

Below are some of the inventions of this prodigious man of the Italian Renaissance.  Here we go.

Snapshot of a man attached to a mechanical flying machine. Leonardo Da Vinci had a passion for mechanical airplanes and other similar devices. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a man dropping from the sky in some kind of mechanical parachute. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a strange-looking mechanical helicopter created by Da Vinci. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a mechanical flying glider similar to the ones we use today for sports. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a lifesaver of the XVI century. We still use those today. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of an ocean diver very similar to the ones of modern times. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a large mechanical drilling screw. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a mechanical hydraulic saw. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a transparent device used to measure the inclination of a surface. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

We have reached the cul-de-sac of our exciting journey through the accomplishments of one of the most remarkable men of Western History.  A man with “a mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”  Thank you for sharing this most rewarding experience with me.  Good Day.

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A Great Visionary Call it Quits

Credit: Apple Inc./Gizmodo

Totally out of the blue, Steve Jobs announced its departure from Apple Inc. This unexpected announcement shocked Apple zealots around the globe.  After several years of failing health and medical leaves of absence, Steve Jobs said succinctly, “I hereby resign as CEO of Apple.”   Since the announcement, Apple stocks have tumbled seven percent as of 7:15 P.M. EST.

Jobs has been on medical leave since January 17, but unveiled the iPad 2 in March for the company. The former Apple CEO has suffered from pancreatic cancer.

Steve Jobs suggested that the best man to replace him is Tim Cook, the chief operating officer.  Apple’s Board of Directors have taken heed.  Mr. Cook has been Apple’s acting chief executive since Mr. Jobs went on medical leave. When he joined Apple in 1998 he quickly began upgrading Apple’s supply chain. Mr. Cook closed many of Apple’s production factories in California and outsourced manufacturing to suppliers in Asia. He became chief operating officer in 2007.

With the more recent introduction of the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad, Apple has shaken up a range of industries. Mr. Jobs has been awarded much of the credit for turning Apple into one of the world’s most valuable companies. Last month Apple briefly became the most valuable company in the world in terms of market capitalization.

Below is the text of Jobs’ resignation letter:

“To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”

“The board has been preparing for this eventuality,” said Michael Gartenberg, research director of Gartner, an IT research company, according to ABC News Radio. “Mr. Cook has shown remarkable leadership in the two times that he has taken the reigns when Jobs was out on medical leave. And there is no reason to think he simply won’t continue that pattern of excellence.”

That’s it; one of the greatest visionaries of all times is calling it quits.  His name belongs to the exclusive club of Thomas Alva Edison, Walt Disney and Henry Ford.  As of today, Apple Inc. enters a new era.

Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, said Jobs’ maniacal attention to detail is what has set Apple apart.  “Apple is Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs is Apple, and Steve Jobs is innovation,” Chowdhry said. “You can teach people how to be operationally efficient, you can hire consultants to tell you how to do that, but God creates innovation. … Apple without Steve Jobs is nothing.”  Do you agree?  Let’s wait and see how Apple evolves without the creative mind of a genius.

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