Here’s the short story:
My site got hacked. I started getting charged way too much for bandwidth overages. Customer service was bad and failed to find a solution for me. I signed up with Dreamhost and have been more than satisfied so far. It gets technical after this, but you can keep reading for the full story…

Long Story:

1. Media Temple Exploit #1026
First off, I was on a gridserver (GS), so I can’t vouch for any of their other hosting packages, so keep that in mind as you evaluate MediaTemple. Their other services might be better. This is what happened to me…

Last November my site was the victim of a major MediaTemple hack. A large number of WordPress powered sites were affected by the exploit which added code to .htaccess files as well as index files. Bad news. While nothing was permanently damaged and no data was lost, the fact that so many MediaTemple accounts could be compromised so easily really makes you question the security of their whole operation.

The other thing that was strange about the MediaTemple hack was how they handled their PR throughout the ordeal. MediaTemple has a “system status” section on their site so that anyone (customer or not) can see what issues they are working on at any given moment. This is brilliant. It says to people, “No, we aren’t perfect, but as you can see we fix things as soon as we can.” It builds trust and makes you wonder what is really happening at hosting companies that aren’t so transparent. But when the MediaTemple hack happened, the response was slow. The argument could be made that this was for security reasons. Maybe. But it really seemed like they were covering something up. I got emails informing me that they would be changing my passwords, but it took a long time to get things under control and you can see that issue #1026 has several long posts on their site outlining the whole thing.

But accidents happen, and I wasn’t going to let one incident kill a relationship that had up to this point been so stellar. So I stuck with them.

2. Slow Sites
My sites started getting sluggish and unresponsive in March. Font Burner was practically unusable taking a minute to load the homepage at times and sometimes being down completely. Then at times it would work just fine. I haven’t gotten any explanation for this, and never found anything wrong with my files that would cause such sluggishness. This may seem like an unmeasurable thing, so let me reassure you that this isn’t just a passing observation. I use tools like yslow and caching tools to make sure my sites are as fast as possible. I have worked on sites hosted through most of the major hosting companies, so I know the difference between a poorly optimized site and a slow server like GoDaddy (AKA slowdaddy). For whatever reason, MediaTemple was regularly slow. This is something that isn’t supposed to happen on a gridserver. That is the main benefit of being on the grid compared to other shared hosting options.

3. GPU Overages
It was about this same time that I started receiving my first notices of GPU overages from MediaTemple. At first it wan’t very expensive, but each month it slowly increased. Granted, my Font Burner website is a bandwidth hog that was built to support hotlinking to the fonts I host there. As more and more people use Font Burner, my bandwidth will obviously increase. I accept that. But as I researched GPU usage and optimized my site, I learned some interesting things about MediaTemple. Let me explain…

The GPU itself is a unique measurement invented by MediaTemple. Here’s a link to their GPU FAQ’s. Basically, this is a measurement of the amount of their server’s processor your site is using. Since the gridserver distributes the load of your website across a grid of machines, they chose processor usage as a way to identify the heavy users. That’s fair. If you are using more than your share of the grid, you should pay more. But the thing that is deceptive about MediaTemple’s marketing that this is strangely absent. You don’t see it mentioned in their description of the product. All you see is “100gb of storage, 1TB network traffic, 100 domains, etc.” The catch is that you will hit their GPU limits way before you ever get anywhere close to using that much storage, traffic, or total websites. So the $20/month cost is very misleading.

4. Expensive Excessive Charges
At $0.10 per GPU it doesn’t sound that expensive if you are going over your GPU limits. Trust me, it adds up. If you are 3 GPU’s per hour over your limit it will cost you $50 per week. That is what you would pay for their Dedicated Virtual server for the whole month.

So I prepared myself for the ever increasing GPU usage that I would be using by optimizing my sites. Again, I learned some interesting things about MediaTemple. The main cause of GPU usage comes from your error pages, specifically the 404 pages. These pages are hogs because they redirect you to an error page any time a url is typed wrong, of from clicks on links to pages on your site that don’t exist. The first thing MediaTemple recommends is to fix broken links or create files at the location where you get the most errors. Here is a link to their GPU tutorial.

So I went about fixing my broken links and creating files in places where I was getting excessive error pages. I had a uniques situation here because of how Font Burner is setup. If you are one of the 12,000 people who have downloaded the Font Burner WordPress plugin you had to manually enter the name of the font you want to use into a box in your WordPress admin. If you make a mistake (capitalizing the name for example) this will create a link on every page of your site to a file that doesn’t exist on my site. It’s inevitable, and there isn’t much I can do about it. It happened on a dozen fonts or so, so I simply created fonts at those locations and with those names. Problem solved. Actually, no. Not at all. Read on.

5. Disappointing Customer Service
I fixed many links and dramatically corrected the errors found in the GPU tool that MediaTemple provides. This had almost no impact on my total GPU usage. I was very surprised by this, so I called them. Up until this call I have only talked to competent helpful people at WordPress. This call was different. The guy reassured me that if I had fixed the 404 errors, I should be seeing a drop in GPU usage. I took his word for it and gave it some time to see if thing leveled off. They didn’t. So I called again and got the same answer. This person even told me that he saw a dip in my usage. It wasn’t until I got off the phone that I realized that he was looking at the current days usage. For the current day, their stats are about 12 hours behind. Since his reading was only a few hours into the new day, he thought I was below my limit. In fact I was almost at the limit just from the time in the middle of the night when my traffic is the lowest. Terrible analysis.

I commented on the support ticket. Silence. For days.

I tweeted about it and started asking people for an alternative to MediaTemple that they recommended. I was surprised to get a response from an MT worker through Twitter. They promised to look into it if I DM them my account number. So I did. Silence.

So I began the process of moving web hosts. I was looking at GatorHost, Bluehost, and Dreamhost. I decided on DreamHost because I liked how they let you move to a VPS if I needed to upgrade. I chatted with their support team on their site and was satisfied with their answers. I liked their control panel (almost as nicely designed as MT). The price was less than MT and they got lots of good praise from bloggers. Their customers are as loyal and vocal as the MediaTemple people. I found some negative reviews, too, and carefully measured the pros and cons.

I began moving my websites over and recreating databases. I was transferring files and setting things up pretty steadily for a few days. It isn’t an easy task, and not something I would have done if I could have stayed with MediaTemple. I had everything transferred over when I finally got a response on my open support ticket from MT. They said they would pass my issue over to someone else who could advise me about upgrading or something.

After my DNS switched over, I closed my account with MT once I was sure I had everything I needed from them backed up. I got a phone call from someone at MT while I was at work. I asked them to please call back because I really wanted to talk to them. The gal said, “sure,” but the phone call never came.

Happy With DreamHost
So now, I am done with MediaTemple and so far every thing is going will with DreamHost. One of the bonuses of DreamHost is that they make it really easy to host Google products like gmail, google calendar, etc. on your own domain. Loving that. I haven’t had to upgrade to a VPS yet, surprisingly. The speed of my site has been satisfactory, and I haven’t noticed any sluggishness. I hesitate to give them my full endorsement having only used them for about a month, but so far I am impressed. Perhaps, I was just a bad match for MediaTemple because of my unique Font Burner needs. If you are thinking about switching hosting companies, you can save $50 from Dreamhost if you use the promo code “adrian3″ when you sign up for a year. I will check in on this post again after I have been a DreamHost customer longer. Hope this was helpful to you!

Complaint 1: “What happened to the rounded corners?
I can appreciate a gratuitous rounded edge as much as the next designer, but let’s break this down. What happens when you eliminate all edges from a cube? Answer: you blur the boundaries between the edges. In other words, you start to lose the sides. The old design really just has a front side. The sides, top, bottom, and back are all a perfectly rounded curve. That would be fine if this object could exist completely without buttons, speakers, ports, or a headphone jack. These are all areas where flat objects are coming into contact with a rounded surface. This causes design flaws. For example…

Plug your headphones into your iPhone and run your finger across the area where the two meet. Your finger (and jeans, or shirt, or anything else that comes in contact with this point) will catch on the edge. Functionally, this is dangerous because it increases the likelihood that your headphones will get disconnected. Visually, it creates a hole that exposes the underside of the headphone cord.

The same can be said about the buttons. Have you felt the vibrate on/off switch? Feel it. Right now. It’s pretty rough. The same with the main power button on the top. Being placed on the highest point of the rounded edge only accentuates this because it puts itself out there just begging to get bumped or catch on something.

Connect your ipod to the usb cord. Just look at it. Does that connection look well designed to you? No, it looks clunky and awkward. Very unApple when you think about it.

Flat sides on the new design addresses these issues. Now things can connect to it snugly and firmly. It doesn’t have to apologize for having a top and bottom, they are right where they should be. It doesn’t have to apologize for having buttons now, either. Having curves for the sake of being round isn’t enough to make something well-designed. Things need to have purpose, and now they do.

Complaint 2: “Why two buttons for volume up/down? I thought Apple was anti-buttons.”
I would be surprised if anyone really loves the current unibutton. If you do, please explain it to me. Currently you have an awkward large button thing that to my touch doesn’t feel that great. Apple has alway been great about getting buttons to feel really great. They have the right amount of resistance, and the feedback is pleasing. I can’t say I get that from the current button. Obviously, I don’t know what the new buttons will feel like, but they look right. They are small, slightly raised, and I bet they feel more like a button than the current version.

Not sure about the vibrate on/off button. This seems like it should be a switch, not a button. The jpg looks like a button, so I am not sure how that will work. More than anything else, this is what makes me think that this might be a prototype that could change dramatically before it hits the shelves.

Complaint 3: “I see a seem, I see a seem!”
The reason I embrace this is because I have a major complaint about the iPhone that is purely functional. I would like to know that if I needed to, I could open it up and replace the battery. I have no idea how I would crack my iPhone open without damaging it. Seeing a seem makes me think that maybe this thing could open up without damage or special tools. I kind of doubt that Apple will make it that easy, though. Wouldn’t it be great if you could upgrade your memory, swap out the battery, and replace the SIM card easily with just a small screwdriver? I would gladly accept a small seem in exchange for that functionality.

Complaint 4: “The back is plastic!”
If you look side by side, the new iPhone actually has more metal showing. The current phone has a thin aluminum rim on the front that looks more like decoration than serving any practical use. Now that the steel is firmly on the sides it has purpose. It looks like this thing is reinforced. It says that despite having a plastic back, it is solid steel all the way through. The seem actually reinforces that feeling. It makes it look solid and substantial. Would I rather it had a solid aluminum back? Well, yeah, but that isn’t a fair criticism when the existing iPhone has more plastic than this one.

So count me as one of the few who really hopes this version makes it into the hands of consumers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out…

Since I have so much invested in Font Burner it may come as a surprise that I would embrace Google’s system, a direct competitor of Font Burner. Actually, I am thrilled that there is a new (and arguably better) solution to the dilemma of limited type options on the web. I believe that the font industry monopoly is at best selfish, and at worst damaging to the internet as a whole. Now that there is an open source option in which Google picks up the hosting tab, hopefully more and more font designers/foundries will loosen their grip on their typefaces.

When I created Font Burner two years ago I wanted to do anything I could to help expand the options for type on the web. While I am proud of the popularity of Font Burner, it has grown into a service that has stretched my resources significantly. The hosting move I made last week was a direct result of Font Burner and the hosting requirements it demands. Font Burner users generate over one million page views each month, and that bandwidth is steadily growing. With over 11,000 downloads of the Font Burner plugin for WordPress, the demand for alternative font options is obviously high. In attempt to meet this demand I also released an update to the Font Burner plugin that allows users to “self-host” their fonts. This should help keep my Font Burner servers fast (and affordable) along with reducing the risk of service outage for WordPress users. But enough about Font Burner…

Frankly, the Google Font service has several advantages over Font Burner (and the sIFR technology it uses.) First, it is easier to use. Just add a line of code to your web page, and then start using it in your stylesheet with standard css. You don’t have to convert fonts into swf files. You don’t have to mess with writing javascript. You can use it for body copy. You can style it with CSS. The fonts are hosted by Google. It loads quickly. And it is just going to get better.

The gorilla in the room is TypeKit. While some people have embraced this service, I haven’t. The reason is because this is a business venture. Unlike the free open source service of Google, Typekit uses commercial fonts with expensive monthly fees. While there are many commercial sites that may benefit from this service, it is not practical for the average website owner. Paying to use a font on your website (that you may even own already) is ridiculous. I can’t endorse a service that adds another middle man into an already overly complex and expensive system.

So, I really hope that Google Fonts takes off. I hope that the assortment of fonts grows steadily. Knowing Google, it will be the standard in no time.

Over the next 56 years R. Buckminster Fuller would live an extraordinary life that did change the world. If you are unfamiliar with Fuller’s life and his work, I would like to give you a brief introduction to the achievements of a truly fascinating man.

Buckminster Fuller is best known for designing the geodesic dome. Actually, Fuller only popularized the dome which was invented 30 years prior to Fuller’s work. Nevertheless, his contributions to the geodesic dome, including some patents, will probably be the most visible part of Buckminster’s legacy. You know the iconic sphere at Epcot Center? It is also know as Spaceship Earth and is probably the most prominent example of Bucky’s geodesic structures. The thousands of domes in existence are fascinating structures, but they aren’t the most interesting of Fuller’s ideas in my opinion.

There are three words that Buckminster Fuller invented that pretty much sum up his design philosophy. Those words are livingry, tensegrity, and dymaxion. The fact that all three of these words get flagged by spellcheck is by itself a testament to Fuller’s personality as the definition of a non-conformist. If you read his writing you will probably laugh at some of the sentences he concocts. Not only did he make up words, he would write the longest run-on sentences you have ever heard. My point isn’t to ridicule his writing, but to point out that Buckminster had no use for the conventional obstacles that humanity had built around society. When language was insufficient for his purposes he would invent new words. When traditional rules of English limited his ability to explain his ideas, he unapologetically broke the rules. But I digress. Let me get back to the the concepts of livingry, tensegrity, and dymaxion.

Livingry
Livingry is the opposite of weaponry. Fuller believed that the goal of all professions should be in the support of life. His term for the world is “Spaceship Earth,” a term meant to recognize that our planet has a limited amount of resources. We are hurdling through space without an instruction manual and we need to learn how to best manage life here. Indeed, Fuller was in fact an environmental activist long before that term was perverted into the modern day stereotype.

Tensegrity
The word tensegrity is a combination of the words tension and integrity. You may have seen sculptures made of only steel cables and long metal rods. Without any outside support, these structures seem to defy gravity as they rise into the air.

Dymaxion
While the word dymaxion comes from “dynamic maximum tension,” it really is just a brand name that Buckminster used for several of his projects including his dymaxion car and the dymaxion house. Buckminster’s ideas about housing and the car were decades ahead of their time. The dymaxion house was designed for energy efficiency. The plan was to make the house easy to ship and assemble on any terrain. The three wheeled dymaxion car was fuel efficient, fast, and seated 11 passengers. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t ready for these inventions and both the dymaxion car and house never went into production. Here’s a video of the dymaxion car in action. Note the amazing turning radius:

Perhaps the world wasn’t ready for many of Fuller’s ideas. He has a great quote that says, “This is the real news of our century. It is highly feasible to take care of all of humanity at a higher standard of living than anybody has ever experienced or dreamt of. To do so without having anybody profit at the expense of another so that everybody can enjoy the whole earth. And it can all be done by 1985.”

Buckminster Fuller died in 1983. His gravestone says “Call me trimtab.” This is a reference to an interview where Fuller observes how a tiny rudder (the trim tab) can change the course of a giant ship. Bucky said “The little individual can be a trim tab…If you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and [change the direction of] the whole big ship…”

If you are interested in learning more about Buckminster Fuller, I encourage you to read his books, especially “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
.” The Buckmister Fuller Institute website is also worth a visit.

Shawn Blanc has an ongoing blog series about “Sweet Mac Setups” and I am honored to be featured this week. I have also posted the images used in the article on Flickr adding notes pointing out the highlights of the images. My home setup can be viewed here, and my setup at work can be viewed here.

Logo Contest Apology

This week I got an email from HOW Magazine (and Print Magazine) apologizing for an earlier email in which they seemingly endorsed the new service of iStockPhoto.com selling stock logos. You can click on the images to the right to read the emails in their entirety, but basically the “trusted design publications” offended nearly every serious designer on Earth by partnering with a company that promotes stock logos. Needless to say, this is Print and HOW’s core audience and they are now distancing themselves from this mailing as best they can. Like most other print publications, Print and HOW are scrambling to find a way to stay relevant in the age of the blog.

When I was writing regularly for Be A Design Group I would have posted this outrage immediately with a fiery rant against stock logos and proclaiming the virtues of custom logo design. But when I read the apology email from HOW it barely registered on my radar. IStockPhoto has all but killed the professional photography industry, and it isn’t a stretch to see designers as the next victim of the digital/DIY revolution.I wasn’t more offended by this email than I am by any of the other junk that HOW sends me.

In the midst of the “stock logo outrage” issue I think there is a sub-story that gets lost. That story is the disconnect between how designers and non-designers view logo design. If you are a designer, you understand the terrible implications that come with a stock logo service. But if you aren’t a designer you are probably wondering “what’s so wrong about saving money on something that is seemingly overpriced?” Rather than being offended by that question and writing letter’s to magazine editors, designers should use this as an opportunity to educate people about the real value that a designer can bring to an identity project. We should calmly point out that the purpose of a logo is to represent the unique qualities of a company. Explain how it is impossible to stand out in a crowd when you are using the same logo as 50+ other organizations. Talk about how importing branding is and the importance of differentiation. Whatever you do don’t pout about the threat of a new competitor in the logo design marketplace. All that will do is promote the negative designer stereotype and put a barrier between you and your potential customers.

So is the age of the designer ending as a result of all the cheap design options available today? No. Their will always be demand for creative people who can communicate clearly and decisively the value of design. I will do whatever I can to discourage people from buying stock logos, but I will never be offended when someone falls for the allure of cheap logo design. I know that eventually it will be obvious that the stock logo purchase was a mistake. At that point I hope they ask themselves, “Remember that articulate designer who tried to sell us an expensive logo? What was his name again? Adrian3 was it? I should give him a call…”

The Velveeta Paradox
If you owned a grocery store, where would you stock the Velveeta cheese? This question seems simple enough, but let me walk you through the moral implications embedded in this seemingly simple question…

Answer 1: The Dairy Aisle
It seems logical to stock Velveeta with the other cheeses. This is the first place a customer will typically look when searching for Velveeta. In case you didn’t know, Velveeta isn’t truly a cheese and doesn’t need to be refrigerated. This raises some problems. First, since dairy products need to be refrigerated it costs more for you to keep the product here. How do you pay for this extra cost? Do you markup the product and charge the customer for the luxury of finding the product where they expect it? Is it deceptive to sell imitation cheese as if it were actually cheese?

Answer 2: Near the Dairy Aisle
If you choose a location close to the dairy aisle you face a different moral conundrum. The nature of the refrigerated section of the grocery store is that there rarely will be a good spot near the cheese. If there is a shelf in eye sight of the cheese, chances are the items found here will not be a context where you would look to find cheese. Stacking bricks of Velveeta between loaves of bread or between coffee grounds puts the macaroni lubricant severely out of context. If you truly value your customers you won’t want them to miss the location and walk aimlessly around the store for hours. Or perhaps you are the kind of person who would hide the cheese intentionally so that customers will load their cart up with other non-essentials as they search for the holy grail of cheese products.

Answer 3: The End Cap
To compensate for the lack of visibility caused by taking Velveeta out of the context of the cheese section you may decide that an end cap is the best place to stock your loafs of lard. End caps, however, are the prime real estate in the store. Can you afford to give up this space (and possible revenue) just to make the orange jelly easier to find?

Answer 4: The Chip Aisle
Since imitation cheese is a common ingredient in dips, it might make sense to stock it in the chip aisle with the junk food. You are now presented with a different type of question. Velveeta has very few redeeming health merits. If you are concerned about the health of your customers, should you really be promoting I-can’t-believe-its-not-cheese in the first place? How do you avoid feeling guilty about providing a substance that kills people?

Answer 5: The Cigarette Counter
If your conscience gets the best of you, guilt might cause you to pull the toxic cubes off the shelves all together. Perhaps the cigarette counter is a more appropriate spot. You can add warning labels, age restrictions, and generally make people feel guilty about buying the irresistible yellow sludge. This would of course have the negative side effect of offending the responsible Velveeta user who uses it in moderation in the privacy of their own home.

Answer 6: Anywhere Else
There aren’t any other places left in the store that make sense to put the artery arsenic. Again, if you value your customer’s time it has to be in a place where they know to look. Additionally, as a store owner you will lose sales on Velveeta if people can’t find it. Can you afford to put it somewhere where it won’t be found?

I hope you found this analogy entertaining. As funny as it sounds, these are the kind of moral decisions that we all have to make on a daily basis. Although advertisers are often lumped into the same category as politicians and lawyers when it comes to measuring the “most loathed human beings,” almost all the marketers I have ever known have been good honest people. For the most part, the average human has nothing but good intentions when it comes to their careers. We want to help people. We want to produce quality products that people will find useful. We want to invest our lives in things that we consider good. Inevitable this will eventually put you in a catch-22 situation. Sometimes there just isn’t a safe answer to questions like these. If you are sincerely trying to be a good person you will regularly be confronted with situations that compromise your integrity. What do you do when you are between a rock and a hard place?

By the way, I am giving out high-fives to anyone who leaves a comment with a good slang phrase for Velveeta. I think my favorite so far is “the holy grail of cheese products.”

Oh, and if you were wondering where Velveeta actually gets stocked, you will usually find it in the refrigerated dairy section next to the other cheeses. You can be sure that the store passes the unnecessary refrigeration cost on to you…

The assignment was to make something that represented our families. Sounds simple right? The catch was that this wasn’t a drawing. It wasn’t a photo. As we tried to pin down Mr. Schatz about what exactly we were supposed to create, he was elusive. The more we pressed him the more confusing the assignment became.

We knew what a drawing was. We know what pottery was. We knew what photos were. We knew what songs were. We knew what a poem was. These things defined “art” as we knew it. But this assignment was something confusing, something foreign to us. Finally, Mr. Schatz gave us some vague direction. He said something like,

“Think about what your family means to you. You know these people better than anyone else in the world. You can’t sum up the most important people in your life with a drawing. You can’t represent your love for your mom with a poem. When you think about your brothers and sisters you feel something inside you. Focus on that – and then make something that feels the same way.”

Needless to say, we left class that day bewildered. We struggled with it. The word that comes to mind to describe what I felt was “terrified.” I was supposedly one of the talented artists in the class and I had no idea what to make.

As I struggled with the assignment, things gradually became clear. Creating something was secondary to the process. It didn’t matter so much what we made, what mattered was learning to think creatively, passionately, and personally. Shapes, color, paint, tools – all the familiar skills we were learning – were all finally given a purpose beyond “making pretty things.” For the first time in our lives, this thing called “art” was connected to something inside of us. It was terrifying, yes, but it was also empowering. It was a pivotal moment in my creative development.

This was in a public school in the midwest, Wentzville High to be exact, but I still wonder what impact traditional education has on creative development. So much of what we learn in school is how to memorize and recite answers. We learn what hoops to jump through and in what order. Do a, b, and c and you earn a diploma. Where does creativity come into play? Creativity isn’t something that you can create a formula for.

As a graphic designer I get paid to work for so-called “non-creatives.” It is a challenge that I gladly welcome, but I can’t help but wonder if these people are merely missing a creative component that should have been taught in school. These brilliant people are enormously intelligent with successful careers and more wealth than I will ever see. And yet when it comes to a visual vocabulary they are infants. When conversations stray beyond the physical/quantifiable/literal I see the same thing that I saw back in high school: terrified bewilderment. And just like in school some people embrace the new world, others run for cover and the comfort of more easily measured occupations.

Many designers are happy with this arrangement. Endless client revisions translates to more hours, which translates into more cash. It is easier to accept the destruction of your work if you can cash bigger checks as a result. Some designers can’t handle the hypocrisy and either drop out or become the stereotypical designer making fun of the clients behind their backs.

Luckily there is an alternative besides occupational hypocrisy and pessimistic burnout. The answer is to entrench yourself in the psychology and research behind what powers your intuition. Trusting your gut is important, but it isn’t enough. Your intuition works for a reason, and you can learn to explain why. If this type of thinking appeals to you, I urge you to read a few of the books I have been enjoying recently. They are:

“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” is a great look at why people are fooled by marketing. I think that too many people assume that the public is dumb, when in fact people are amazingly consistent and intelligent creatures. This book comes to conclusions that you couldn’t arrive at if you simply trust your intuition.

“Predictably Irrational” is a book I am just starting but I am already hooked. The problem with trusting your gut is that it makes mistakes because so much in the world is counter-intuitive and irrational. Learning how to predict the irrational is a great skill to have.

Here is some practical advice if you are trying to supplement your intuition. Study your reactions to marketing, art, and design. Sensitize yourself so that you can take mental inventory of things that you see that “work” and what doesn’t. Question everything you see. Never take anyone’s word for anything. Filter everything and never accept surface level answers to questions that seem straight forward. As you carefully study your own responses to your surrounding as well as the reactions of others you can start to apply the things you learn to your work.

The article points out that one factor contributing to creativity is “psychological distance” which they define as ” anything that we do not experience as occurring now or here. In other words, if you can take yourself out of your current mindset you will be more likely to think creatively. That isn’t groundbreaking research, but it is interesting nevertheless.

Unfortunately, the article ends with some terrible advice when it comes to the practical application of the scientific studies. The article says,

“…there are several simple steps we can all take to increase creativity, such as traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places), thinking about the distant future, communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and considering unlikely alternatives to reality.”

I think that is a pretty bad summary of some relatively intriguing research. Let me take it one point at a time.

1. Travel to faraway places.
This suggestion completely misses the point of the scientific research. Traveling to a faraway place is not the same as “psychological distance.” The point is to get your mind thinking differently, not to actually travel. Granted, a trip to a foreign country might inspire you, but traveling alone isn’t going to make you more creative.

2. Think about the distant future.
In the study, people are asked to think about themselves a year from now. Then they are asked to think of themselves solving an insight problem. This is a much more subtle way to think about a question than just saying, “Imagine how you would solve this problem in the distant future.” I guarantee if the question was phrased like that the answers wouldn’t be creative they would just involve people in silver suits and flying cars. That isn’t creativity, sorry.

3. Communicate with people who are dissimilar to you.
First of all, I can’t see where this suggestion is getting pulled from anywhere in the article. Maybe this one is just phrased badly. If it said “collaborate with people outside your normal circles,” it wouldn’t sound so bad. It feels condescending to me for some reason to assume that I would be surrounded by clones of myself.

4. Consider unlikely alternatives to reality.
Creativity requires that you do more than consider alternatives. You need to throw reality out the window and live there for a while. If the answer was reality then you wouldn’t need to be creative in the first place. I think it is funny that they added the word “unlikely” to that sentence to make it a little more redundant. I feel like this is saying “consider the unlikely, then get back to reality where you are more comfortable anyway.” Good luck with that.

The next sentence in the article says,

“Perhaps the modern environment, with its increased access to people, sights, music, and food from faraway places, helps us become more creative not only by exposing us to a variety of styles and ideas, but also by allowing us to think more abstractly.”

The result of our modern times is that creative thinking is increasingly rare. The research cited shows that by default most people find it hard to think about problems from anything but a very literal point of view. They have to be “tricked” into being creative with scenarios that inject psychological distance into the question. More music, food, people, and vacationing isn’t going to make you more creative.