 I'm Sarah Cannon and you can follow me on Twitter at sarah cannon and just let you know After the talk I'm gonna put up these slides on slide share. So Don't worry about like writing things down. They'll be all up later So I'm from Birmingham, Alabama, and I'm so thrilled to speak with you all about open source and creativity I'm the managing partner and creative director at the digital agency range We specialize in strategic design and WordPress development specifically We really love what we do and it that it touches creativity and Workpress on a daily basis and because of that. I'm really excited to talk to you guys today about creativity So what is it? Some people might describe creativity as that spark or idea The solving of a problem in a unique manner or original methodology Something that has yet to be created that can come out of nowhere Others might describe it as something you have or you don't have like either you're creative or not You might say I'm totally not a creative person But when I say creative I'm not referring to being artistic I'm speaking towards the ability to open our mind to possibility To open up ourselves to new ways of thinking So I really believe that everybody is born with creativity As children we are all creative and but we learn as we grow to inhibit ourselves We stifle and constrain our actions and thoughts in order to conform to society It's the people that had learned to be able to break down those self-taught barriers That make us more of a creative person But in reality we all are it just comes easier for some and not others But I really believe that if we take our own creative input for granted all of us do A big way that you can see creativity work is an improv comedy Now I don't know how many of you have been to an improv show or are it improv comedian? But it's really quite the experience. I don't do improv at all But I really find it fascinating the barriers to creative thought are taken down And there's a certain amount of vulnerability that leads to honesty and then also humor So an improv the most important rule is the idea of the agreement The agreement is that whatever happens to you whatever is thrown in your direction you accept it You agree with it and you take it at its face value and as truth Now where creativity comes into improv is that after accepting this agreement in this fate you mentally say yes and So this is a key to being creative and improv and it's actually a game that some comedians play Saying yes and to something that said rather than no actually paves the way to creative thought and therefore a good comedy So let's go through Improv real quick here What if we bought some mangoes? Yes, and what if we made mango salsa? Yes, and what if we had a taco party with pugs? Yes, and what if these pugs are just up as pineapples and cousin Fred DJ'd? So this is sort of an example a really terrible example of improv But you can see if you agree and if you have an agreement it just keeps going and the creative process flows out of it So Improvisation and the yes and is just all about positivity What if we were saying no actually to everything and not being an agreement it might lead to something like this What if we bought some mangoes no actually what if we bought bananas and Then you just kind of end you in there and it's not funny and it doesn't lead to creativity or progression It does not even add up even the channel of creative thought isn't even there It's interacting with negativity instead of positivity Positivity is the key to creativity if we're all negative saying that won't work that won't work That's a bad. Yeah, what a terrible thought rather than saying yes I get the concept and What if we look at it in a way that we have not thought of yet? This leads us to open up our ideas rather than stifle them and we become open to new thought and positivity leads us there We can see this type of positivity at play in science Science seems like such a cut-and-dry endeavor sometimes with hypothesis method data labs You're constantly analyzing and collecting data. Where does positivity and creativity fit in the world of science? I Asked my friend Luke who's a scientist. He has a grant from NASA to study microorganisms in extreme heat conditions so this data might be helpful in figuring out if there could be microorganism lives on really hot planets and He says that he wants to be known as the creative scientist and much like improv comedy when presented with a problem He wants to be the scientist that says yes and and continues the scientific exploration instead of shutting down the rest of the thought process Scientists are trained naysayers and a lot of us are too and they are constantly trying to prove things false instead of true But creative scientists don't see dead ends, but they see a jumping point for exploration of the unknown This type of positivity makes a really good scientist and it sparks creative thinking and it is quite beautiful Another important thing to scientists is Open data the more data that scientists publish the more sharing it happens the more information that they have They have more information to base their experience on there's more creativity involved There's more innovation more advancement and it's the exact same thing for us With open source the more people post up their work in their code their methods They're thinking their words the more they share the more everyone else can use it as a springboard for innovation Advancement and collaboration. It really is a beautiful thing Now to put your ideas out there. It does make you kind of vulnerable Vulnerability is something extremely scary You say what if my code is embarrassing? what if my idea is a flop or What if my design idea is a very bad user experience and that might you know make me feel bad What if I share what I've been working on and it makes me seem less intelligent There are all sorts of questions you that go around your head when you're being vulnerable It's a lot of fear involved. There's a lot of vulnerability in sharing At my last talk I did at work camp Birmingham. I opened up and shared my whole creative process I laid out all my methodologies for design and discovery phases I laid out all of my thought process going to you know concept and research into design And it's a really vulnerable feeling sharing all that you have doubts like what if my process is archaic What if there are better things out there and mine looks unintelligent? Opening up is very vulnerable, but I'm telling you vulnerability leads to greatness If you're willing to show potential weakness in the present in order to gain long-term success It's really wonderful because you can learn from others by opening yourself up. It's what people call a very growth mindset Now don't get me wrong vulnerability can definitely definitely leave the failure, but that failure is just part of the journey None of us want to fail. We're all scared of it Being vulnerable and failing is just part of the journey to success We need to be resilient in the face of failure and we need to embrace it and learn from it What it all comes down to is practicing your craft. I have a friend who's an artist He's a really wonderful artist and he has made Thousands and thousands of so many paintings. He's continuously practicing his craft continuously making Some of his paintings are experimental failures. They're terrible It's but some of them are so wonderful So out of the thousands of paintings that he makes some of them are just so spectacular. You're like this is brilliant But he wouldn't have got to those brilliant spectacular paintings if he had not made the ones that he failed at It's all part of the practice and the practicing of your craft putting yourself out there being vulnerable Failing and then learning from it picking yourself back up and doing greater things and this leads to creative confidence Creative confidence is not something that one is born with you're born with creativity, but then But you're not born with the confidence to unleash it naturally It comes out of being vulnerable and it comes out of practice If you shape your mindset around positivity being a yes and type of person Then you are continuously opening up channels a creative thought if you start looking to problems creatively and civs always saying No, actually, that's not going to work or no. Actually. That's a bad idea You if you say yes, and let's see how we can think about this You build up your personal confidence that you can actually look at things differently that there's always another point of view Collaboration plays a huge role in creativity as well. You know how they say no man is an island We'll think about it. All of us here. We are all building on the shoulders of others We are all just starting off and taking from what people have done before us and improving and iterating and Continuing I want to mention two types of collaboration passive and active collaboration Passive collaboration is something that's always happening. It's always there whether you like it or not We are all taking inspiration from others for our work We're always building on other people's ideas and working towards betterment Someone had to have the idea to design the first ghost button Someone had to code the first theme based on the rest API Someone had to be the first one to use a certain technique before it became standard And so we are all collaborating passively with each other as a community building upon each other's ideas Getting inspiration from each other's work. It's really how progress is made. We're constantly looking at what everybody else is doing Now there's also active collaboration What if we weren't just looking around and building upon what we see but we're actively working together to put our Creative heads together and achieve greatness There are many places where you can see this in action One of them is WordPress core how there's so many wonderful people putting their heads together to make this product the best it can be Another one for designers is more the creative director role Creative directors are the creative leads who work with designers Artists copy buyers developers sales teams marketers, but really what they're there is to create a vision They oversee the whole creative process and give guidance towards all the other people kind of like a conductor of a symphony I Once had the great opportunity work with a creative director Kelly Householder on the rebranding and renaming of the website for Jones Valley teaching farm It's an incredible nonprofit organization dedicated To teaching kids and families about food and how to grow food and how to cook food. It's just quite wonderful So she brought together over five creative people to collaborate on this one website To designers to bounce ideas off each other and constantly push each other forward You know just going back and forth between color schemes and logo ideas and Incredible photographer who to take all the photos for the website just from scratch You know they got a group of kids out to the farm and he was just taking all these photos of them like in the dirt And it was quite wonderful Then they also she also had a copywriter who worked with the designers on the copy and did all the copy for the website and all the ads and Then there's a developer to build the site and basically all these people came together and launched this nonprofit with a New name look site and collateral were five creative minds all collaborated Now Kelly the creative director could have done just all the work herself She could have made all the logo herself the colors herself that she could have done and like to snap some photos or got stock photography But really the act of collaboration Between all the creative people in that project made it the outcome better than it could have ever been Because everybody was working together towards the main goal So creativity and open source goes hand-in-hand I believe So as no man as an island no open source project either. It's not just one person doing everything. It's this whole group of people So the whole idea is that many people coming together to collaborate to make a project better to make a work better to make WordPress better and so when you put your code up on github You don't expect it to be perfect. You don't say to yourself ha I Stopped them this code cannot be improved upon No, no open source. It's just one big symphony. It's the long game We're all working together the ultimate meeting of the minds in collaboration And it's quite a beautiful thing and creativity plays a huge role in it It's not just about projects and code and specific repositories Many organizations and agencies are starting to write more about their work and share it and share their thought process Facebook design has been doing this They've been putting up articles and putting up downloadables and everything to just really share So reading from organizations like this pushes us to do better work they've opened up their code and assets free for the public and Many organizations are doing that now and I'm really excited about this trend of transparency and you're seeing that a lot too in the WordPress world Many large tech corporations are starting to be more open in their dialogue about their projects and are open sourcing their code so read read it all read your heart out and Utilize these knowledge that you're gaining to your own thinking This is a great book that I would highly recommend if you want to read more on this subject It's called creative confidence unleashing the creative potential within all of us. It's by Tom and David Kelly of IDO It's a great read on creativity and opening up your mind and new ways of thinking Another great read is big magic by Elizabeth Gilbert So if you read blogs and design essays and you're reading what others are saying Maybe even dare to write about what you're thinking and what you're working on and your thought process Because the whole world would be a better place if we're all open and contributing what we're thinking in our work So if you're a designer in here, you might say to yourself How can I contribute? So have you ever made an icon you can put it up for download for free Automatically did this with generic cons. They released it under the GPL and these those little icons are used wise widely I'm sure a lot of you have used generic concept some point You know, you downloaded other people's work all the time Remember when T hand and lax put up if they're free download their high resolution Apple device comps back in the day The whole entire like designers around the world used them They were like the gold standard of device comps But they did this just because they wanted other people to have them and you can do it, too You can open source your own assets and put them up for free for people And also think about your methodology. Do you have a certain design process? You go through when you work. Do you have if you do share it? If you're when I shared my creative process at my last talk I did I was able to have conversations afterwards with people about it and because you're having that dialogue You're opening up yourself to find ways for improvement and it's quite wonderful So in thinking about that open source your thought blog write Share the logic behind your decisions Tell people why something works put code snippets up and say this is why I did it this way Document your code let others read it and so they can see what led you there to those decisions Be vulnerable and allow people to learn from you both from your triumphs and your mistakes So people can use your assets and methodology and they know why you did what you did because you wrote about it And you know, they can help you improve what you've done. It's quite quite wonderful And more importantly collaborate Collaborate on open source projects. It'll make you a better designer. It'll make you a better developer It just put yourself into the mix and learn from others and say Yes, and to people's ideas and open up your mind to thinking about problems in a different point of view So get involved Go to make dot wordpress.org if you're not involved in the open source project You can if you're a designer you can talk with Tammy about how you can help with design Step into the world of creativity and wordpress So if you pay any attention to wordpress core You see many great minds actively collaborating and actively Being vulnerable and working together to make wordpress better If you're in the room and you're contributing to the project. Thank you It's not easy to actively collaborate. There are a lot of disagreements. There's bumps along the way I know it's hard But keep up the great work because you're literally making the world a better place by making wordpress better And so for those of you who have yet to contribute There's no better day to start than now Come to contributing get your feet wet and the beauty of creative collaboration and improvisation So let's all say yes and And if we're always saying because we're always saying no actually that won't work. No actually that's a bad idea Then the in-depth creative collaboration can occur So i'm not saying that we have to say yes to every idea. I'm saying that we have to say Yes to the fact that ideas have merits and then the end is where we build upon that idea or steer it in another direction This type of collaborative thinking can open many creative channels within our community So in conclusion Be positive Open your mind to thinking about problems differently Put yourself out there and be vulnerable and don't be afraid to fail Actively collaborate and contribute to open source projects such as wordpress And I cannot wait to see all that you create and you're going to make the world a better place And I truly I really truly believe that So that's my talk. Thank you guys We have a good amount of time for questions if anybody has any It's not really a technical talk, but yeah Can you wait for the microphone check Hi, jen. Sheriff. Thank you very much for the talk question What's your view of the business model of open source? When you say business model, do you mean like companies making the living off of open source projects? For example as the counter example, there's this little company in Cupertino called apple Who's managed to build a rather successful company not doing open source? So there's pros and cons I'd like your vision on your view on the business model of open source Well, I mean there's it's two different ballgames in a way definitely Because open source is if you have like wordpress, there's a lot of people working on it and actively collaborating on it And in one way it makes it Extremely strong product because you have so many eyes on it And it you know when there's security flaws and stuff like that everybody's just on it They're like making sure it's safe and wonderful to use And it's a really wonderful way that people are collaborating on it But it also does sometimes slow certain types of innovation In a way because there's not necessarily like one main person that's actively like trying to steer it in it With this like huge 10-year vision. It's the whole community coming together And so it does make it for a very different type of product and of course, you know, I'm all about you know commerce and apple and people having closed Proprietary things but I like open better and I think there's a definitely a better spirit about it And I like using open products So it's sort of I mean everybody here has the dilemma, you know Whether or not they you know want to use an apple phone or not use an apple phone Or they want their data to be like theirs and not stolen from them, you know And it's uh, sometimes it seems kind of sneaky where if you are not If you're using a product like an apple product and the government can just like come and like take your data Like that's kind of weird, you know, so It's it's a big debate I don't know if that really answers the question but Anybody else I have a recommendation and a question first like for anyone who struggles with a blank page or Finds creativity difficult or it's like for the linear thinkers um There's a book or there's a sort of like a Framework for systematic creativity called inside the box. That's like exercises you can do to sort of um Like disassemble problems or like as sort of methods for looking at your work and Being more creative creative about it. And I guess the question is can you share some techniques or exercises you might uh use in your practice Like when your team's in a rut or when you're trying to like solve a problem in a new way Um, how do you inject creativity into your work on a day on a day-to-day basis? So How to inject creativity a lot of times is if I'm stuck I do a lot of research. I look around and I document and I call like completely just Consume all that I can around me to try to find ideas and find sparks and maybe get my brain working to where You know, I might have a new idea So if you have like one time I was like, I'm gonna make a design like a little pull quote for a website And I was just sort of like oh my goodness. I want this to be really really good I want this pull quote to be amazing, but I'm just you know, I'm sitting there in sketch and I'm just like I this my I'm not doing amazing work right now. It's terrible And so what I did is I made a mood board of all the pull quotes I could find Just pulling them off of all tons of sites and just created this huge board full of pull quotes And you know, even just like like looking at little details like okay, their indentation is this far and Just kind of looking at what people are doing and getting inspiration from tons and tons of research Research can really lead you out of creative ruts where you look towards what other people are doing And it kind of sparks ideas because then you find yourself thinking about it all the time too Because you're immersed in it. So I hope that helps Hi, um, I've been thinking a lot recently about how to expand the um, I'm over here About how to expand the design mentality to the more technical code side of operations, right? And um, I think one of the key Blockers you could say for that is the concepts of time and efficiency. So I wonder if you have any Thoughts or have already thought about that in terms of how to get more people involved in the creative design approach to solving problems Um for us one thing is just involving developers in on the design process early on Like a lot of times just having them in on like an early meeting like a discovery meeting or to really grasp like the goals Of what you're trying to do and then sort of like, you know, right? So this is where we're going This is what we're trying to achieve And so that kind of helps just putting um developers and engineers early on in the process and early on In the thought decisions and yeah, you know It takes up a more time for that developer or somebody to be in a meeting or to Read through all this all this documentation But I think sometimes that helps the design thinking permeate into what developers are doing a bit So um, hi, so do you have any recommendations on like safe and like even legal places to draw like that source material? Like any specific I guess Places that would have like images or even copy that would be like free for commercial use or Anything like that. There are a lot of different resources out there and some are paid and some are unpaid and A lot of people, you know, you can Pay for like a photograph, you know from a stock photograph website and it has a certain licensing But a lot of times it's you know is you can use this creative work from other people You just get the money to do it and then there are other places where there are free resources um, and So I haven't found like the one big amazing hub of just free, you know gpl resources If anybody knows what that is you should let me know But I use creative market a lot. I like um I do purchase a lot of creative assets because I really like supporting artists and photographers and so I use them a lot and There's like a sketch app resource website where there's a lot of sketch files on there for free a lot of designers put up sketch files for free In dribble on their dribble pages a lot of people do this on behance 2 where you can just download it A lot of people are very willing to open up their assets to people And you just have to sort of look and try to find the right things that you're looking for So I hope that helps Anybody else All right. Well, thank you very much you guys