The hectic and fast paced movement of the city life sometimes can get to even the most resilient ones. Especially if we are working in a big city that is far away from our home and familiar faces.
People going about in the everyday busyness- each seemingly have a place or someone or family to go back to.

Wherever we may be, the beauty of nature can often help us forget our worries, sadness or sorrow. Like the photo above, taken in Bukit Bintang, one of the busiest place located in the town center- there is a beautiful cloud formation situated between two tall buildings.

As if, it is cheering us on, telling us that things is going to be okay. Even though we are smacked in the middle of this fast moving chaotic world, there can be peace- and the peace is within.

We may forget, as we often do, but nature does her best to offer us some reminders. Whatever it is, everything is just going to be okay. So hang in there, yeah

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If you are able to take everyday stuff and give it a creative twist- you would have something that attract everyone’s attention and could have great potential.  For example, the usual cupcakes are often being displayed in a sweet, pretty and appetizing way. Whenever we see a cupcake, it’s design makes us want to eat it.

But Zilly Rosen, the author of the book Zombie Cupcakes, take the art of cupcake making to another level. Check up the cupcake designs below which is so different and eye catching:

The cupcakes above, with gory creation of organs- are actually carrot cupcakes done with royal icing and coloring. Instructions to make it are in the book itself. Real creative twist!

There’s the cupcake with the crows tearing out a flesh looking cupcake. Below are taken from the content page of the book:

Available in 16 different themes like toxic bite, t-virus, zombie moon, bride & groom (bride cutting off the groom’s head), decapitated zombie, brain food, skeletal zombies, eye poppers, etc- not sure how you would feel picking them up and eating them.

Some creative food for thought for the weekend. Have a great week

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When I saw the book Ignore Everybody and Other 39 Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod, the chapters I flipped that made me took the book were “Keep Your Day Job” and “Beware of Turning Hobbies into Jobs”. As I took the book back, I sat intently from afternoon and finish the book at dusk.

I really enjoyed the book, it is something that a creative person can relate to- and Hugh MacLeod understand the creative mind… if not, he would not be able to write out those insights that only another creative person can recognize.

Often, creative folks have problem adapting to society sometimes. No doubt, one’s creative talent may eventually make one tonnes of money- but the initial loneliness  that is “good ideas have lonely childhoods”.  During the period when the person have problem fitting in because she could not find anyone else who think alike.

Hugh MacLeod drew pictures out of business cards while waiting at the bar or when inspiration struck him- he carried empty business cards with him everywhere. When he first thought about starting a blog or publishing a book on the drawings, people just ‘pour cold water on him’ convincing why it could not be done.

He came out, started a blog to post his pictures- his blog grew popular and then he was able to publish the book, Ignore Everyone- at his own terms (usually publishing companies tend to control every factor in the book’s content and presentation but Hugh was able to have his own way).

And he still kept his day job:

Well, as I am fond of saying on my blog, don’t quit your day job. I didn’t. I rent an office and go there every day, the same as any other regular schmoe. When I was younger and had to remind myself that there was a world outside my head, I drew mostly while sitting at a bar in the evenings, but that got old. Even after my cartooning got successful, I still took on corporate marketing and advertising gigs, just to stay attached to the real world.

Keeping one foot in the “real world” makes everything far more managable for me. The fact is that I have another income means I don’t feel pressured to do something market-friendly. Instead, I get to do whatever the hell I want. I get to do it for my own satisfaction. And I think that makes the work more powerful in the long run. It also makes it easier to carry on with it in a calm fashion, day-in-day-out, and not go crazy in insane creative bursts bought on by money worries.

The day job, which I really like, give me something productive and interesting to do among fellow adults. It gets me out of the house in the daytime. If I were a professional cartoonist I’d just be chained to a drawing table at home all day, scribbling out a living in silence, interrupted only by the frequent trips to the coffee shop. No, thank you.

- Hugh Macleod (excerpt from Chapter 8 of Keep your day job) 

For most part of my teenage life I thought I was not creative- until when the pressure of pre-university examinations were so overwhelming, that I found myself suddenly escaping into the creativity world of my own. Using ideas from the beaded hairclips from my best friend’s mom, I started making my own hairclips in between of studies and intense pressure.

The years that followed,  I cannot tell you how often I’ve dreamt of  earning a living as a full time crafter specialising in hairclips… and later, even going full time into blogging. When I was young, I discovered that I love to make craft items using beads and ribbons. But I was also being realistic that the hours took to produce one piece that probably would not sell- and that it would be next to impossible to survive on that.

At the same time, as I was making the craft items,  I knew that if in my mind I had wanted to make for the purpose of selling….the creativity would just not flow. It was restricted and the piece would either come out faulty or ugly.  There was no joy if it is for the money and each piece would seems like an effort rather than a labor of love.  And the crafter would always be a kind of attached to what she had made- and would feel very offended if someone does not appreciate her creations. Taking things too personally.

So during that time, I’ve had the inkling that it may not be a good idea to turn a hobby into a full time job or as the main source of income. On this part, the naysayers maybe right- the vision was not realistic.

But it was also my love for craft that got me really interested in websites sharing craft work and of craft forums. I felt happy and learn to create my first website in order to connect with them. This was to shape my new skills and talents in my day job which was very much related to writing and problem solving.

Of course, I’ve moved on from making craft items to blogs- and I felt I was able to the visitors creative pictures of craft items which I had found to be inspiring. To me now, it brings greater satisfaction than creating hairclips and selling them one by one (as I mentioned, my creativity is often stuck once I become profit orientated).

Having a day job that pays the bills takes away our main worries, allowing us to focus and to express our creativity in our free time. The creativity unleashed would also help us to be able to find solutions and solve problems in a creative way.

A hobby turned into a job would become a chore. And worse still, the person loses the few joys that he had in life because after the hobby becomes a job, there is no hobby anymore.

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It is vital for business to monitor changing trends and adapt to these trends or risk sinking to obscurity. If technology enables the same thing to be done at a quicker time without much supervision and labor, then it makes sense to use them.

If a business, regardless of how long it had been in operation continue to do things the old way- without being cost effective, then it cannot survive anymore.  Of course, utilizing labor would mean that more people would still have jobs but in the long run, they would lose theirs when the company goes bankcrupt.

An example I want to share is with the shops that we go to develop photos. When I was young, the only way to show off our photos were to pay money to develop them into film. Then we would be given the negatives to keep in case we need to develop some more.

But that change as photo sharing sites start to flourish. It started with Webshots, then Multiply, Friendsters, Flickr….and of course, Facebook- the one that we know so well. Today, literally everyone from a primary school child to grandmothers would likely have a Facebook account.

When photos can be online for an indefinite period of time, who needs to develop photos anymore?

I remember about the shop that I used to go to develop my photos years ago- we used to need to wait for ages to get the photos because the demand was so good.

As photo sharing website blossomed, gradually the shop start to lose business. It could no longer compete with changing times- because the primary business of the shop was to develop photos- it sold some cameras but the models were old and no one wanted to buy them. And their photo frames and albums were more expensive. 

It got worse as another competitor set up another photo shop nearby offering photo solutions at quicker time. If I go to the old shop- I need to wait for few hours to get my passport photo.

But when I went to this new shop, the photos were prepared in less than 5 minutes- all it took as a DSLR camera, a blue backgroup and camera lights. My photo was snapped, loaded into a computer and if adjustments were needed, then the staff would use some advance version of Abode Photoshop to process.  Then it is burned into a CD and I get to keep the CD. Cool.

Aside from that, this new shop also seemed to move with changing times. It has installed a series of self-service photo developing terminals (the white coloured PCs above). It can accept photo sources from SDHC or minute Scandisk reader as well as CD/DVD and thumbdrive. I saw a middle aged man putting in the order of his photos by inserting his camera’s memory card and gingerly selecting the photos that he had wanted to develop. Viola, the photos are ready in less than 10 minutes.

Even though this shop had to invest more initially in computer software and self service equipment, in the long run, the cost is lower because the self service terminals can operate at lower cost. You do not need that many staff to man the shop as things can get done pretty fast.

Of course, the shop also sells up-to-date DSLR cameras and Smartphones. To lower the cost, they even share with the rent  with another non competing business. That was why the shop could survive.

In the past, a lot of paper work and submissions were done via physical carbonated forms and lots of paper. Today, more and more transactions, including our income tax submission can be done online. It is the way to go because it save costs and makes things convenient for both the user and the customer.

Business are all moving at a frenzy pace driven by technology. What is used last year may be obselete now. Those days Smartphones were a luxury- today, about more than 30% of Americans have some sort of Smartphones.

Therefore, constantly being on the alert and anticipating market trends, embracing it instead of denying it can save the business in the long run.

If you are a chicken rice seller who sells the town’s most delicious chicken rice, then regardless of what changes, your business will be packed to the brim because you are offering something that the competitor can’t- these groups are probably once of those who would never worry about changing trends because a delicious plate of chicken rice is constantly being sought after. Trend or no trend, we all have to fill our stomachs- and those canned franscise would never taste the same with traditional recipes. The only worry the owners may have is that their offspring would usually refuse to take over their business, preferring to work in corporate for a living instead.

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Sometimes marketing a business need not be complicated or expensive. You can even meet with success by concentrating on selling just one core product- this is especially true in food business.

Recently, we stopped by a stall at the night market. This stall was selling fresh baked sak kei mah (萨骑马)- a Chinese snack. The thing about sak keh mah is that it taste nice if it is freshly out from the oven. Most people would buy packets of it back when they happened to be visiting the Northern Peninsular like Ipoh or Penang. Many night markets are beginning to sell fresh sak keh mah.

Which brings me to a very interesting business model that I observe this sak keh mah seller is doing which I only realised after I bought 2 packets of the sak keh mah back.

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