Why Are Focus and Unfocus Crucial for Creativity?
Why Are Focus and Unfocus Crucial for Creativity?
Ambiguity may be incompatible with many design techniques, as well as with creative activity in general. However, if you know how to handle it, uncertainty may really help you get the most out of any creative process. Knowing when to focus and when to unfocus is part of that navigation. Focus is essential, for example, when your creative task necessitates making several judgments in a short amount of time. It’s time to unfocus if you’ve been looking at a screen for too long. Both focus and unfocus are essential for creative teams, thus learning to practice both is essential.
Focus. Unfocus.
For almost 500 years, she has spurred conspiracy theories, sparked intense debate over her origins, and inspired countless souvenirs bearing her name. In 1852, her picture inspired artist Luc Maspero to jump from the fourth floor of a Parisian hotel, leaving a message that allegedly said, “For years I have battled hopelessly with her grin. “I’d rather die.”
All of this for Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, a 1’9″ by 2’6″ oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci that is kept at the Louvre. Journalist John Lichfield described it as “the world’s most visited, written about, sung about, and parodied work of art.”
Michael J. Gelb argues in How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci that da Vinci used a technique called sfumato to paint the Mona Lisa, which resulted in figures “without boundaries or limits, in the manner of smoke or outside the focal plane.” Sfumato literally means “turned to mist” or “up in smoke” in Italian. It refers to the dreamy, misty impression achieved in a painting by small brushstrokes and veils of paint that obscure the margins of subjects. It’s as if you’re gazing through a misty glass instead of clean, crisp lines.
The Mona Lisa is a textbook example of sfumato, yet it is most known for the subject’s enigmatic smile. Sandra Blakeslee stated in a New York Times story on this smile, “First she is smiling. The smile then disappears. A second later, the smile reappears, only to go again. “What’s the deal with this lady’s face?”
We used to believe that the painting’s allure was due to the mystery of the woman’s gaze. What did she have her gaze fixed on? Was she beaming at someone? Or perhaps a lover?
Today, there is another, more concrete explanation. Dr. Margaret Livingstone, a Harvard neuroscientist and authority on visual processing, points out that the mysterious smile “comes and goes because of how the human visual system is designed, not because the expression is ambiguous.” She says the human eye has two distinct regions for seeing the world: a peripheral area where we see black and white, motion, and shadows and a central area where we see color and pick out details.
When you stare at Mona Lisa’s eyes directly, her lips is in your peripheral view. Because your peripheral vision is more interested in shadows than details, the shadows from her cheeks are prioritized. These shadows are bent in such a manner that your brain interprets her smile. When you gaze straight at her lips, though, your peripheral vision does not pick up on the shadows, thus you cannot interpret a grin. “You’ll never be able to capture her grin by staring at her mouth,” says Dr. Livingstone.
As you wander your gaze across Mona Lisa’s face, you’ll see a flickering quality—a calm grin here, then gone. The smile remains constant. Your concentration does.
When we adjust our focus, we perceive things differently in more ways than one. “The brain performs efficiently when it toggles between attention and unfocus,” says Dr. Srini Pillay, a psychiatrist and brain researcher, which helps build resilience and improve creativity.
Da Vinci embodies this. As Gelb writes, “This ability to embrace uncertainty by ‘blurring the edges’ and to hold opposites in tension was not only characteristic of his painting, but of his life.” Periods of rest and work across many different disciplines allowed da Vinci to return recharged, refreshed, and ready to focus.
Both focus and unfocus are essential, and our profession requires us to master both. The ability to focus and unfocus our attention in the face of uncertainty is a vital secret to unlocking creative potential. Reality shifts on the outskirts.
Focus.
Spend less attention on frivolous matters.
Unending options and decisions continuously demand and deplete our attention. Making quicker judgments on little, insignificant issues frees up our time and attention.
Isn't it true that it's easier said than done?
Finishing insignificant activities is quite satisfying. For example, you may need to concentrate on your portfolio, but before you know it, you've spent an hour revising your biography or Googling various Poodle mixes. There's most likely a live broadcast of Golden Doodle pups on the internet right now.
"Unimportant things have a horrible propensity of taking up more time than they should," writes writer and emotions expert Dr. Alice Boyes. We also pay greater attention to them. According to a 2018 research by Meng Zhu, Yang Yang, and Christopher K. Hsee, individuals prefer to do urgent activities (defined as "jobs with limited completion windows" and "more immediate and predictable payoffs") over significant tasks (defined as "tasks with greater consequences" and "far distant objectives"). This indicates that you complete low-importance, time-sensitive chores (such as invoicing or sorting your sticky notes by size and color), but you haven't pursued larger, more ethereal ambitions (like changing careers or tackling your crippling phobia of improv).
Focus is essential for dealing with ambiguity because it keeps you calm in the face of the unknown. It is easy to become sidetracked and overwhelmed by the abundance of options and selections available. Limit yourself to only making the most crucial movements, or set a time limit for yourself to spend in la-la land. Do everything it takes (within reason) to keep your concentration.
Unfocus.
Downtime has an advantage.
Dr. Margaret Livingstone had an epiphany regarding the Mona Lisa grin, as you may recall. This epiphany came on her bike ride home from the museum, not while she was standing in front of the picture. This is a common occurrence—creative individuals appear to get their finest ideas in unexpected settings, such as the shower or when looking at a lava lamp.
Many businesses want to foster a culture of "nonstop innovation," yet invention requires a fair dose of unfocus from our overly planned work and lives. Being unfocused is not the same as being distracted. Your brain requires a "vacation," yet it continues to tackle issues. Some of our most innovative ideas have emerged from this deliberate yet imprecise position.
Do mostly nothing.
Dr. Srini Pillay says, “When you unfocus, you engage a brain circuit called the ‘default mode network,’” or DMN. He reports that this circuit uses a whopping 20 percent of our body’s energy, whereas intense concentration (like doing a calculus problem or reading Simone de Beauvoir) requires only an additional 5 percent. “The DMN needs this energy because it is doing anything but resting. Under the brain’s conscious radar, it activates old memories, goes back and forth between the past, present, and future, and recombines different ideas.”
“Do Mostly Nothing,” according to Pillay, is a useful mnemonic for memorizing the DMN. To be more specific, doing essentially nothing frequently entails doing a little bit else. Driving, watching water boil, caressing an animal, swinging, pulling someone on a swing, people-watching, going for a run, gazing at art, or anything else that doesn’t need too much mental effort. Clean the oven. Clean up your desk. Paint a room. Allow your thoughts to wander away from the problem you’re attempting to solve.
Give yourself a break.
Gelb recalls how, when working on The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci would spend days at a time on a scaffold, painting constantly all day. Then, without warning, he would vanish for a half-day or longer. To optimize his creativity, Da Vinci learnt to follow a pattern of intense attention and relaxation. He was energized by sharing and debating ideas with people, but he also need alone time for creative thoughts to emerge. “It is well that you should often leave off work and take a little rest since when you come back you are a better judgment,” da Vinci said in his Treatise on Painting. We naturally recover the brain’s attention, motivation, productivity, creativity, and performance when we relieve cerebral congestion with a little break.
Call it something that accurately represents its worth.
What words do you use to describe unfocused time? Do you refer to it as a “break” or a “energy boost”? The manner in which you allude to it may assist you in making your case for yourself and your business.
Finish the day with a thought or inquiry.
Instead of concluding the day with a specific deliverable, which offers a lovely sense of closure and completion, consider ending the day with questions. Think on the problem you’re attempting to solve for a few minutes before going to bed. Allow yourself to let go of expectations and allow those questions simmer as you sleep.
The three facets of brand value
To further comprehend Emotional Friction, we must first grasp its inverse – Emotional Value. The “jobs-to-be-done” hypothesis is one of the strongest frameworks we’ve discovered for understanding emotional worth. Product developer Bob Moesta conceived and defined the jobs-to-be-done thesis, which was later expanded and popularized in the book Competing Against Luck by the late Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and innovation thought-leader.
The foundational principle is that people “hire” products and services to deliver three basic needs: functional value (e.g., it will save you time), social value (e.g., it will impress your friends), and emotional value (e.g., it will bring you joy).
According to Bob Moesta, “These three dimensions of value are present in each and every decision we make about whether or not to buy or try something new.”
When you buy a new winter jacket, for example, these three values are likely to influence your selection in the following ways:
The utility value. How comfortable and dry you feel when wearing the jacket.
Social value. What others may infer about you based on the design and brand of your jacket (fashion conscious, wealthy, earthy, hipster, etc.).
Emotional value. What you think of yourself when you wear it (and even when you see it hanging in your closet).
his paradigm is not just applicable to products and services. It is applicable to any concept or invention. Consider the educational influence of Covid-19. As the country went into lockdown in the spring of 2020, schools at all levels scrambled to adapt their instruction online. Teachers were forced to move their material and teaching to an online setting almost overnight.
Fortunately, videoconferencing platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams were able to grow up to accommodate the surge of additional demand. However, the functional utility of this new technology was only one element of the jigsaw. The second component, which was significantly more sophisticated and difficult, was getting students and staff comfortable with the notion of engaging online. In this scenario, questions like these establish the dimensions of value for teachers:
The utility value. Do online students learn as well as conventional in-person pupils? Is the technology equipped to accommodate the diverse learning demands of the children in the classroom? Is it simple to use?
Social value. How successfully does it facilitate the interpersonal relationships desired by students and teachers? How does its utilization affect how teachers look to students and peers? Is it possible that completely adopting this technology will make a teacher look tech savvy? Could their reticence make them appear out of step with the times?
Emotional value. How secure or vulnerable do instructors feel when utilizing this new technology? Is this trend making you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of technology? Are teachers being set up for success or failure in their careers?
Jobs-to-be-done The most significant development in philosophy was the recognition that value is complex. But, just as emotion may drive a person’s decision to welcome a new concept, it can equally drive us to reject change.
Three facts that marketers consistently overlook
Three things are consistently forgotten by marketers. Okay, not always and not with all advertisers. But there are enough marketers, enough of the time, to matter. sufficient to muddy the waters.
First of all, marketers frequently overlook the fact that consumers don't care about or even like marketing.
There is marketing all around us. Advertising is everywhere. Without sponsorship, nothing is performed. Logos are trendy. It's simple to assume that others care as much as we do. The effects of ads and nudges are small, if not nonexistent, many people deliberately mute or click through ads, habits or friends—not ads or influencers—have the biggest influence on what people buy, according to our own data, which also shows that most ads are forgotten, those that are not forgotten are typically misremembered.
So, marketing resistance is our main operational difficulty.
Second, marketers frequently overlook the fact that entertaining, non-intrusive marketing is the most effective.
Demands are made on individuals via marketing. We really desire people's time and focus. That is an expenditure. It should come as no surprise that individuals expect to see a profit on their investment. However, we also want to see a return on our marketing investments, so we have a propensity to increase frequency and touchpoints rather than quality and originality. However, a poor or tedious advertisement doesn't become better with time. Sure, we can make our points so forcefully that no one will be able to ignore us, but that only brings up the first item we forgot. Our communication dilemma is therefore an overpowering underexposure.
Third, marketers always forget that there is no such thing as a consumer.
Marketing is a lens on the world. A commercial lens. It is a way of seeing the world but it is not the world. Everything related to marketing—viewing, searching, browsing, shopping, buying, etc.—is but a small slice of people’s lives. People often see themselves as consuming, but never as consumers. That’s an artificial marketing construct. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, “Oh, what a great day to be a laundry detergent consumer in a high-value consumer segment about to go on a consumer shopping journey with visions of ads dancing in my consumer head.” So, that’s our strategic challenge—people are people.
Marketing, in my opinion, is a calling. Every day, we assist people in finding answers to challenges large and small in their lives. What could possibly be more satisfying than that? But I also feel that if we didn’t continuously forgetting these few fundamental principles, we would be able to effectively carry out our mission.
The future of e-commerce: What it will look like in 2023?
In 2022, global e-commerce revenues are anticipated to exceed $5.7 trillion, demonstrating the growing profitability of this business strategy.
That’s a big deal, but the good news is that it’s not exactly a recent development. The e-commerce sector is likewise a dynamic one.
Trends are continually changing in an effort to influence how consumers throughout the world make purchases.
This makes the potential of online shopping fascinating. Over the upcoming years, the ecommerce sector is anticipated to undergo a number of significant changes.
We’re here to explain how e-commerce will develop in the future.
In this article, we’ll examine some of the most important e-commerce trends for 2023, talk about the biggest changes we expect to see over the ensuing several years, and examine the reasons behind those changes.
There is undeniably a lot to discuss.
1. There will be a rise in new marketing outlets
There have been improvements in a number of ecommerce marketing sectors over the last several years, including a new mix of channels.
For instance, with the introduction of Instagram and TikTok shopping functionalities, firms may run advertisements on social media platforms and engage with consumers.
Additionally, as a development of social commerce, live shopping has begun to take off internationally. The live commerce market in China is anticipated to reach $4.92 billion in 2023. In the US, live commerce is likewise becoming more popular, with 20% of consumers reporting having done so.
Connected TV advertising is another brand-new platform that e-commerce businesses are investigating. Ads must be run on websites and services like Hulu, Roku, and YouTube TV. Hoka, a company that makes athletic shoes, used this marketing tactic and claimed a 68% increase in website visits as a result of its TV advertising campaign.
2. The debate between physical and online will intensify.
It is impossible to discuss the future of e-commerce without bringing up the ongoing dispute between offline and online shopping.
In this argument, most persons working in the e-commerce sector fall into one of two categories.
There are others who think that an even greater trend toward internet purchasing may eventually cause brick-and-mortar establishments to disappear. There are however many who believe that physical retail is seeing a revival.
Our position? Undoubtedly, the expansion of internet purchasing is exceeding that of traditional brick and mortar retailers.
However, that doesn't negate the fact that physical storefronts are still tremendously significant resources for e-commerce companies.
Brick-and-mortar stores seem to be shifting away from serving as a physical representation of their online sites, which often have access to a lot more inventory, and toward providing distinctive shopping experiences.
With its brand-new experience retail places, or "Houses of Innovation," Nike has already grown in New York and Shanghai.
At Nike's brand-new physical stores, you may purchase unique goods, design goods with your own hands, take part in fitness assessments, test goods by engaging in entertaining activities, sign up for personal shopper services, and more.
These are encounters that are just unavailable online and help to increase client loyalty.
3. Voice search will be used by more consumers.
Voice-activated technology was expected to assist transactions totaling $40 billion in 2022. This is a significant increase above the $2 billion in voice search transaction volume recorded in 2017.
How is voice search most likely to be used by consumers? According to Narvar, 36% of consumers use voice search to add relevant goods to their shopping lists, while 51% of consumers use voice search to investigate products.
Consider tailoring your product information pages for popular voice search queries in 2023 to be more voice-search friendly. People may query their voice assistant, for instance, "Where can I acquire Under Armour things at a discount?" as an example.
4. Automation, automation, automation
In the realm of online commerce, automation is expected to play a significant role. Already, automation tools and software are used by 61% of businesses globally. More firms are anticipated to invest in automation in the next year as its advantages become obvious.
Automation for e-commerce companies extends from marketing automation through warehousing and beyond. It's a wise decision because it frees up employees' resources and time for other crucial tasks.
For instance, an e-commerce company that employs big warehouses for its operations may decide to invest in robotics to increase efficiency and free up personnel to work on more crucial fulfillment-related duties.
Automation software that can schedule inventory alerts for restocking when stock is low might be useful for supply chain management.
The possibilities for e-commerce automation are endless. You may uncover software that will benefit your product with a little investigation.
5. Private label will spread more widely
Private label refers to a product that is produced by one firm but packaged and marketed under the brand name of another company. Businesses rely on manufacturers to provide goods that are highly specialized to the requirements of their audience.
Why is this a trend in e-commerce? Private labeling is the best course of action for your business if you are in a specialized field that depends on specific materials not being used or requirements being met.
As an illustration, VegexPro offers goods under its own label that are certified as Organic, HACCP, Kosher, Halal, RAW, Vegan, Gluten-Free, and Fair Trade. If your clients desire vegan or gluten-free items, this firm would be a wonderful manufacturer for you to partner with.
Private labeling may be the best course of action for a firm that operates an online store that offers non-branded or dropshipped goods.