The End

Like all things, this blog must come to an end.  Tonight, rather than discuss something new that I tried or relate a real world experience back to my readings, I'm simply going to take a step back and assess how I did on Dr. Anderson's criteria.

Try unexpected things

I may not have rode a unicycle to work or spoken only in 30 Rock quotes for a day (which, sadly, I'm pretty confident I could pull off), but I think I tried a few new things here and there.  Not only did I break from my normal routine, but I also made an effort to document what I learned from the experiences; so I'll give my self a modest mark- A++++

Live withs


Ray's book had what seemed like an endless supply to heuristics.  These combined with the ones we reviewed in class left me with no shortage of "live with" rules to try out.  Over the course of this experiment I documented a handful that I either actively followed or utilized in the moment.  Good enough for a solid B, in my opinion.

Creative Ideas

This is an area that I felt I did a fine job documenting in my journal.  Again, I personally didn't have any breakthrough moments of creativity or wildly original ideas over the course of the past month, but I think I did a good job of discussing how creativity is affected by a person's environment or lifestyle.  And if I understood this assignment, I think that was one of the points.  B?  A-?  It's not my decision, but I'm comfortable with the end product.

Try, Analyze, Learn, Observe


OK, time to stop patting myself on the back for a job well done. Although I feel that I thoroughly addressed the other three journal requirements, this is an area that I undoubtedly overlooked.  In fact, consider this message that I received from a real life reader:

Your blog sounds like a commercial for creativity self help books.  [...] I want you to be more critical of what "being creative" means, and how being more or less creative affects you in your work.


This criticism couldn't have been more on point, I just wish I would have received it earlier.  Although I discussed new things that I tried, methods recommended by research academics, and my own thoughts on creative ideas, I failed to analyze all the creative things I might have been doing over the past month.  Although I could say that the combination of school and work leaves me with no time to actually be critical of my creative ideas, that's nothing but a cop out.  So in this criteria, I'll have to give myself a slice of humble pie- F+  (hopefully Dr. Anderson will be a little kinder).

Well, that's it boys and girls.  Although I enjoyed invited you all into my life for a few weeks, I think my days in the blogosphere are coming to an end.  Special thanks to Dr. Laurie Anderson for her engaging lectures and assignments, to my readers for actually reading this, and last, but not least, to the guy talking on his cell phone in the library the whole time I wrote this final post.  That's a deal breaker, ladies.

Wexler out!

I HEART Excel

Gather round boys and girls and let me tell you a tale of a man who blazed his own trail, who played by his own rules, and who fearlessly tried things that had never been tried before. I am that man, and last Friday I made a decision that will likely change way corporations operate for decades to come.  Last Friday I said "no" to Oracle Discoverer and "yes' to Microsoft Excel.

OK, so maybe I overhyped my decision by just a bit, but considering the topic of tonight's post, I figured that it was the only way I'd be able to keep your attention.  So here's the story:

As I'm sure that my faithful readers are aware, I work as an analyst for US Airways.  I won't get into the details, but basically my job can be boiled down to using large amounts of data to help the airline make smart decisions.  In my department, more often than not said data is accessed using Oracle Discoverer.  Discoverer is a fantastic program that allows its user to access and sort ridiculously large amounts of data.  My main issue with the program is the amount of time it takes to do the sorting.  Before switching to excel (more on that in a moment) I often found myself waiting minutes any time I slightly changed the way I wanted to look at the data.  Unacceptable.

After mentioning the problem to several of my co-workers, it quickly became apparent that my department is split up into two camps: the Discoverer faithful and the Excel converts.  Although the version of Excel that we use has it's own set of annoying flaws, it is undeniably significantly faster at pivoting data than Discoverer.  This value proposition was good enough for me to at least give Excel a try.  So I spent my Friday morning creating a Discoverer report that pulls the data I want (data always comes from Discoverer, regardless if you use Discoverer or Excel to analyze it) and an Excel spreadsheet that displays the data in a useful fashion.

Yes, I am aware that it is pretty difficult to argue that switching from Discoverer to Excel was function of my creativity.  If anything, it was a function of necessity.  None the less, the change was an attempt to try something new and I believe that I have learned something from the experience.

Here I am, just two days after my initial decision to make the switch, and I'm glad to say that I am happy with my choice.  Not only has switching to Excel remedied the speed problem that I experienced with Discoverer, but I have also improved my knowledge of both programs because of the transition.  If you are somehow still reading this admittedly dry post, I'm glad you're still with me, because I'm just about ready to get to the point.

Don't be afraid to try new things because you never know what you will learn in the process.


Obviously, trying new things often results in improved performance for a business or increased excitement for an individual or group, but regardless of the situation, trying new things almost always involves simultaneously learning new things.  In my example, I improved my skills with two programs that I use often at work, but this "try new things and learn" philosophy can be applied to pretty much any activity.  Maybe a person who doesn't get outside often decides to go for a hike and learns about some of the local flora growing in their town; or an avid skier tries snowboarding for the first time only to learn that being talented in one activity doesn't automatically transfer to all related activities; or whatever- you get the point.

So go out there and try new things and maybe you're learn a thing or two along the way.  Just try not to hurt yourself in the process.

Justin Wexler: Building Settlements in the Desert

A little under a week ago I volunteered, along with twenty-nine of my colleagues, for Habitat for Humanity.  Before I go an further, I just need to mention a couple of things:

1) Habitat is a terrific organization and I had an absolutely blast volunteering for them;

and

2) Building a home in Phoenix was the most Jewish thing I've done since Birthright.

The reason I'm writing tonight, however, is not to shower praise on Habitat for Humanity or Jews building settlements in the West Bank.  The reason I'm writing tonight is to relate the experience back to- you guessed it- Thinking & Creativity.

It didn't hit me right away, but after reflecting on the experience I began to notice a parallel between the manual labor I had blissfully performed throughout the day and Marcus Buckingham's Attitude Adjustment #5.  For my readers whom aren't in the know, Marcus Buckingham's Attitude Adjustment #5 can be summed up in the following paragraph from Polly LaBarre's article in the December 19th, 2007 issue of Fast Company:

We say that we want to build world-class organizations.  That's meaningless if we don't value world-class performance in every role.  Yet the people who touch customers the most -- hotel housekeepers, outbound telemarketers -- get the least respect and the lowest paychecks.  The assumption is that anyone can do that job and that nobody would want to do it if they were given a choice to do something else.  Frontline talent has a prestige problem, and it's turning into a corporate-performance problem.

Before I go on it will likely be helpful to describe what I spent most of day with Habitat doing.  It's pretty complicated stuff, so try to stay with me:

I hammered nails into pieces of wood.

I did a few other odd jobs here and there, but the vast majority of my time was spent nailing together various pieces of wood.  Big pieces, small pieces, 2x4s, 2x6s- you name it.  The crazy thing is how much I enjoyed the simple job that I had been assigned.  Despite the satisfaction I received from the task at hand, this did not change the fact that I- the humble nail hammerer- represented the absolute lowest tier of the Habitat hierarchy.  I wasn't a board member, a regional director, a project leader, or even a power tool operator.  I was the guy that Habitat for Humanity Central Arizona had picked up off the streets of Tempe (kind of) and assigned the simplest duty possible within their organization (only after signing an unbelievable comprehensive waiver of liability, of course).  Now consider this quote also from the LaBarre article:

Unfortunately, the only way we have to reward excellence on the front lines is to promote people out of the very roles that they do best.  We turn great housekeepers into supervisors, virtuoso shelf stockers into salespeople, and managers into leaders.  A major challenge for CEOs is to define excellence in every role -- and pay on it, award titles on it, distribute prestige on it, and make it a genuine career choice.

Granted, non-profits- especially ones with a substantial volunteer workforce- likely appreciate the work of their lower tier employees at least slightly more than for-profit corporations.  None the less, working this role- and genuinely enjoying it- made me realize the truth in Marcus Buckingham's argument.

The Super Project: Part II (Late Night with Justin Wexler)

Part I of this post describes how I- unbeknownst to me at the time- used the if at first you don't succeed live-with to get focused on the task at hand.  I was able to use this strategy to begin working productively on the assignment, but that's not to say that completing the project went from unsurmountable to a cakewalk thanks to the brains at Stanford.  I still had quite a bit of work a head of me, only now I was confident that I had a shot of completing the assignment.

As discussed in my last post, I worked all day on the finance assignment; that is up until 4:30p, when I headed downtown for another engrossing marketing class.  Who would have thought that a TiVO discussion would get everyone all riled up?  After class I headed straight to bed knowing that I'd need every ounce of energy for the day that was ahead of me.  And boy was I right...

Tuesday:

- wake up
- work
- and the fun begins...

After work I headed straight to the downtown UCENT, knowing that I'd be much more productive there than at home.  After a quick stop at Starbucks, I headed to the library and got to work.

In one of my past posts I discussed my opinion on the affects being tired has on creativity.  Now I would like to revisit the topic as I have a real life example fresh in my memory.  My friend Scott commented on the post and made a great point.  He basically disagreed with my opinion, drawing from his own experience as an architect.  He argues that, in some situations, exhaustion can bring about levels of creativity that are unavailable to the well-rested mind.  For everyone out there who doesn't know Scott, I can confirm that throughout his career as an architect, he has put in his fair share of all-nighters, so he's without a doubt a reliable source on the subject (http://theexpatarchitect.blogspot.com/).

This being said, I don't think I have experienced the same creativity that he speaks of.  My experience with late night or tired creativity is that it is simply a muted version of my "regular" creativity.  And my work on this finance assignment displays that.  I worked until 2:00am this Tuesday on the assignment, so despite my best efforts to fight of the desire to sleep (i.e. coffee, coffee, and more coffee), I was getting tired as the night wore on.  As this yearning to call it a night grew stronger, I felt my work become less imaginative and more to the point.  I was no longer trying my best to find the links between the data, but rather I was just trying to get the damn thing over with.

None the less, I am interested type of thinking that Scott feels when his body and mind are at less than 100%.  Maybe it's simply a difference in the type of creativity needed in business and school vs. the type of creativity needed in architecture, which is traditionally considered a more "artsy" profession.  I wonder what all you artist folk think about the subject.  Does exhaustion help or hurt creativity?  Does it have an affect (if any) in all or just some cases?

Just a little bit more on the Super project, in a bit...

The Super Project: Part I (If at First You don't Succeed, Surrender)

Today marked the end of a particularly rough week.  What made this week more difficult than the typical work/school week was the FIN 502 assignment due on Wednesday.  This assignment was nothing more than a paper that had to address a few questions regarding an HBS study- nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Right... accept that I had MGT class all day Saturday, a marketing case that I needed to complete by Monday, and I was coming down with a cold.

So, needless to say, W.P. Carey had assassinated another one of my weekends.  But this is nothing out of the ordinary.  The only item that had become a wrench in the system was that pesky finance assignment due at 5:30pm PST on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, I did not get to to begin my work on the finance assignment until Sunday morning; and after  meeting with some of my classmates to work on the case, it quickly became apparent to me that I was behind schedule if I wanted to submit a quality paper by Wednesday.  My classmates had already calculated the free cash flows and NPV associated with the case whereas I had just finished reading the case for the first time.  And this is when my VOJ showed- up right on schedule.

I began to doubt myself; doubt whether I would be able to submit a quality paper- let alone any paper- by the assignment's due date.  I was trying my best to get work done on the assignment, but I found myself constantly distracted: bathroom break, food break, music break, TV break, walk the dog, another food break, and so on.  Despite working on the case almost all day, by Sunday evening I was nowhere near where I needed to be in order to finish the assignment by Wednesday.  My VOJ was winning; telling me that I would fail.

By the time Monday morning rolled around, I had developed a full blown cold.  I woke up, called out of work, and slept in.  Despite feeling like crap, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it gave me some much needed time to catch up on the finance assignment.  And catch up I did.  Maybe it was the good night's rest, maybe it was the nutritious breakfast that I ate, or maybe it was the effect that a steady stream of coffee was having on my body, but for one reason or another I was able to focus on Monday at a level that just wasn't happening on Sunday.  Without even realizing it (until after the fact, hence this post) I had experienced one Ray and Myers primary heuristics; that of, if at first you don't succeed, surrender.  I had completely let go of the stress associated with the assignment (the due date, quality, length of paper, etc) and just got down to business on the assignment itself.  And just like one of the students that Ray and Myers' describes in their book, once I started working on the assignment, all of the details began to fall into place.  By Monday evening, I was back on track to submit a quality paper by Wednesday.

More on this in a bit..

Biomimicry for Your Body!

During today's FLOW exercise (which I actually enjoyed quite a bit), I couldn't help but come to a realization during the portion when we transferred from being the apple to being the tree.  What caught my attention was when Dr. Anderson said something along the lines of, "Now imagine that you're the tree.  Feel the weight of your trunk.  Feel the strength necessary to support all the individual branches, each supporting the weight of multiple apples."

Although this was simply part of the FLOW exercise, I immediately related this thought to my fitness regime.  Although I am guilty (like many young men) of often focusing my workouts on the "vanity muscles," I have made a conscious effort to focus more of my attention towards my "core (i.e. mid-section and lower back)."  From what I understand, working out your core is important not because it helps you achieve those dreamy washboard abs, but because the core is where one derives their strength- the very strength that allows one to run faster, jump higher, and push harder.

This might not be a textbook example of biomimicry, but I was able to use the concept to relate the goals of my strength training regimen to the natural physical strength found in the world around us.  As bizarre as it might sound, I should strive to achieve the strength of the average tree.  If I can achieve the trunk to branch strength ratio of a tree, I should have no problem beating my opponents on the field or court- the same way an apple tree has no problem supporting the weight of its branches and apples.

The Death of Creativity

I put in my hours at work.  I went to class on Monday and Wednesday.  I worked on school assignments Tuesday, Thursday, and earlier today.  I woke up early and went to bed late.  I skipped dinners just to have more time to sleep.   It was another typical week, and here I am Friday evening- exhausted with class just nine hours away.  I couldn't think of a better time to discuss  fatigue's effects on creativity.

In my opinion, being tired seriously hinders creativity.  Reaching a state of exhaustion effectively murders creativity.  If you're tired and can no longer operate effectively, go to sleep.  The world's not going anywhere.  It will be there tomorrow, I promise.  Turn off your BlackBerry.  You're not that important, I promise.

I just don't see the benefit of trying to think creatively on no gas, when one could easily recharge and tackle the task at hand the next day.  If our assigned readings and class discussions have taught me anything, it's that there are a variety of ways to get the creative juices flowing- why waste your time running on empty when you're creativity- like any other trait- works best when you're at your best.

This idea made more sense in my head, but now I seem to be having difficulty fleshing it out into a coherent journal entry.  Maybe it's because I'm... well, tired (see paragraph one).  I'm going to bed.  I'm confident that my creative capabilities will still be there when I wake up.