inspiration and The Marlboro Man

I have posted something like this before, but the information is certainly worthy of repetition. One of the most common questions people ask of me is "From where do you get your ideas?" (of course, most people place the "from" at the end of the sentence). It's a great question (sometimes I wonder myself). One of the mistaken notions is that ideas somehow come "from within"... that is, somehow from my brain. No doubt my brain plays a role... BUT, creativity needs a "context". This will be a dominant theme in my creativity seminar in the fall. Last night, I spent some time on the back porch looking through some 1950s Life magazines I procured at this week's Farmersville auction. What beautiful specimens of artwork and photography... and text! The magazines provide great sources of images and wonderful inspiration for  ideas. No need to "look inward" for creative inspiration when you can be so stimulated from these external sources. In fact, relying on internal stimulation is probably the least efficient way of generating new ideas. Here are a couple of face images that seem to be stirring up some ideas in my brain. BTW, I recently heard in an online lecture that the early Marlboro advertising campaign included not only a cowboy, but also a couple of other "manly-man" images for the "Marlboro Man". Here's a great example of a non-cowboy Marlboro Man (later the company went exclusively to the cowboy branding... pun intended). Enjoy!