This is an interesting idea.

Actually, since putting this Philly Creative Guide article together, which offers four object lessons in creativity drawn from Springsteen’s career, I thought of a fifth:

Viewing the familiar from a radically different perspective can offer unimagined rewards. In the late 1980s, Springsteen threw a hard curve ball to Tunnel of Love tour audiences waiting for the exuberance of “Born To Run.” Performing the song solo on acoustic guitar, the energetic thrill of escaping that “town full of losers” was replaced by a stark reality: What do the song’s protagonists do next? Though fans lost the thrill of an energetic set-closer, they gained a powerful new view of a familiar song. Or listen to his re-imaginings of decades-old songs like “Open All Night,” “Blinded By the Light” and “If I Should Fall Behind” on 2007’s Live In Dublin with the Seeger Sessions band. As one of my favorite Robert Hunter lyrics goes: “Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” Sometimes creativity means forcing yourself to see the familiar from a radically new perspective in order to move forward … occasionally in ways you never anticipated in the first place.

Mashable reports on research that “estimates that someone who has Liked a brand will spend an average of $71.84 more each year on that brand’s products or services than will someone who has not Liked it on Facebook.”

Which is sort of like saying that there’s research showing that someone who has visited the mall spends more money at stores in that mall than someone who hasn’t. Or that someone who talks about a brand is more likely to have spent money on that brand than someone who hasn’t. No duh.

It should be excruciatingly obvious that people who “Like” a brand on Facebook are going to spend more with that brand. The danger here is that crappy marketers will look at this stat and say: “Okay, now I need to fool lots more people into ‘Liking’ my client’s brand on Facebook, because each ‘Like’ is financially quantifiable and will immediately increase my gross sales.”

Ummm … not so much.

I had a colonoscopy on Thursday. (Yeah, this is the “more” part of that “marketing and more” tagline up there.) It was my fourth; I get one every five years. If you’ve been putting off scheduling one, I implore you: don’t. Besides, a colonoscopy isn’t all that bad, even though most people think about it like they’re the matador in that photo. Anyway, here are 10 reasons why you ought to make a note today and call your doctor on Monday:

1. Family history: Got colon cancer in your family? Then what are you waiting for, dumbass?

2. Katie Couric: She got one on national teevee. What, she’s tougher than you?

3. Better prep: When I got my first one, I had to drink a water tower’s worth of some crap called “Go Lightly.” They don’t use the world’s most misnamed product anymore. It’s Gatorade and laxative. Big whoop.

4. Lots of library time: You’re sure to catch up on all those magazines you’ve been meaning to read.

5. Make use of your insurance: You’re paying through the nose each month for health care, you might as well actually use some of it.

6. Good drugs: The anesthesia is creepily effective. One second you’re being wheeled into the procedure room, the next second you’re being wheeled out. You don’t know a thing re: the procedure itself. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

7. Good music: When they wheeled me in, the speaker system in the procedure room was playing Frank Sinatra singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” Seriously.

8. Cheap laughs: When you talk to family and friends about it, you’ll feel like you’re in an episode of Tosh.0, trying to squeeze as many cheap laughs out of the experience as possible.

9. It beats the alternative: What, you’d rather go through six months of chemo than a few hours in the bathroom? Okay, it’s your choice.

10. Peace of mind: It’s worth the discomfort. By a longshot.

“To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.”
—Arthur Schopenhauer