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How to Motivate Creative People

Photo by aleksey.const

Heads up everyone! Mark McGuinness from Wishful Thinking has another fabulously free e-book on offer…

How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself).

An e-book for leaders, managers, directors — and other creative people.

(Do I ever need this… or what?)

Topics covered include:

• What makes creative people tick
• Why motivation is crucial to creative success
• Why you can’t motivate anybody – but what you can do instead
• What Iggy Pop can teach you about management
• Why offering rewards can harm creative performance
• How to write 47 novels before breakfast
• Why some people seem so weird – and how to deal with them
• The positive side of peer pressure

If you missed Mark’s other e-books, you can download them all from his
Free E-books page.

And if you love Mark’s writing (as I do) then truck on over to Lateral Action for even more of Mark.

Enjoy!

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I honestly thought this would be over already…

Six months ago, I thought all doings PAD would fizzle out and be gone.

And the less it impacted my life, the less I thought about it.

Then came the march on Parliament, followed by the take over of Suvarnabhumi airport, followed by the just announced takeover of our only other airport in Bangkok, Don Muang.

The Thai military is calling for a dissolution of parliament and new elections, but there’s a problem…

The BBC just announced a stalemate (yes, even those of us in Thailand depend on the BBC).

So now I’m waiting to hear the latest news on the announced meeting to resolve this problem… I’m waiting while watching the BBC…

I’m waiting and wondering if I too will be joining the ranks of those done out of their off-station holidays…

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In 2006 I made the long trek to Seattle to meet up with the staff of Creative Latitude and others.

In 2007 we did Seattle again. Only bigger.

I’m now on the back end of the Seattle 2008 trip, which was brilliant btw. To save money, we leased a double decker Penthouse condo overlooking the Sounds. And although we did a lot of running around, I could have easily sat there and stared at the ships going by. And done nothing.

So here I am, recovering from the latest Seattle trip. I’m also recovering from my traditional lookie I’m in the US so must have a cold, cold. Lovely.

Early next week I’ll be heading back to Thailand to warm. I like warm…

See you on the other side…

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10 Most Influential Bloggers

Last year, Home Rejuvenation held a 10 Most Influential Bloggers push.

The winners were…

First place: Design*Sponge
Second place: Apartment Therapy
Third place: MoCo Loco
Fourth place: Decor8
Fifth place: Desire To Inspire
Sixth place: Oh Joy!
Seventh place: Swiss Miss
Eighth place: NotCot
Ninth place: Sfgirlbybay
Tenth place: Bloesem

As you can see from the winners, it’s more of an interior, product design focus rather than communication design. No matter, it’s always fun to watch how these things pan out.

The cast for this year (below) has a great bunch included. There’s some noticeable no shows dotted around, so, maybe give Home Rejuvenation suggestions for 2009? Like, who to add and who to cut?

And maybe they could even separate the focus a bit? Product design, Interior design, Communication design… or something similar…

(not that I’d place even then, but, hey…)

Vote for your favs of 2008…

2Modern Design Talk
30 gms
Absolutely Beautiful Things
An Indian Summer
Another Shade Of Grey
Apartment Therapy
Beach Bungalow 8
Behind The Curtains
Better Living Through Design
Bloesem
Blue Ant Studio
Brilliant Asylum
Casapinka
Charles And Marie
Contemporist
Cool Hunting
Core 77
Cube Me
David Report
Decor8
Design Boner
Design Boom
Design East
Design Milk
Design Observer
Design*Sponge
Design Spotter
Designers’ Block UK
Designers Who Blog
Desire To Inspire
Dezain
Dezeen
Dezona
Fabulously Green
Freshome
Grijs
Happy Mundane
Hemfeber
Home Rejuvenation
Ikea Hacker
Imedagoze
Inhabitat
It’s (K)not Wood
Josh Spear
K-Fresh Designs
Karin’s Style Blog
Katiedid
Laissezfaire
Land+Living
Lena Corwin
Made By Girl
Materialicious
MocoLoco
Mod Mom
Modern Roost
Modish
Notcot
Oh Joy!
Pan Dan
Patricia Gray
Poppy Talk
Print & Pattern
Product Dose
Sensory Impact
Sfgirlbybay
Shelterrific
Style Court
Swissmiss
The Cool Hunter
The Design Files
The Peak Of Chic
The SCOOP
The Style Files
Treehugger
Trend Hunter
Trendir
Uncrate
Yanko Design
Yatzer

Who to add: David Airey and Logo Design Love, both by David. They are two of my favourite blogs this past year, bar none.

And if there’s ever a blog voting what’s it for designers with language blogs, I’d put mine forward: Women Learn Thai

(perhaps a better name would be See the Expat Women Struggle to Learn the Thai Language from the Comfort of Her Own Sofa…)

Note: As mentioned, I’ve been absent from DWB with crazy health problems. With a lot of work to get it sussed, and more than a lot of bitching, I’m coming out of it. Slowly. So please look out for regular features on fabulous bloggers.

Ok, I’ll continue to kick up a fuss… but I’ll be back for sure.

Enjoy…

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Vote for Jeff Fisher

So here I am. Going on the third month of being under the weather. Going on goodness how long of my adopted country heading for another… political party in power? coup?… or… some such. Right now it’s a toss up on what happens today, so, who knows for sure what’s going to happen tomorrow. Or next week…

So, in the meantime, what’s a blogger to do?

Decisions, decisions… as whatever it is, it needs to be short and sweet and easy and… you know… easy.

Well, if you are a designer (as I am). And there’s a home-based 100 competition (as there is). And all it takes is pushing one button a day, well, who do you vote for to win?

It’s not exactly rocket science from where I’m sitting, as it’d have to be author and design advocate Jeff Fisher of Jeff Fisher LogoMotives.

Website: Jeff Fisher LogoMotives
Blog: bLog-oMotives
Book #1: The Savvy Designer’s Guide to Success
Book #2: Identity Crisis

There’s more, but let’s catch our breath and get on to what we need to do…

… which is to keep on clicking a button. Daily.

I can do that much. How about you?

Please join in by celebrating America’s most outstanding home-based businesses and the people behind them.

Vote for Jeff, or whoever else you believe has busted their butt to make good.

Because they certainly deserve a bit of recognition for their continued hard work. Yes?

Tip: When you decide who it is you want to support, temporarily set their page as your start up page on your browser of choice. Then, viola! You won’t even have to remember to remember.

Simple. Short. Easy. Yeah. I like.

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Back mid-March, the First Logoponds Awards Ceremony was announced. Today David emailed to say the winners were up. Excellent!

I’ve chosen to share the top 8 winners of the awards below, but you can see the winners in total at Logoponds here.

It was quite the job to get through all the winners with a snafu of a connection. But at the same time, a load of fun. Btw – be sure to check out the list of judges as they are a handsome bunch.

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Essential Books for Industrial Designers

Now there’s someone who’s done his homework! Several months back a designer emailed me about this very same subject.

Said he was interested in being an Industrial Designer. Said he couldn’t find very much information about Industrial Designers.

Well, now he can.

Thanks DT!

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Hands-on Web Hosting

I have a fondness for my hosting company. They are not only affordable, they give hands on service.

And no, it’s not just the promise on the label. It’s real.

Back in the days when we were putting together Creative Latitude, Conor from Hands-on Web Hosting was right there answering questions. Right there on the phone. Once he even sorted out pressing problems while driving down the highway. How great is that? [... Continue reading ... Smoking Hot Servers and Exploding Walls

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Alltop.com: RSS for the masses

For those of you arriving from design.alltop.com, welcome to Designers who Blog.

DWB features blogging designers, illustrators, writers, marketeers, photographers, podcasters, typographers, artists and advertising pros. And to make it easy, they’re all in the sidebar, eyes right.

You can also search through the archives or the extensive blogroll (in progress).

As DWB is also about the blogger, at times you’ll find a banner placed at the head of a feature. Like so.

And there’s more … [... Continue reading ... Notice: Designers who Blog on Alltop.com

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Logo Design Love Awards: Final Call

This is it! Your last chance to vote in David Airey’s Logo Design Love Awards. [... Continue reading ... Logo Design Love Awards: Final Call

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