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martin

However, driving is one of the places when my creative mind goes nuts. It also goes nuts during western movies. If my husband has the remote control, we often watch westerns, so I get out my blackberry and start jotting down ideas. I don’t know why westerns give me such wonderful ideas. Go figure.

Reena, if you and I were ever sitting at the same table, my partners would be rolling their eyes after the first two minutes. We think so much alike. When Martin (who works with me and I absolutely couldn’t do without) approved your post, I’m sure he thought, “Oh no! I’ll never see Robin again! She’s off in ‘right-brain land.”

Everything I do is a research project for me, and I can find a creative element in absolutely everything. We’re going to talk about those elements here. For example, you can’t imagine what you can learn by paying closer attention to commercials. It’s fascinating.

Buying something online becomes research to me, and I add a creative element to it. Driving in a taxi cab is a study of humanity and can be applied to how we do business online.

Taking one form of traditional advertising and seeing how you can translate it online fascinates me. In some cases, it works beautifully. In other cases, I haven’t figured out how it could work, but I haven’t given up.

There’s a favorite saying among writers that you probably know:

The only writers who don’t get published are those who give up too soon.

It can apply to any industry.

It sounds like you write novels–I’ve written three novels in the past. I’ve also written short stories. Tell me about your writing.

This blog has many purposes. You’re right about the merging of left brain and right brain. Dave Barry, our technical guru at our workshops, says he’s “back brain”!

The blog also points out that you can’t be all left brain and have a successful Web site. You have to add the creative element in order to add the depth of content for your visitors. With that content will automatically come link popularity, one off-page factor element that’s so important in search engine optimization.

Plus, I hope to convert some left brainers to begin thinking creatively. We’re not all flower children on this side of the brain. Creativity is just plain fun!

Robin

Although it isn’t geared towards website designing and content, its purpose is to catch any ideas that pop up. Most of it is creative writing–poetry, story ideas, character notes from a novel that I’m reading, etc. I find that it’s such a handy thing to have on you while out and about (although I wouldn’t try writing and driving like Jeremy! ).

I find that when you talk about creativity, it can apply to almost anything! What ideas do you have for website content? What ideas do you have for a novel? What ideas do you have for a product? What ideas do you have to market that product? All require some form of thought and structure.

What I find really creative is transposing one upon the other–taking one form of creativity and melding it with another to form something totally innovative. To clarify, take the example of music. You can take one genre of music and add another genre element to it. So you have pop-country (dixie chicks, shania twain, etc.), cultural music merged with dance/trance music, or you can have a punk cover of an old folk song.

I love the idea of this blog. And I think that the goal really is to make left-brain and right-brain meet and merge–creativity with a logic, being logically creative. I think that element is important for making successful website content. D

Then one day I had a great idea and I knew if I didn’t write it down I would forget. So I picked the last section of the notebook and wrote it down. Now I keep the spiral with me wherever I go and I am amazing the number of times I have been driving down the road when inspiration hits and I have to flip to the last section to write down the idea.

Now every spiral I buy has a dedicated website idea section.