All of us have a process. You know what I mean... it's the angst you go through on the way to solving a problem or deciding something. Process is generally messy. It's rough.  Might have great potential, but it's not ready for presentation yet. I tend to live my process out loud. For those who know and love me, you know this about me. I dress like I process. I talk like I process. I show my process in painting. You can hear me say one thing yesterday and hear me say something completely different the next day because I'm thinking through the possibilities. "But I thought you wanted to do [fill in the blank]. That's what you said yesterday." It's confusing. And it's because while I am good at presenting ideas, I have no sense of knowing when to present ideas because I'm always in a state of open process and collaboration. But presentation matters, and the art of presentation matters. I had one woman come to my web site looking for a painting on faith. She googled that and found me. And what she found was this:  And so her comment, upon finding my post, was: "what is up with the faith picture i dont get it and it looks freaky too." And that makes sense. She caught me in process when it looked nothing like "faith." The finished work came later: Presentation. Oh, the difference between process and poresentation. I met with a friend of mine for lunch today. Scott told me that he visits Presentation Zen daily. I'll be checking that out in the future. Cool. And I was reading Blink more while at the doctor's office today. Malcolm Gladwell tells the story of two brands of brandy. One is better perceived in the marketplace, but is mysteriously losing marketshare. The other has a cheap reputation, and is gaining. Both taste roughly the same, but the one with the better brand image is losing the fight. Why? Turns out it was the packaging. The bottle of the "better" brandy was simple and plain. The bottle of the "cheap" brandy was more ornate. Presentation increased the sale of the cheaper brandy. That may seem rudimentary, but it also means that the timing of the presentation of our thinking, in professional and in personal environments, is important. We have to be careful with process. Process is of course necessary, but it can also lead to false expectations and wrong assumptions. It can diminish our personal branding.
Some of this leads to part of the rationale behind the re-packaging of my web site. Beatcanvas looks like process, not presentation. And I'm not sure where to draw the line yet, but it's got me thinking.And just because I like the image, here's this, a picture I took last fall:  | 
