10. May 2011 by Frank Goad.

You read that right: Alcoa has developed building/architectural panels that eat smog. This just blows me away. Finally, we’re starting to clean up after ourselves. This is magnificent - science develops the most environmentally responsible material to date.Here’s a link to the article in Tech Republic: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/alcoa-toto-unveil-green-building-panels-that-eat-smog/16182?tag=nl.e550And here’s a 2:42 video:

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10. May 2011 by Frank Goad.

I’m writing out of guilt. You see, I advise all my clients to blog for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that websites with blogs get as much as sixty-per-cent more hits. So, if I’m going to harp on them to do it, I must practice what I preach.

I don’t know about you, but I can usually find something to write about even if it is - paraphrasing Jerry Seinfeld’s description of his series - “A (blog) about nothing.”  On the other hand, it proves that the creative process comes about sometimes simply because you engage in it.

Speaking of creativity, do me a favor: Never, ever say to me that you’re not creative. The problem is that the word itself has been equated with art, and art has nothing to do with it. The definition of creativity (mine, really) is that: A.  You are being creative if you take two or more things and combine them in a way that you believe has never been done to accomplish a goal, or; B. You are solving a problem in a way that is novel to you.

The important thing is that you’re doing something you’ve never done before, or doing things in a way you’ve not done them. Just because someone else might have thought of the same answer/solution/combination/etc. before you does not negate your own creativity. If you didn’t know about it before doing it, that counts.

Art is only one of many avenues of creativity. I know some damned creative accountants and a few carpenters that can create masterpieces from scrap lumber. I’ve met farmers whose creativity kept them from bankruptcy while all those around them found their spread up for auction. I’ve known moms whose sheer industrial-strength creativity kept their family together, fed, clothed and housed.

I grew up in the country down on the Kentucky-Tennessee border in a farming and logging town of 3,500 people. Many of those folks lived in tiny houses or tar paper shacks out on some gravel road miles from town. They were often the most creative folks I knew. They eked out an honorable living with barely a penny to their name and held their heads high.

My family was middle-class and, if something broke or wore out, we paid someone to fix it, or we bought a replacement. They had to find a way to mend it or build another from whatever they could find because paying someone or buying another was often simply out of the question. Many had barely a sixth-grade education, but had a practical knowledge that was a Ph.D. in life. As they say, “A country boy will survive.”

Creative? Of course you are. You just have to believe it.

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