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Creativity, Part 3 (The Missing Chapter)

Hey, it's André & Shawn…

Quick reminder that enrollment for Ideas to Assets closes tomorrow at midnight PST. You can read the details in yesterday's email.

Earlier this month, in our Emergent Marketing newsletter, we published a two-part series about creativity.

If you haven't read that yet, here are the links:

Today's email — sent only to those of you who raised your hand for Ideas to Assets — is Creativity, Part III (The Missing Chapter).

We know from Dr. Herbert Benson's work (discussed in parts I and II) that creativity follows a predictable pattern:

  • Struggle
  • Release
  • Breakout
  • New Normal

We also know that creativity, on its own, is not enough. We need to turn ideas into something tangible that can be shared with others.

To do that, we need to understand the differences between note taking and note making.

When we take notes we're capturing raw information (usually from other people).

Book notes, quotes, interviews, conversations, courses, workshops, articles, and even our own random thoughts can be captured digitally (or analog).

The challenge with taking notes is that it's passive — we're capturing information and then moving on to whatever is next.

And, if we want to find that information later, we have to know what to look for! The moment we forget that we took a particular note it's gone (unless we stumble on it randomly).

Note making is entirely different. Instead of simply capturing information, we're adding layers of meaning.

That may include paraphrasing ideas in our own words, including other relevant information, linking to related notes, creating higher-level structural notes, and (much) more.

This idea is better explained dynamically with video (which is what we've done in Ideas to Assets so you can see where and how we work).

Here's André explaining how he uses Drafts and Logseq to make a richly-detailed, informative podcast note.

(Pay attention to André's commentary in the beginning about my screencast being too long, and then notice that his was longer. — Shawn)

And here's Shawn explaining how he captures a variety of different types of notes in Evernote, and then makes notes and adds structure and meaning in Obsidian.

Each video is a small sample of the content available in ITA.

Ideas to Assets enrollment closes at midnight PST tomorrow (Nov 29, 2021). We don't know when enrollment for ITA will open again.

(If you already own the 2019 version you'll get the 2021 version — and all future updates for free. And, if you enroll in the 2021 version, you'll get access to all future updates for free as well.)

Hell Yeah I'm Interested in Ideas to Assets…

(Scroll down the page until you see the red order button.)

—Shawn & André

P.S.

Watch your inbox tomorrow — we'll be sending something your way to say thanks for your attention.