A Christmas Creative Digest
A rundown of interesting things I found this week
Wow. What an incredible (and fast) year it’s been. Thank you so much for supporting me over these past few months and coming along for the ride. I’m working on some new stories, but since so many people are busy during the holiday season, I thought it would be best to save them for the first of the year. So, for the next two weeks, I’m going to share a roundup of articles I found this week that I think are worth a read.
What I’m Reading
I’m currently reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, which discusses the topic of success and re-examines why someone becomes successful. There are a lot of good stories and case studies within the book. One passage that I really liked was when Gladwell was talking about the immigrants who established New York City garment businesses in the early 20th century. In talking about work, Gladwell writes,
Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our work fulfills us… Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.
PetaPixel’s Bold Camera Predictions for 2024
Now in its third year, PetaPixel has gathered its team together to guess the things they just know are going to take place over the next calendar year. All of us are, as usual, ready to be very, very wrong. As we explain every year, thanks to our constant inundation with technology, imaging, and art news, we at PetaPixel get to talk about some of the coolest tech and most interesting trends all the time and can’t help but speculate on what is going to happen next.
ChatGPT Secrets to Crafting Viral Content
Imagine if you could click your fingers and go viral. Or, what if your business, could generate social media content that enlightens, entertains, and compels your audience to immediately share reaching thousands opening your business up to a new audience.
Viral marketers will tell you that there’s a formula to success online. That the secret is in the hook. That they just know when something has global potential. Without hiring a viral marketer, see if you can configure ChatGPT to give you ideas. With the right prompts, you can unlock ideas that scale. Here are seven to try today, for ideas and inspiration that might just take your brand to the next level.
Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show’s Emma Courtland
Last year, Crime Show's Emma Courtland was nominated for a Podcast Academy Ambie Award for best host -- most likely because of her measured, engaging delivery; her vivid, cinematic storytelling; and the humanity, nuance, and suspense of the stories she and her team uncovered. We dissect "Paging Dr. Barnes," an episode rescued from the cutting room floor and transformed into a beautiful exploration of a son discovering that his father was a con artist.
Canon Can Use a Smartphone’s Whole Camera Array Simultaneously
Canon has developed a method that allows smartphone users to control multiple cameras in an array simultaneously which would, for example, allow them to record a video with the wide-angle camera while shooting photos with the main camera at the same time. If there was any doubt that Canon was not paying attention to the smartphone market before, that notion can be quickly discarded as the company has filed a new patent that would enable shooting capabilities that have thus far not been possible on the handheld devices.