Net Cotton Content

Psst. Wanna hear some lectures on marketing?

Next Monday, August 30th, at 6:45 p.m., I return to CCAD for the first of a dozen weekly lectures on consumer behavior.

Come. This is your invitation.

There are 100 students registered for the class and it will be taught in a big, comfortable auditorium, so you can just blend in. Each class is only 75 minutes. You could come to this first Monday, any Monday, or every Monday.

Don't be shy. I would love to have you there.

(About a dozen folks accept this invitation each semester. Nice!)

Let me know if you are coming, and I will send you a map to the specific location.

Ye Olde Rut
I taught this course for years, years ago at CCAD. As one student wrote:

“The course was high-energy, optimistic, full of humor and most importantly: informative. It was one of the few courses that just about everyone who took it not only looked forward to the next lesson, but recommended it to their colleagues as well.”

But, I left after hearing this thought about teaching:

If you are teaching the same thing the same way for more than five years, then you lack either ambition or imagination.

(I think this might have come from Noam Chomsky.)

I was indeed stuck in a rut.

The students were generous and appreciative. But I was teaching the same thing, in the same way, year after year. The presentation slides were so ready, I would just show up and let 'em rip.

So it was time to go away.

The Course Is Sound
Over time, I'd designed — and now redesigned — the course to help artists:

• Make work that is more than beautiful. The course helps the artist think through the work, so it persuades others and changes behavior.
• Justify each piece of work as more than beautiful. The course helps the artist describe work to executives in the workplace, to win more production budget for, say, the photography.

The legendary CCAD education — especially its intensive first year, "Foundation" — expertly develops each artist's technical skills.

But having hired dozens of CCAD graduates at Young Isaac, I have seen too many who are riding solely on their technical proficiency. They do have highly developed hands and eyes — but aren't always levering their minds.

That's where this class comes in.

Bridging The Gap
After years of helping CCAD artists win the favor of businesspeople in the workplace, I've been teaching MBA candidates about creativity. This has me building the same bridge — over the creative gap — from the other side.

Now, with my MBA experiences, I'm really enjoying re-meeting the artists at CCAD.

And you. Coming?

A Guide To High Holy Day Prayer

[Here's tonight's sermon at Temple Israel.]

Shalom.

By now the members of the congregation have received the listing of High Holiday services.

The usuals — the big two — are there, of course. And there are the other opportunities to walk, talk and pray among the community. It's nice.

I'm frankly always glad to see the High Holidays coming.

Kids these days are better educated that I was, so many of them have a richer understanding of the Holy Days than I did. I imagine that my classmates in the Confirmation class of 1976 were also better educated that I was and probably got more out of services than I did.

Every so often, I go in the side hallway and find the photo of that Confirmation class. I can look at my face and see right through my eyes into my soul. My soul is pure. But my soul seems to be focused on growing hair.

Well, anyway, here come the holidays.
And we kick off the holidays with S'lichot. That's the late night, post-Havdallah service where the Torahs are redressed in white. And we hear, for the first time, the annual melodies. And we start to realize: here it comes. It's always spine-tingling for me.

But this month — the month of Elul, which precedes tumultuous Tishrei — is supposed to be a month of preparing.

So, while our fully educated clergy is pondering their Big Sermons for the Holy Days, please let this half-educated Jew describe his meager preparation for the big time coming.

First, I try to remember what the holidays are about. A year is just long enough for me to forget everything about my religion. That's why I'm glad we re-read the Torah every year. It's always new to me.

Well, I look around for information about the holidays. I look everywhere. Here's what I've come up with this year.

Let's start with Yom Kippur, because that's the Shabbat of Shabbats.
A teacher long ago taught me how to think of Yom Kippur: It's the day the Jews act as the real estate lawyers for all humanity. 

We pretend we're in landlord court and the landlord is God and God is disturbed about how we have been neglecting the property and mistreating the neighbors. God has prepared eviction notices for some of us — and all of us might just be sent packing. We plead and promise and, as the gates are closing at Neilah, we toss in a few extra petitions.

The 10 Days of Awe which precede that climactic moment is when we walk around apologizing to each other. We do that because we can't appear in landlord court if we are still squabbling. The landlord wants peace in the hallway.

Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of the original groundbreaking. It's the birthday of the world. Blessed as we are with a different new year celebration every four months, that can be hard to remember. So I'm reminding us now.

Anyway, back to the courtroom on Yom Kippur.
I'm not the best lawyer in the congregation — I hope, because I'm not a lawyer — so I'm not sitting first or second chair at the defense table. I figure we have our rabbis approaching the bench. And now Star Trompeter, too.

What I'm saying is: I've got a lot of time on my hands during the Days and the services.

Much of this time is taken up with eating and not eating.

The rest of the time is taken up with prayer book page turning.

But, I'm not the best page turner. I'm constantly lost and wondering which page we're on. This is because I get stuck on some of the pages. And then everyone else seems to race off and I'm left behind, pondering just what some prayer means.

When I was teaching seventh grade in our Religious School, and really had to know what everything meant, I once asked Rabbi Misha, "What does this blessing mean?" I pointed to a part of the siddur and Rabbi Misha looked at it and asked me one of those tricky rabbi questions, "What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean?" I asked. "I mean, what does this mean?"

If you are my rabbi, you really earn your salary. I sometimes think I could be an entire congregation.

Anyway, he says, "It means what it says. It doesn't have a secret meaning. It means just what the words say. They might seem far-fetched or hard to accept, but they aren't in a code."

I think he wanted me to be happy about this, but it only slowed me down. Because, if the prayers aren't in some ancient Jewish pig latin (you'll excuse the expression), then I feel ever more responsible for knowing what I'm saying.

It's not like when you rent a car or order dinner in a fancy restaurant — you aren't supposed to understand what you are agreeing to drive or eat. You just close your eyes and nod.

Here in the defendant's box, I need to know what my testimony actually means.

***************

So, next time you glance my way during High Holiday services and mistake me for someone who knows what's going on, let me assure you: I'm completely lost.

But I know where I'm lost — and here is where I am:

I'm thinking about creativity.
This is partly because I teach creativity at Ohio State.

And it's also because Rosh Hashanah celebrates creativity because it's the anniversary of God's creation of the earth.

I'm told, by people who really know Hebrew that the phrase isn't "In the beginning, God created...," it's "In the beginning of God's creating, God created...." Small difference? Not to me. I teach creativity and God sounds like a creative artist entering the studio.

And I'm thinking that even God must overcome divine creative blocks. What am I going to create today?

And so, falling farther behind you in the prayer book, I start thinking of all the questions I try to answer to overcome my mortal creative block.

Here are those questions.
They are questions that only we can answer for ourselves. I ask them during High Holiday services.

Question number one is a biggie:

• What would I do if I had no fear? Of course, healthy fear keeps me safe all day. But I still need to ask, "What would I do if I had no fear?" Our consumer culture wants me to fear everything, and buy my safety from my fears.

There are many more questions that occupy me when I'm pretending to pray beside you. Here are some other questions I'm asking myself:

• Who are the people whose opinion truly matters in my life?
• Who are the people whose opinion does not truly matter in my life?
• And what would I do now, anyway, if they were all suddenly dead and buried?
• In whose hands do I place my morale?

Then two questions about who I am and what should I do with my time:

• What do I love doing more than anything else?
• How can I figure out how to do more of that during the coming year?

This next question comes from my interpretation of The Chosen. In Chaim Potok's classic novel, we are told that — each year — we must acquire a teacher and choose a friend.

I know a lot of people, but I don't have a lot of friends (except on Facebook).

In real life, I want to be a good friend to a few people, rather than a superficial friend to more. So, how many friends do I have? Maybe 10? Probably only five. I can't be a good friend to an unlimited number of people. So, if I add a friend each year, I'm going to have to get rid of one.

So here's the question:

• If I were to quietly separate myself from 10% of my friends, which ones would I choose? (That sounds bad, but that 10% probably wants to get away from me, too.)

So, how do I know which friends to jettison? By asking more questions:

• Which people in my life bring me down?
• Which ones ask me to be something other than what I want to be?
• Which people lift me up?
• Which people help me to become my most authentic self?

These aren't pious questions. They're not even questions I'm proud to be asking myself. But I am the only one who can ask them of myself. And they need to be answered.

More questions:

• What are my parents' traits that I want to inherit? What are their traits that I want to avoid?
• What are my children's traits that I want to inherit and avoid?

The world doesn't care if we answer these questions, so like I said, only we can ask these questions of ourselves.

If you like these questions, I posted them on my blogsite just before services started. artieisaac.com

********************

Oh, and before I completely miss this week's parsha, there's a favorite bit about the mitzvah that we build a parapet — a low wall or a guardrail — at the edges of our rooftops.

Roofs used to be flat. People like King David walked around on the roof. David should have had a taller parapet — a privacy parapet? — to prevent him from gazing upon Bathsheba bathing on her rooftop. Such a parapet would have saved him from his fall.

So for me — because now we don't spend so much time on the roof — the roof means the top, the peak, the best of life. And none of us wants to fall from that roof.

So while I'm lost in Lala Land during High Holy Day services, when all the Jews around me are on the roof, as close to heaven as we ever are, I think about what might keep me from falling off the roof.

I think of the parapet as education.
So I'm sitting quietly wondering a couple more questions:

• what don't I know?
• And just how am I going to learn it next year?

We spend on education, because it is a parapet that can help us from falling off our rooftops.

What are you going to learn this coming year?

Shabbat shalom.

Finding The Most Important Work Of Your Career

A few years ago, I let others plan my life (for 90 minutes).

Why?
There were several risks facing during my big, sudden, unplanned job transition.

My friends convinced me, however, that there was a bigger risk than my never finding employment. "You will find work, Artie," they said, convincingly.

The greater risk — greater than my having to search for the next employment for too long — is that I would find work too quickly, because I might choose mindlessly. 

"And then 18 years will pass," a teacher told me. "Your bosses or clients or students and their families will be happy. And 18 years will pass and you won't have done the most important work of your career."

"The most important work of your career."
Those words haunted me. They inspire me still.

That's why that brainstorm was so powerful for me. Because it lifted my head and eyes to more possibilities. And because it was others — friends who love me — thinking about me. They added their perspective (all that Artie might enjoy) to my panic (I gotta work).

I'm Not The Only One
Of course, there are so many friends who are between jobs. It's happening more often, to more people — and lasting longer. So there are more folks off base at any given time.

Recently, with a few friends between jobs, I've led similar brainstorms for them.

Here's how to play the home version of the game.
Amid all the networking and researching and informational interviews and LinkedIn work (which I've covered here), take a morning off for a brainstorm.

Find four to six friends to sit around a table in one of their homes. Recruit them by sending an email:

I'm at a crossroads and need your help.

In my current unemployment, I need to protect myself from taking the wrong job. Sure, I want a job — and now. But I also know that, thirty years from now, I'll look back on this transition. And I want it to be my best transition. One that led me into the most meaningful work of my career.

I'm concerned that I might jump at the first offer. (Who can blame me? My kids are addicted to food.)

So, I'd really appreciate it if you would sit with a few other friends of mine and brainstorm about what I'm good at, what I might most enjoy doing — what I should do for a living. I think that several friends might uncover in 90 minutes what I might miss during these anxious months.

Oh, and please accept this only if you can keep everything discussed confidential.

You can send them these brainstorming guidelines.

Game Day
Then, when they are around the table, say:

I'm going to attend the first 15 minutes and the last 30 minutes. I'll excuse myself for most of the meeting, so you can talk frankly about me in my absence.

Here's my story: my concerns, my goals, what I like. [Be prepared to state all this, clearly and concisely in four minutes. Practice it beforehand. Don't wing it.]

But you might know me better than I know myself, because you see me. So I want to hear your thinking on what I should do next. 

Any questions? [Each person gets to ask only one question. Keep your answers brief and to the point.]

Thank you for your time, for your love, and — as we all agreed beforehand — for keeping everything you discuss confidential.

Then leave them — leave the house, take a walk. Leave them with lots of blank paper and pens.

When you come back, listen.
Be completely open minded. Leave your fear at the door. Don't be defensive. Don't draw conclusions. Just listen. If you are asked a question, answer it in one short sentence. Listen.

It will be fascinating, because your friends are helping you author the most fascinating story you've ever considered: yours.

Thank them profusely. That will be easy. You will be stunned by their thinking and kindness.

Then spend several days letting it soak in. Keep listening.

******************

If you are currently gainfully employed, offer to lead a brainstorm for a friend who isn't.

All Mixed Up

Long from now in a place probably not that far away... 

"Tell us that old story again, Zayde," my grandchildren will ask. 

"The one about how you used to go to that place where everyone worked. You know, the Workplace! And you worked with the same people every day — until they were thrown out or they stormed out on their own. And you kept all your big secrets from everyone outside the building. Tell us that story again. I love that story."

"Oh, and then tell us the story about how someone used to chop down trees and grind them up and soak the dust in water and roll the whole mess flat and spill ink on it and leave it on your doorstep in the early morning for you to play with at breakfast. Tell us the part about how this news-paper was your connection to the outside world. I love that story."

"Ugh, children. It's time for Zayde's enema. Leave me alone."

The world is changing. (Duh.)

Because Ideas Are Getting Frisky
So here's a great example of ideas having sex.

It comes from a website called hitRECord, where creative individuals upload their work with the explicit intention that other people will take that work and change it; add to it; making it more, less or better.

It's a highly creative example of crowdsourcing.

The following video is an example. I don't know the true order of its development, but we can imagine: 

• A person posted a video of a fast-motion traffic scene.
• Another person liked it and doubled it into a mirror-image. Then reposted it.
• Yet another person saw that, liked it, and wrote the text. And reposted it.
• Another person added the music (reposted), someone else recorded the voiceover (reposted) — and then someone decides she's going to add the subtitles. 

And they don't work in the same building, nor — in fact — have much of an idea who the others are. 

It's just a couple minutes. Enjoy.

Ideas Having Sex

Why do ideas get to have all the fun?

It's The Creativity
This is a great video from Ted.com, wherein British author Matt Ridley describes how we are evolving ever more quickly and ever more substantially because we are cross-breeding our ideas like never before. 

Here's his TED talk When Ideas Have Sex. 

It is, as so much of Ted is, a fascinating 20 minutes.

Running Reubens

Today, I'm returning for my second weekly shift at Katzinger's Delicatessen. I will bring your sandwich to your table between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. today.

Of course, now that I have already worked a full two-and-a-half-hour shift — last Friday at lunch — I am An Expert On All Things Delicatessen, Food Service, And Culinary.

To wit, I shall now share some of my observations:

• "Delicatessen" is different. As we drive around our wasteland, we see all sorts of small sandwich shops that call themselves "deli." No! If knifing mayonnaise on corned beef (please don't do that) makes you a deli, then I'm the Duke of Cornbread. A delicatessen is much more complex and requires much more expertise (and inventory) than your local sandwichmonger. Keep driving. To here. And please don't call Katzingers a "deli." It's a delicatessen.
• On that note, you have no idea how expert the people are behind the counter. Look at your sandwich. Consider your expectations. Now calculate your happiness. That isn't easy to achieve, sandwich after sandwich. These folks are grabbing, weighing, piling, toasting, schmearing, wrapping, and so much more at an unconscious pace. (And pretty darn cheerfully, I might add with admiration. Your Reuben has good karma.) You simply can't imagine the skill, experience and care that is going into your #11. And the folks at the cheese counter know more about cheese than I do about my own children. (Then again, I've never sliced my children.)
• Pickles are expensive food. Busing tables, I see that some folks have taken pickles as if they were building a centerpiece. The rule is simple: take one pickle from the barrel with your sandwich. No sandwich? No pickle. Eat the pickle. All the way to the end. You think they grow on trees? (Uh, maybe they do.) Doesn't matter. They cost upwards of 50¢ each, so eat the damn pickle. Didn't your mother tell you about wasting food? There's a difference between free and a gift. This is a gift. Don't be a pig.
• Speaking of expense, these high-priced sandwiches are a bargain. Think about it. If the same ingredients were spread all over a plate, instead of on a slice of bread (trucked in daily from Pittsburgh), and placed on a tablecloth with a candle, you'd be paying $25 for that meal. (Don't argue with me. That's a fact. The quality of the ingredients is that high.) Quitcherbitchen. You get more than what you pay for.
  

Oh, and one more observation. It has do to with a long-running conversation I enjoy with Diane Warren, the owner of Katzingers. The conversation includes me snarking: "What's your exit strategy? Do you expect to be carried out of the delicatessen? Will we wrap your corpse like a knish and deliver you to Epstein's in the delivery van?"

Now, However
After working a day in the delicatessen, I think that conversation is about me wanting to get out of my old job — not Diane needing to get out of her delicatessen.

Because now I completely understand why she would want no exit strategy. After all, what would a great retirement be? Forget retirement. What is heaven?

Heaven is working with beautiful, skilled people feeding the world simple, delicious meals.

That's heaven, isn't it?

If not, what do you think heaven is?

So, anyway, who wants an exit strategy for heaven?

Job Description

Are you the self-important center of the universe?

A Test
Do you go to the bookstore and treat the clerk — who happens to have a graduate degree in literature — like a bit player in your own made-for-TV-movie?

As part of your solipsistic orientation, do you seek to find fault in others?

Allow me to offer this breach of confidentiality, as I share my new employer's job description for my new summer job.

Welcome To Katzinger's.
My Name Is 'Artie.'
I'll be your runner today.

So that you can hold me accountable, because your happiness is the goal of the delicatessen — and, indeed, the goal of all humanity, the moon and the stars — here is my job description.

Feel free to let me know when there is a gap between my role and my performance.

If you have nothing more substantial to think or feel at the time.