© Jonah P. Langenbeck
I attended the Adobe New Orleans Multimedia User Group (NOMMUG) meeting last Tuesday. It was my first meeting as a member of the user group and was a good experience. The guest speaker for the meeting was Jonah Langenbeck, the Interactive Media Manager of the National WWII Museum. Jonah’s presentation titled, ‘Get Stoked! Inject new life into your creative process using the web.’ was as informative as its name suggests.
Jonah gave us an inside look at how he uses multiple websites and tools such as Twitter,Instapaper and Tumblr to bookmark/save sources of inspiration that he finds while surfing the web. The beauty of Jonah’s approach is that by linking up multiple tools and services and channeling them through Tumblr he creates an easily searchable archive of all everything that inspires him. It’s a brilliant way to raise your productivity and stop wasting time trying to remember that picture of a dog riding a unicycle you saw 2 years ago.
Jonah’s presentation was full of great information but one slide in particular had an interesting quote by Jim Jarmusch…
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.” ”
—Jim Jarmusch, The Golden Rules of Filming
The best part is a quote of a quote, “It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.” I think most creatives can agree…these are words to live by in our industry. Jonah will be giving the same presentation at BarCampNOLA but if you can’t make that he was nice enough to put the slides online here
