History in the Making

'War of Art' to the Next Five Weekenders

I have five brand new copies of the War of Art whose covers still smell of Barnes & Noble and whose spines have yet to be broken... just waiting for the eyes of a creative who desires to break through obstacles. They'll go to the first five who register for Dream Year weekend in Washington DC by Friday.

the key word for STORY production this year is multi-sensory

Create a Property

I once attended a seminar about the economics of making movies led by Perry Lanaro, the vice president of corporate finance for Paramount Pictures. If anyone knows how films become green-lit, it’s Perry. He’s in charge of spreadsheets at one of Hollywood’s top studios.

When someone asked him about the best way to pitch movies, Perry said something interesting: “Don’t pitch a movie. Create a ‘property’ that the studios will want to make into a movie.”

He was talking about creating compelling characters, brands, stories and concepts. Perry was essentially saying that if we focused on good ideas, the movie would take care of itself. Don’t just shop around your ideas. Create good ones that compel others to approach you.

You may not be making a movie, but there is an important lesson here for all of us. Focus on creating quality ideas, and you won’t have to work so hard to promote them. Good ideas spread. They can’t help themselves.

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Excerpt from Dream Year's Monday morning lesson

the stockholm library

The New Curators

My buddy Wade Tower sent me this today... a Details article on calling oneself curator. The web democratizes taste-making. Now more than ever, there's hope for your ideas and eye to be valued... even if you're not an artist yourself.

Wednesday Morning Run-Down

• Seth Godin's new book Poke the Box comes out March 1. Bought the kindle version the other day for $1
• Incredible interview with Bono about the Christian faith
• A few photos from Broadway's Spiderman show
  
• Malcolm Gladwell wrote a great piece for the New Yorker on how great entrepreneurs are suspected of taking tremendous risk, but nothing could be further from the truth. Their bets are well-hedged.
• One day plus 80,000 YouTube uploads produced A Life in a Day, a 90 minute movie to be released sometime in 2011
• There used to be a day when others decided whether to greenlight your project. Today your only gatekeeper is courage. There is always a way
• The new STORY website launches in about a month.
• This gets me every time I watch it. Taiwanese men. Running out of time. And going after dreams. =)
• Four pink Posca pens and a Paris storefront window
• The new MacBook Pros are suspected to have arrived in stores today. Just in time. Come to papa.
• Loving the new Longman & Eagle inn in Chicago with just six gitchy and affordable rooms. But they're only taking reservations until March 15
• Wrote the first two pages of a feature length film script last night. The short film goes into production in May
• I've re-entered the running season. Otherwise known as hacking a lung. Or spring initiation.
• Everything Jason Fried did wrong in writing REWORK
• We had our first family funeral for a beta fish over the weekend. Quite the solemn occasion.

Premature Planning vs Poor Performance

There are two tendencies in making decisions:

1. Make decisions early
2. Wait for better information to come along

I'm wired to make decisions early. Even if they're not the best ones. I value preparation over last-minute ephiphanies.

Not everyone's like this.

Ainsley's not. Which is why we've driven separately to church for the past 8 years. It keeps our love strong; Ainsley gets to wear whatever she wants; and I don't feel tension. =)

When it comes to events, I decide early and try to plan well. By event-time, there's not a single ounce of franticness in my body.

I've seen the power of last-minute ideas, but they're usually accompanied by all-nighters, stress, and sometimes missed cues.

The challenge for people like me is to be open to better ideas. The challenge for others is to "force a decision" so that a better concept is not exchanged for poor execution.

Would love for you to weigh-in...

This is Embarrassing

The top 25 movies on Netflix under 'Faith and Spirituality.' If this isn't a call for submissions I don't know what is.

This is Now, The Beginning of Then

For some reason, I'm wired to try to forget the past. The future has always held much hope for me, and "now" has always been a starting point. Buenos Aires photographer Irina Werning asked her friends to let her recreate old photos of themselves, which disturbs me just a little bit. =) I can visualize these two photos for myself... and immediately wonder what that third photo will look like... 20 years from now.

New Dream Year Site Launched

The Dream Year website was just updated by my friend and brilliant designer/developer Elliott Munoz.

He added the Washington DC weekend at Ebeneezer's Coffeehouse on June 3-5, 2011. Mark Batterson and the great folks at National Community Church are playing host.

This event is for 75 people who have a dream / think they have a dream / want to have a dream... and want the process in one, crash-course weekend with good food and new friends

Click HERE to register for one of the 75 spots.
The price goes up on April 30.

There's Always a 'Yes'

You just have to find it.

It could come from a different person in the same organization.
It could come from a different value proposition.
It could come from a different approach.
It could come from sheer relentlessness.
It could come next year.

But it's there. You just have to find it.

we're using the word 'curator' a lot more around STORY parts. the artist has typically gotten the most attention in creative fields, but when you become a curator you join the ranks of people like anna wintour, chris anderson of TED, guy laliberte of cirque, scott belsky, james cameron. i'm a curator not an artist

are guys allowed to wear make-up cuz i could use some of this?

spent the other night creating a framework for our surprise and delight team at STORY, one of my favorite parts about the event

until you have children, your only real fear in life is being audited. (this little guy made it out okay when his parent showed up according to the photographer)

Permission Giver

We all need permission givers.

Leonard Sweet was my permission giver in the summer of 1998 with his book Aqua Church.

I just learned of a North Carolina church planter who closed his struggling church because my book gave him permission.

Mark Driscoll has given some of you permission to be unashamed Calvinists. =)

The 99% Conference gave me permission to simplify events.

Most of us walk around with governors on our actions because we're silently wondering, "Are we really allowed to do that?"

It takes a leader to go in front of us and show us that yes... yes you can. Until then, we just lived caged-in lives.

But there's another way.

You could live as though you already had it.

vintage lemon baseballs

guarantee your day's going better than this guy's

foam art

Your Natural Search Position

I've always been unsettled by unnatural popularity on the internet. I like a good search engine ranking like the next guy, but how you get there matters to me. Call me old fashioned, but I like when content speaks for iteself.

Not retweeting yourself.

Or mass follows with the hope of something in return.

Or multiple reposts.

Recently, JC Penney got caught creating thousands of inauthentic web pages in order to increase the number of links to their site, which artificially increased their ranking to #1 on Google under a lot of search categories.

The New York Times described these pages as "a city with a few familiar, well-kept buildings, surrounded by millions of hovels kept upright for no purpose other than the ads that are painted on their walls."

When Google cracked down on the clandestine operation, JC Penney responded, “We are disappointed that Google has reduced our rankings due to this matter, but we will continue to work actively to retain our high natural search position.”