[Originally sent out in today’s newsletter etc. Buy the print here etc etc.]

Like I said on Twitter earlier today, the people who REALLY taught me “How To” do anything worthwhile, didn’t write a big ol’ list of instructions, didn’t hold my hand, they just led by example.

The great British advertising man, Dave Trott once did that for me, back in the day…

THIS is what REAL leadership means. THIS is what REAL inspiration means.

And you’d better get used to it. Because in the world we now live in, there are no more jobs. There are no more bosses. There are only clients and customers from now on.

The employees who don’t get that, are dead in the water. And so are the “bosses” who still like to be treated as “bosses”. Good riddance to them all.

So… go read Dave Trott’s stuff. Find out who he is. Go learn from a MASTER. Do it. Rock on.

Thanks to Chris for sending me this photo, via Twitter.

The gapingvoid Valentine print he ordered, just as he was opening the box. A delighted customer, so it seems. Hurrah!

I love getting stuff like this from people, and not just because “Social Proof is the new marketing” yada, yada, yada.

As artists and/or marketers and/or business people, it’s not enough to just think about the money and the ROI. We need to know that we “connected”, somehow. Deeply so, sometimes.

Or else we just become very dull, making very dull stuff for very dull people, living very dull lives.

Which except for the occasional faceless corporation, is not much of a sustainable business model.

E.M. Forster’s very famous advice to aspiring authors had a mere two words: “Only connect.”

Exactly. In both art and business.

Only connect.

Think about it.

I love this. A gapingvoid greeting card, newly printed, the finest inks on on the finest card stock yada, yada, yada.

No, we’re not selling them anytime soon. We sent them out to everybody who ordered one of our “Love Prints” in time for Valentine’s Day etc etc.

How do you make something ubiquitous seem valuable to people? A nice greeting card, for example? Something that you normally can find in any shopping mall for the price of a cup of coffee?

By making it scarce. Exactly. Special. Exactly. By making it NOT available in any shopping mall, by making it NOT for sale, at any price (within reason). Exactly.

Early on, Jason (my business partner these last eight years) and I figured out that gapingvoid would probably NEVER BE big and mainstream, a-la Dilbert or Doonesbury.

So there was NO POINT doing the same marketing as Dilbert or Doonesbury. Or anybody else, for that matter.

Like ol’ Steve said, think different.

You?

[The paperback galley copies. It’ll actually be coming out in hardback and Kindle only etc.]

I already broke the news on Twitter a while back, but yeah, gapingvoid Book Number Three comes out in April [Amazon pre-order link here].

Like I said earlier:

Think of it a wee love letter to the blog. As everything and everybody gets swallowed up by Facebook, Google+ and other “Death Stars”, remember the importance of having one’s own piece of real estate to call one’s own…

It’s also very, very short. I was in Brevity Mode at the time. And I made sure to put lots of new cartoons in there, just like last time.

I also didn’t write it for the “social media pundit” yakkin’ crowd. I wrote it for your Cousin Al, something just to plant a seed in his head. Hopefully one day it’ll sprout something.

What’s really interesting to me about the book is the timing. In a year where you can’t turn on the news without some pundit asking, “Where are all the new jobs are going to come from”, this might hint at a good answer, of sorts.

Because the way the economy is evolving, the new jobs are going to come from people who are predisposed to blogging in their underwear, anyway. The people who quit their dead-end, pen-pushing jobs, got a second mortgage, turned their spare bedroom into an office and basically risked everything to pursue their dream. And started a blog to help get the word out.

The people who don’t have to wear an tie and go to endless boring meetings seven hours a day for a living.

The people who actually MAKE stuff. The people who actually create real, thriving businesses from scratch. Up and at ‘em by six a.m. Before they’ve had their first cup of coffee. In their underwear. Exactly.

And thanks to blogging social media, beginning that adventure is far less lonely and daunting a process than it used to be, THANK GOD.

Closely related, my regular Twitter buddy, Umair has a WONDERFUL little post over on the Harvard Business Review, “Create A Meanigful Life Through Meaningful Work” where he laments about how most “successful” people he meets seem to make a living these days. As usual, he pulls no punches– he suggests that maybe, just maybe our current depression is not an economic one, but a spiritual and psychological one.

I’ve been in Manhattan for the last few weeks. Hanging out in all the wrong places (read: painfully hip power hotels), I’ve had the questionable privilege of overhearing more than my fair share of Very Serious Conversations from the movers and shakers of the world.

And boy, have they been tedious: mostly, about eking out slightly sharper terms for deals for more yawn-inducing stuff (whether flicks, financial instruments, or kicks) that’s destined not to matter. So here’s a tiny hypothesis: maybe the real depression we’ve got to contend with isn’t merely one of how much economic output we’re generating — but what we’re putting out there, and why. Call it a depression of human potential, a tale of human significance being willfully squandered (on, for example, stuff like this).

Bravo, Umair! My thoughts exactly. Like the brilliant Guy Kawasaki once famously said, “Make Meaning”. That is where the action is, that is where the economy AND the future is going. For all of us, rich and poor.

Make of that what you will…

[Sent out recently in the gapingvoid newsletter. Sign up here etc..]

The cartoon above came to me after a Twitter exchange I had with my good friend, the fellow cartoonist-writer-creativity-guru-ninja-whatever, Austin Kleon:

Hugh: If all your songs are songs about writing songs, don’t expect anyone to listen to them.

Austin: The problem with writing about creativity is that it’s often more lucrative than actually being creative.

Hugh: I know. If I had to write about creativity day-in-day-out, I’d kill myself

Austin: God, I can’t wait to start making some actual stupid art again.

Ha!

Both Austin and I have both written books on creativity. Mine did really well so far; I expect Austin’s, when it comes out next month, to become a massive bestseller, if I’m still going to carry on believing that there’s any justice in the world.

i.e. I know my stuff, at least on a good day, and Austin DEFINITELY does.

Yet somehow both he and I still feel as clueless as anyone else, even if we do get paid to write books about on the subject. Why? Because, actually:

Creativity comes after the fact.

Kids come up to me and ask me all the time…

Kid: How do I get a “creative” career-thing going like yours?

Hugh: Make something. Grab a piece of paper and a pen or whatever and get cracking…

Kid: What if it isn’t any good?

Hugh: Then you’re screwed.

Kid: Ok, what if it’s pretty good, but it’s still going to take me another twenty or thirty years before the world understands it?

Hugh: Then you’re slightly less screwed.

At that point, they’re already sick of asking me any more questions and so they move on, unhappy. Oh well…

The thing is, people think there’s some set of ideal conditions out there, floating independently in space, that somehow have be met, some magic fairy boxes that need to be ticked off, before you can go and “be creative”, whatever that means.

“I’ve got to quit my job, leave my wife, move to India and become an opium addict yada yada yada…” “I’ve got to drop out of college, move to New York and carry on a forbidden and tumultuous lesbian affair with a Japanese novelist twice my age  yada yada yada…”

Actually, no. The way to be creative is to make stuff. You wake up in the morning, have some breakfast, hit the work bench and get on it with it.

Or not. Maybe you’d rather just hang out, light a joint and watch Star Trek reruns. Your call.

You can’t plan for creativity. You can only plan to do the work.

Whether it ends up being “creative” or not, is decided later. Long after you’ve finished the thing and moved on to something else.

That’s what I mean by it coming “after the fact.”

And so there we are.

The cartoon above came to me after a Twitter exchange I had with my good friend, my fellow cartoonist-writer & all-round creativity-ninja, Austin Kleon: Hugh: If all your songs are songs about writing songs, don’t expect anyone to listen to them.

Austin: The problem with writing about creativity is that it’s often more lucrative than actually being creative.

Hugh: I know. If I had to write about creativity day-in-day-out, I’d kill myself

Austin: God, I can’t wait to start making some actual stupid art again.

Ha! I know EXACTLY what he means.

Both Austin and I have both written books on creativity. Mine has done really well so far; I expect Austin’s, when it comes out, to become a massive bestseller, if I’m to still to carry on believing that there’s any justice in the world. i.e. I know my stuff, at least on a good day, and Austin DEFINITELY does.

And both he and I still feel as clueless as anyone else, even if we get paid to write books about it.

Creativity comes after the fact.

Kids come up to me and ask me all the time…

Kid: How do I get a “creative” career-thing like yours?

Hugh: Make something. Grab a piece of paper and a pen or whatever and get cracking…

Kid: What if it isn’t any good?

Hugh: Then you’re screwed.

Kid: Ok, what if it’s pretty good, but it’s still going to take me twenty or thirty years before anybody understands it?

Hugh: Then you’re slightly less screwed.

After that point, they’re already sick of asking me any more questions and so they leave. Oh well…

The thing is, people like to think there’s some set of ideal conditions out there, floating independently in space, that somehow have be met, some magic fairy boxes that need to be ticked off, before you can go and “be creative”, whatever that means.

I’ve got to quit my job, leave my wife and move to India and become an opium addict yada, yada, yada… I’ve got to drop out of college, move to New York and have a tumultuous, lesbian affair with a Japanese novelist twice my age yada, yada, yada…

Actually, no. That’s wrong. The way to be creative is to make stuff. You wake up in the morning, have some breakfast, hit the work bench and get on it with it.

Or not.

You can’t plan for creativity. You can only plan to do the work.

Whether the work ends up being “creative” or not, is decided later. Long after you’ve finished the thing and moved on to something else. Long after the moment has passed.

That’s what I mean by it coming “after the fact.”

And so there we are…