Paul Smith's "Old Mill"

Paul Smith.

The name is simple, common.

A google search of the name yields 69 million hits (mine yields 417,000). 

There is one Paul Smith that was anything but common. 

Born September 21, 1921, Paul had spastic cerebral palsy.   He wasn’t able to attend school but his love of life propelled him into becoming a self-taught master in two things: chess and art.

It’ s the art that truly is amazing.  You see, Paul taught himself to use his typewriter as an easel.  But he didn’t use brushes.

… just one finger…

….of one hand…

… while the other hand held the typing hand steady.

The typewriter was a pretty basic and common writing tool of the time, yet Paul didn’t use it to simply string letters into words.  Actually he usually didn’t even use the letters of the typewriter, but instead used the @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ characters. 

As he became more familiar with the typewriter he experimented with colored ribbons and a technique whereby he created smudged shading on the paper by pushing against the ribbon with his thumb.  What is even more amazing, is that unlike other paintings where things are painted over and changed as the painting evolves, Paul had to see the final work in his mind’s eye before he even started… and work one character at a time.

Today we open Photoshop or some other graphic arts program, and occasionally even use pencil and paper.

He placed a piece of paper in a typewriter, hit a character, readjusted the paper orientation, hit another character….

…and Beauty emerged…

He didn’t complain about not having the most high-tech tool.  In fact, the manual, no frills typewriter was perfectly suited to him.  It didn’t matter that he would hit a key and stay on the key.  After all, he used the typewriter in a way it wasn’t really designed for.  Add to the mix that he experimented with it and created techniques for embellishing his images and it’s clear that Paul Smith was an innovator, and a testimony to what we’re all capable of doing if we embrace who we are as humans,

dream,

and share

 from the overflowing well of inspiration that bubbles and dances in each of us.

Paul Smith died on June 25, 2007, but the lessons we can learn from him are timeless

Maybe not a great story, but definitely a hopeful story.

… just one finger…
….of one hand…
… while the other hand held the typing hand steady.

reminds me of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and of the book a stroke patient wrote by blinking.

And no more than half an hour later, Gizmodo posted a story of someone who painted in spite of paralysis.

So, if it's true that to a person with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, the really useful question is, "what sort of hammer do you have?"

At big TV networks, they have a TV hammer. At a surgeon's office, they have the scalpel hammer. A drug counselor has the talk hammer, while a judge probably has the jail hammer.

Maybe it's time for a new hammer...

One study found that when confronted with a patient with back pain, surgeons prescribed surgery, physical therapists thought that therapy was indicated and yes, acupuncturists were sure needles were the answer. Across the entire universe of patients, the single largest indicator of treatment wasn't symptoms or patient background, it was the background of the doctor.

When the market changes, you may be seeing all the new opportunities and problems the wrong way because of the solutions you're used to. The reason so many organizations have trouble using social media is that they are using precisely the wrong hammer. And odds are, they will continue to do so until their organization fails. PR firms try to use the new tools to send press releases, because, you guessed it, that's their hammer.

It's not just about new vs. old. Inveterate community-focused social media mavens often bring that particular hammer to other venues. So they crowdsource keynote speeches or restaurants or board meetings and can't figure out why they don't have the impact others do.

The best way to find the right tool for the job is to learn to be good at switching hammers.

A useful reminder.

What emerged could be called a culture of dictation...that there should be a match, or coordination, between what one says and how that is written. This culture would have taken a while to emerge.

EW: So who was behind this culture of dictation?

ME: My argument assumes…that taste-makers, gatekeepers, broadcasters, teachers, and the like were the origins of umlessness, and that listeners or audiences wouldn't have natively attended to filled pauses. In other words, people didn't show up asking [Toastmasters founder] Ralph Smedley to create a public speaking group that would clean up American speaking. Smedley and others came up with a program that included the prescription "don't say um" because it was clear, direct item in a recipe for eloquence which could be replicated with a wide number of people from many backgrounds. Maybe it was a pet peeve of theirs.

I'm amused the lengths to which defenders of Toastmasters-style umlessness will go to insist about the naturalness of "um" as a distracter, but there's nothing natural about it -- the distraction is a cultural and historical artifact. It only seems "natural" because it's so embedded in our culture.

Denise Graveline has posted an interview with Michael Erard, author of Um…Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, And What They Mean. Dyed in the wool Toastmasters will probably feel uncomfortable with Erard's comments about Ralph Smedley's dogmatism, but I think it's kind of refreshing to hear someone speak out for naturalness and genuineness in speech. Follow the link to read the whole interview.