Life spins around us pretty fast. It’s astounding that when we sit down to write, create, work, or whatever; the world comes to a screeching halt. Of course the distractions, the annoying emails, the tweets and post alerts seem to continue, but when creating really matters, you freeze. My last post talked about the need to conquer this writer’s block. If you don’t want to click back to read the whole post, here’s an excerpt:

It kills me every Wednesday night. While I’ve known all week that I have a personal deadline set to post every Thursday morning; I wait until Wednesday night (or later) to actually start writing. I take notes, jot ideas, scribble and doodle all week, but when it comes to Wednesday, I open TextEdit and just sit.

CRAP…

Suddenly, tonight, a voice in my head said “What the hell are you doing? Just start writing, you moron!” So I did. I wrote, “You’re going to die anyway.” and POW, the words started rolling.

So I challenged you to write the title of a future post for me – to kick-start some of the juices. And to my surprise, you stepped to the challenge (yay).

Now we – more to the point, YOU – get to vote on which title will be my next post! Read the entries below and vote for your favorite. You have until the end of the day (6:00 pm CST) Monday, June 21st to make your decision.

I will take the most popular title and interview the person that submitted it to get “the full story.” Who knows? It may reveal something about one of our fellow community of readers or it may just be cool to hear how they came up with the title. Any way we look at it, it’s going to prove to be interesting and challenging.

So, vote away! I look forward to seeing the results!

Keep Cooking! (free-flowing creative that saves the world!)

Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

Feel that? It’s your life slipping away. Yep. Every second of every minute that you spend reading this post, you’re slowly dying. Breath by breath, each heartbeat with each syllable, you creep closer to the end.

oooooooooh….

Pretty ominous, huh? So, why the dark perspective? Well, this is what got me writing tonight. It’s what motivated me to pick one more juicy word from my mental nostril just to see what it looked like.

In other words, I had writer’s block.

It kills me every Wednesday night. While I’ve known all week that I have a personal deadline set to post every Thursday morning; I wait until Wednesday night (or later) to actually start writing. I take notes, jot ideas, scribble and doodle all week, but when it comes to Wednesday, I open TextEdit and just sit.

CRAP…

Suddenly, tonight, a voice in my head said “What the hell are you doing? Just start writing, you moron!” So I did. I wrote, “You’re going to die anyway.” and POW, the words started rolling.

Many (many) moons ago, I wrote a post about having writer’s block. More to the point, I wrote about the keys to getting the writing wheels out of neutral and making a connection with my readers. For me, it starts with a title. It can be anything – like free association. Eventually the words and images start connecting in my brain and the solution reveals itself.

I wrote:

“… All I want is a headline – a short sentence that would communicate something about YOU or about something you want to discuss… Below are a few examples…

‘Without feathers, I’d never…’
‘But I can’t feed my kids on your wisdom’
‘Forget the President, I want to eat Jell-O’
‘The importance of Balsa wood and Miller Lite.’
‘It’s not Rocky Science’

And so on… and so on…”

Unfortunately, the response was less than stellar…  maybe because I’d only just begun blogging and Drew McLellan was the only one that ever read my posts?  Who knows? But he was gracious enough to leave me a comment. And I dropped the ball… (sorry Drew)

So let’s try it again.

Send ‘em in. Post your headline and your name / contact info in the comments section below. Once I have enough (5-7 or more…) I’ll hold a contest to see who’s headline will be the start to a future blog post – AND THEY’LL BE VOTED ON BY YOU!

Maybe we’ll make a connection and create something the whole world will love. Maybe we won’t and it will be another piece of gravel on the shoulder of the information super highway. If anything, it will be a way for me to get to know some of you.

Hell, we’re all going to die, eventually. We might as well have fun while we’re here. I look forward to reading your headlines…

Keep Cooking (free-wheeling, fun ideas…)
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

What’s your passion?  Is it your job?  Do you paint?  Play an instrument?  Are you lucky enough to get paid to do what you love?

That’s okay…  I don’t either.

In college, I thought I was going to be the next superstar cartoonist – the next Berkeley Breathead, Bill Watterson, or even the freakishly odd Gary Larson or Robert Crumb.

In retrospect, I had a good start. I had a small following for my cartoons – mostly girlfriends and fraternity brothers; but the word was starting to spread.  Their parents were requesting copies of my panels.  Some (of the less offensive) panels were being reviewed by King Syndication.  I even had a professor from The University of Iowa contact me asking if he could put one of my panels onto the last page of his biology mid-term as a “stress-reliever”  for his students. Nice!

For a brief period in 1991, I was living the dream…

Then, I started listening to people.  I took suggestions (gasp). I “commoditized” my art – my passion.  I kowtowed to the masses. I stopped being creative.  I stopped trying to surprise.  It stopped being fun.

So, I stopped cartooning… I put down my pen and refused to do another silly panel.  I always intended to start it up again, but one thing led to another and, well, we’ve all heard it before.

Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this post from Brand Autopsy.  I immediately re-posted my thoughts on their video as well as ordered the book, “Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys To Creativity“ by Hugh MacLeod.  I devoured the book in about 10 lunches (about the only time I get to read these days), all the time, Hugh was making me think back on my “more creative” days.

Hugh is bizarre, sarcastic, brilliant and pragmatic all at once.  His blog, gapingvoid.com, was an outlet for his passion – drawing cartoons on the back of business cards – which was quite unique in itself.  But then you add his view on corporate nonsense, marketing, social media, social networking, communication and dating, and it becomes hilariously addictive. He took his blog, the wisest and wise-ass-est of it, and made it into a perfect, creative self-help manual… just for me.

If you have a passion, a dream that you want to or wanted to pursue, “Ignore Everybody…” is a great place to start.  It succinctly provides a “how-to” on fostering the creative inspiration that led Hugh MacLeod to create gapingvoid.com and turn his professional  and personal world upside-down - in a good way…  It’s kind of a Cinderella story, but Hugh gives great reason and forethought to his success.

Here’s a little nugget that really got me thinking about my own passion:

Chapter 10: Everybody has their own Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven.  But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snowline, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

So, after reading the book, I put it down and immediately registered two new domains that will hold my past and future cartoons, illustrations, and musings.

Will I “make it big” like MacLeod?  Who’s to say?  But I’ll start by ignoring everybody…  and listening to my passion.

What’s your passion?  Painting? Accounting? Pan flute? Are you doing it right now?

Keep Cooking! (your own brand of passion)
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

Morsels making brand history: On this day, in 1912 was the first time Rueckheim Bros. & H.G. Eckstein, owners of Cracker Jack decided to put a surprise in every box of their nutty, caramel popcorn concoction.

Until that time, the snack candy company was finding difficulty positioning themselves in their respective market – finding their product a mere commodity in the consumers’ eye…

Why? There wasn’t a hook. There was no UNIQUE brand advantage.

Enter the hook – A Surprise In Every Box! What kid (let alone most adults) don’t like a fun surprise – guaranteed?!?

And the rest is tasty history.

How many brands can guarantee that kind of draw? What brand can cement itself in the pop culture lexicon by adding one simple surprise? Ever sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game?” (make sure you turn up the volume)

What surprise does your brand offer? Can you think of one thing to add (a surprise in your brand box) that would catapult your brand like Cracker Jack?

Food for thought…

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef
Technorati Profile

There’s a question I like to ask of myself (and others) on a regular basis:

“Is there more to the story?”

It’s never given to me immediately, but through focused observation, reading, research, discovery, and a few more questions; the answer about knocks me out of my socks, every time…

“Of course there’s more!” (You just have to reach a little…)

So below, are Resources for your story – a Baker’s Dozen from the Brand Chef:

1. Wikipedia
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. YouTube
5. EventBrite
6. Digg
7. Flickr
8. Ustream
9. del.icio.us
10. Last.FM
11. Google (virtually unlimited resources)
12. Yahoo Pipes (build your own feeds / mashups, etc.)
13. RSS Feeds (subscribe and update often)

I call them resources. Call them social media extensions. Call them whatever you want. But never under estimate the power of Social Media to find the answers to the questions you have. With that, you have control over the growth and reach of your personal and professional brand.

Extend your brand.

Keep Cooking – always!
Andrew B. Clark
–The Brand Chef

P.S. There’ are SO MANY MORE out there, but it wouldn’t have fit into my “Baker’s Dozen” theme… Go find ‘em and extend your brand – come back and list ‘em here!