The compliment guys!

These two fine gentlemen are the Purdue "Compliment Guys". (Click on the picture for the full article.)

Their mission: to compliment everyone that walks by them and brighten their day.
Their purpose: not girls, or money, or fame, just the hope that they can spread a little joy in a time of economic depression.

When I read this article I couldn't help but smile. So clearly their project is working! On the surface it may not seem like this article has much to do with the goal of the arts and culture group, but I think it would be interesting to see if what these two guys are doing could be applied to different situations. For example, what if instead of having "compliment guys" on a college campus, there could be a group of people outside of the soup kitchen giving compliments, or maybe in one of the more impoverished neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Would a group of happy compliment givers have their comments taken at face value, or has the world become so cynical that even a simple compliment wouldn't be received well? I'm not sure, but I think it might make for some interesting performance art.

Brainstorming Pinwheel!

John Michel created this wonderful flash version of Andrew Bosley's "The Brainstormer!" It was originally a paper model but Andrew got so much use out of it he wanted to share it with the world. Maybe it would be fun to use this to start group meetings in an interesting way!

Creative Group Techniques and Exercises

For the UArts students viewing this, you probably already know about Michael Michalko and his line of creative thinking books, but for the members of the Arts and Culture group who may not know, please take a look at the site, specifically the creative exercises and techniques sections, as I feel they could be useful to you when making group art and having meetings. Maybe you could do a different exercise at the begining of every meeting to get people excited and ready to talk about stuff!

Cracking creative thinking!