Author: Guest Blogger

Child within?  What does that have to do with public speaking?    Speakers need to be reminded that their imagination and their ability to talk passionately and speak in pictures, is directly connected to how often they release the child within.    Last night I conducted another amazing Acting Class and it reminds me of the skills public speakers need in order to be great.   Be a five year old.    Everyone found a spot on the floor and began imagining their five year old space and whatever popped up was then worked on – tying shoes, waiting for Dad to…

Written by Dr Kate Francis Siner P.h.D. www.largervisions.com Although creativity is a new buzzword for desirable in the business world, the creative traits that are desired by many employers are not the same as the traits displayed by many creative personalities. Employers and organizations, who are looking for creative personalities, are generally looking for people who will use creative thinking towards any end the company picks (Warner, 2008). In short, these work environments measure creativity by the results produced. This demand, placed by these organizations and employers, is in direct opposition to the actual needs of the creative personality. Koch…

I will be presenting a PACE session at this year’s CPSI Conference, taking place in June 2009 in Boston.  Go to www.cpsiconference.org to check it out. At the conference I will be presenting about the Principles of Design and problem solving.  The Principles of Design have been used by artists for centuries to create successful images.  These same principles can be applied to identify organizational strengths and weaknesses, to access right brain thinking and to provide direction for creative problem solving. While proportion, harmony, repetition, contrast and balance have long been identified as key elements of the visual arts, they have…

In 1975 the Sociologist Rollo May published a series of essays about the nature of creativity. He begins with these words: We are living at a time when one age is dying and the new age is not yet born. A choice confronts us. Shall we, as we feel our foundations shaking, withdraw in anxiety and panic? Frightened by a loss of our familiar mooring places, shall we become paralyzed and cover our inaction with apathy? If we do those things we will have surrendered our chance to participate in the forming of the future. We will have forfeited the…

While these days the Kreativity Network is the name I use for my business–primarily designing and facilitating events, meetings and retreats that spark innovation and creative collaboration in organizations–it was once a thriving network in the San Francisco Bay area supporting individuals to express personal creativity. The operative question then was this: How do we, as adults in a consumerist culture that often wants us to be a spectator more than a creator, actively engage and communicate our unique talent, voice, story, art? Our original name was the Multi-Arts Creativity Network–as I believed then, as I do now, that creativity…

Hello, everyone. I’m excited to be a member of your community. I know Cyriel and John (we were together in New York at the end of March), and have spoken with Lisa on the phone. I’m looking forward to getting to know the rest of you more fully. I decided to introduce myself to you through the topic of remembrance. I have a background in theatre – 20-some years of acting, directing, producing. I stepped away from performing regularly to write a book (which will perhaps be the subject of a future post; it is a memoire, to continue the…

How do you prepare yourself to tell the world about your gift as an artist, as an entrepreneur?   As an Acting Coach and Public Speaking Coach I deal with artists and presenters of all sorts who want to effectively communicate their gift.  What is your gift?  Can you put it in a sentence?  Are you passionate about it?  Do you realize that it can change people’s lives?  Do you focus on this when you speak, because it’s not about you, it’s about the gift you are giving.  If you have nothing to give to an audience, don’t speak.    My…

I read in a book years ago, at the beginning of my creative journey, “The question is not, ‘Why do some people make art?’  The question is, ‘Why not?'”  To me this expressed the primitive need we all posess to create, to make our mark, to publicly declare, “We are here!”  For me, creativity all begins by getting in the correct frame of mind.  I call it the right brain and it’s voice is “The Artist Within”.  Your left brain voice is physiologically responsible for the past and the future.  In practical terms, it reminds you that if you stick your…

BLUE DAMEN
Work is the amount of force needed to move an object a given distance.

GWYDHAR
Sure in physics class.

BLUE DAMEN
It applies to jobs to: the amount of ambition you have multiplied by how far you want to go equals the amount of work you need to do to get there.

A couple of summers ago, I met the amazing Gary Beckman at the Brevard Conference on Music Entrepreneurship. I was truly inspired by the ways in which he encouraged students to begin the process of starting their own entrepreneurship ventures while in school, and was also intrigued by his extensive research on the state of arts entrepreneurship programs in this country. Gary manages the Arts Entrepreneurship Educator’s Network, a rich resource for higher education institutions and arts entrepreneurship programs which can be found at www.ae2n.net. Recently, Gary interviewed me about my work with Fifth House Ensemble. A copy of the…