Do Not Pass GO

At first glance the relationship seems to make sense, but then you notice the slimy trail of introducing the concept of using credit to a younger audience and it makes you throw-up a little in your mouth.

The deal struck between Visa and Hasbro to introduce their credit cards into the worlds of 'Monopoly' and 'The Game of Life' smacks of the tobacco industry using candy cigarettes as a way to familiarize brand colors and box designs with the activity of smoking to the youth of an earlier generation. The free use of credit cards in board games could certainly influence younger players to think that using credit indiscriminately is 'fun' and holds little consequence.

Until using the credit card in the Life game loses you 'life points' for breaking up a marriage or not being able to retire -- or unless getting a bad credit score from over-using the Monopoly card prevents you from buying new property and allows the banker to repossess the little silver car gamepiece you're moving around the board -- I'll stick with thinking this is a bad idea.

Maybe if their logo wasn't so darn ugly...

AT&T sued NASCAR Friday after the motor sports monster would not let it replace the Cingular logo on Jeff Burton's race car with new AT&T artwork. Burton's #31 car is sponsored by Cingular, but AT&T took full ownership of Cingular as part of its recent BellSouth merger and has made no secret of its plans to eliminate the Cingular brand name.

I gotta say that I agree with NASCAR's decision (but probably not for the same reasons.) Cingular was well on its way to building a strong and recognizable brand before AT&T swallowed them whole. A dinosaur company like AT&T is sure to be a drag on the potential speed of a race car.

Recipes. Not Rules.

Far too many people (with myself occasionally included) put forth an article or white paper touting the "rules of creativity" -- as if there were some secret "Robert's Rules of Order for the Right-Brained" to which only the experts have access, and mere mortals rejoice at the tiny morsels that are thrown to them like table scraps.

Not-so.
The only rule of creativity ought to be the single rule that there are no rules.
Ever try to prepare a meal from a recipe card? There are lists of ingredients, advice on how much to add, when to add them, how long to cook, and suggestions on how to serve. Sometimes you'll even see a line that says "season to taste."

My grandmother used to make the best meatloaf in the world, but she couldn't really tell you what the recipe was. Not because she was a contrarian troublemaker who liked to tease people (although she was indeed all those things) it was because there wasn't a written version of the recipe recorded for sharing. Even when she did try to write the recipe down for my mother, it was always a "pinch of this, a little of that, and add some more of the other thing." After years of my mother trying to duplicate Gram's recipe, she comes "close" -- but it's not Gram's meatloaf anymore. It's Mom's Her own execution of the recipe's ingredients, but with its own distinct end-result.

There were no rules to making meatloaf -- just guiding advice.
That's what creativity should be.
Recipes. Not Rules.

We all take the same sort of ingredients: challenges, questions, co-workers, personal experience, risk, change, advice, ideas, time, energy, assumptions, opinions, roadblocks, hurdles, nay-sayers, positives, negatives, market research, gut-instincts, bravery, self-doubt, and others -- and combine in different amounts, simmer or bake for different amounts of time and different temperatures, and we "season to taste."

Life would be pretty boring if everyone's ideas all tasted the same.