Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Roger there?

Yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of spending a great time on the phone with Roger von Oech. We took the time machine back to the days when he wrote his first books. I got to think about the fun I had giving people A Whack on the Side of the Head. It was fun as a publisher to ask him about his experiences while bringing that incredibly popular book and its partner, A Kick in the Pants, to market while magazines — Fortune and Business Week — and television responded with noise and pleasure that corporations were finally trying to do something creative.

Roger explained that the real change came when he switched from the book to the Creative Whack Pack, a 64-card deck that is a creativity tool. He said folks were wilingl to share copies of the books, but they wanted to keep their Whack Packs. I can understand that. I like to keep my favorite toys too.

Actually though our conversation didn’t start with Roger’s stuff, before I’d barely said hello Roger was asking questions. With his creativity he has a healthy dose of what he called beginner’s mind. I would have to call it insatiable curiosity. The man likes to know how things work and why they work as they do. That makes a conversation with him lively and constantly filled with questions and ideas. Bet you can see why I was having the time of my life listening and talking about anything and everything that happened to interest us at the moment.

Some of the topics included the fact that Roger had breakfast with Guy Kawasaki and that they had been to the same school together and only met recently. Roger’s been reading blogs for over three years, but only got into writing his own blog in the last few months. We discussed how moving from link to forms people relationships not just connections of web relevancy. He said that’s how he met almost every Internet friend, because one let to another and then to the next. We talked about blogs we like, but how blogs can’t replace the depth of reading a book.

We found we’re of like mind when it comes to discovery. Today I was wishing I had a dime for every time that word was used during our conversation. We talked about the ways that it’s valuable to cross purpose content to make it fit each audience perfectly, because they don’t have time to find it or make it work for them. I think we laughed a lot and bet we were picturing many of the same things.

You can’t help but imagine possibilities when you talk to Roger von Oech.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

Some of my blog posts have been picked up by other blogs and they got me in touch with people I’ve not been in touch with for years. One is a man from India I met while speaking there in 1993, it looks like I’ll be going back again now.–Roger von Oech

Stop by Roger’s Blog, Creative Think, and say hi!

Thanks, Roger, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.