Elvin "Wit" Shahbazian
producer. artist. engineer. doin' it relatively large since 1988.
Production Credits:
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Posts
- May 11, 12
- May 03, 12
Lecrae - “Church Clothes” (Produced by Wit)
Official Music Video
May 10th
Available at datpiff.com
- May 02, 12
Fan-made video for the song I produced for Swoope (“Mirage”). Fresh
- Apr 27, 12
- Apr 27, 12
Lecrae - Church Clothes (Produced by Wit)
From “Church Clothes” (Hosted by DJ Don Cannon)
- Apr 26, 12
Had the opportunity to produce this song. Video is super dope as well.
“They Like Me” KJ52 feat. Lecrae
- Apr 21, 12
by Jocelyn K. Glei
A recent BusinessWeek article reported that, “According to a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, CEOs identify ‘creativity’ as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.” While the study’s results will come as no surprise to hard-working creative professionals, they do raise an important question: How do we identify – and hire for – the qualities that add up to creativity?
By our lights, the notion of “creativity” can’t be separated from the skills required for creative execution. So our analysis of the characteristics crucial to creativity focuses particularly on the skills that facilitate putting ideas into action.
Below, we outline five key qualities of particularly productive creatives, followed by some recommendations for how to uncover them in potential hires, co-workers, and collaborators.
1. Communication skills. As Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Whether you’re leading a team, managing clients, or training a new hire, the ability to communicate clearly and concisely is an absolutely essential skill. We must all develop the capacity to efficiently manage our communication channels (email, Twitter, Facebook, etc), to rally people around our ideas, and to play well with others – our coworkers and our clients.
How to test for it:
One easy way to test this ability is by having a candidate explain a simple task. If you were hiring a Systems Administrator, for instance, you might ask something like, “Walk me through the process of setting up a web server.” It doesn’t have to be a hard question; the point is to get insight into their ability to communicate clearly.
2. Pro-activeness.
We tend to judge people based on their experience. This is, of course, the whole basis of the resumé. Yet, while on-the-job experience is valuable, we must dig deeper. A better indicator of productive creativity is one’s willingness to act, to take the initiative to put an idea in motion. As we’ve written elsewhere on 99%, “Those who take initiative possess tenacity and a healthy degree of impatience with idleness.”
How to test for it:
Inquire about past instances where the candidate was proactive. Have them explain how and why they started that club, magazine, or film series listed on their resumé. You can also get a glimpse into their future willingness to take initiative by asking questions like: “If I put you in charge of the company today, what would you do differently?” or “What are some things that you would change about the product (or sales process, or website, etc.) if you had the chance?”
3. Problem-solving.
“Thinking outside of the box” is really nothing more than creative problem solving – the ability to arrive at new solutions by looking beyond obvious or traditional approaches. As designer Michael Beirut taught us at the inaugural 99% Conference: “The problem contains the solution.” In this way, successful creatives don’t see problems as problems at all – they see them as opportunities.
How to test for it:
Aside from using Karl Duncker’s classic “candle task” to test problem-solving abilities, there are a few other options. When interviewing candidates for your creative team, don’t focus on leading questions. Instead, ask questions that emphasize shades of grey, and offer insight into the candidate’s thinking. For a Community Manager position, a good question might be, “How would you deal with an irate customer who won’t stop posting negative comments on message boards?”
4. Curiosity.“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” So said French philosopher Voltaire. As anyone who’s had a “Eureka!” moment knows, daring to ask a new question goes a long way toward finding the right solution. What’s more, a high level of curiosity – the hallmark of an inquiring mind – is typically indicative of other good qualities, such as inventiveness, resourcefulness, and fearlessness. It also tends to ward off boredom and apathy – sentiments that will poison any creative endeavor.
How to test for it:
When interviewing a potential hire, note how many unprompted questions they ask, and how much they’ve already learned about your company. You can also ask simple questions like, “Tell me about something outside of your area of expertise that you recently learned about?” or “What was the last book you read, and why?”
5. Risk-taking.
Being open to risk (and thus failure) is crucial. We can only truly learn and develop when we push ourselves outside of our comfort zones. According to choreographer Twyla Tharp, “If you only do what you know and do it very, very well, chances are that you won’t fail. You’ll just stagnate, and your work will get less and less interesting, and that’s failure by erosion.” For Tharp, inventor James Dyson, and innumerable others, failure is a badge of accomplishment because it means that you took a risk, that you tried something new.
How to test for it:
Chief executive of The Limited, Linda Heasley, likes to ask, “Give me an example of a situation where you think you took a risk or took a controversial point of view.” Or, for a sneakier approach, you can inquire if there’s anything the candidate regrets not doing at their previous job. As psychologist Daniel Gilbert points out in this article on risk, people usually regret the things they didn’t do, more than those they did. Thus, regret and risk-taking usually work (loosely) in inverse proportion to one another.Source:
- Mar 20, 12
“Content VS. Technique” according to Hitchcock
- Mar 20, 12
Six Key Questions to Ask an Atheist
Many times, as Christian theists, we find ourselves on the defensive against the critiques and questions of atheists. Sometimes, in the midst of arguments and proofs, we miss the importance of conversation. These questions, then, are meant to be a part of a conversation. They are not, in and of themselves, arguments or “proofs” for God. They are commonly asked existential or experiential questions that both atheists and theists alike can ponder.
1. If there is no God, “the big questions” remain unanswered, so how do we answer the following questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? This question was asked by Aristotle and Leibniz alike – albeit with differing answers. But it is an historic concern. Why is there conscious, intelligent life on this planet, and is there any meaning to this life? If there is meaning, what kind of meaning and how is it found? Does human history lead anywhere, or is it all in vain since death is merely the end? How do you come to understand good and evil, right and wrong without a transcendent signifier? If these concepts are merely social constructions, or human opinions, whose opinion does one trust in determining what is good or bad, right or wrong? If you are content within atheism, what circumstances would serve to make you open to other answers?2. If we reject the existence of God, we are left with a crisis of meaning, so why don’t we see more atheists like Jean Paul Sartre, or Friedrich Nietzsche, or Michel Foucault? These three philosophers, who also embraced atheism, recognized that in the absence of God, there was no transcendent meaning beyond one’s own self-interests, pleasures, or tastes. The crisis of atheistic meaninglessness is depicted in Sartre’s book Nausea. Without God, there is a crisis of meaning, and these three thinkers, among others, show us a world of just stuff, thrown out into space and time, going nowhere, meaning nothing.
3. When people have embraced atheism, the historical results can be horrific, as in the regimes of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot who saw religion as the problem and worked to eradicate it? In other words, what set of actions are consistent with particular belief commitments? It could be argued, that these behaviors – of the regimes in question - are more consistent with the implications of atheism. Though, I’m thankful that many of the atheists I know do not live the implications of these beliefs out for themselves like others did! It could be argued that the socio-political ideologies could very well be the outworking of a particular set of beliefs – beliefs that posited the ideal state as an atheistic one.
4. If there is no God, the problems of evil and suffering are in no way solved, so where is the hope of redemption, or meaning for those who suffer? Suffering is just as tragic, if not more so, without God because there is no hope of ultimate justice, or of the suffering being rendered meaningful or transcendent, redemptive or redeemable. It might be true that there is no God to blame now, but neither is there a God to reach out to for strength, transcendent meaning, or comfort. Why would we seek the alleviation of suffering without objective morality grounded in a God of justice?
5. If there is no God, we lose the very standard by which we critique religions and religious people, so whose opinion matters most? Whose voice will be heard? Whose tastes or preferences will be honored? In the long run, human tastes and opinions have no more weight than we give them, and who are we to give them meaning anyway? Who is to say that lying, or cheating or adultery or child molestation are wrong –really wrong? Where do those standards come from? Sure, our societies might make these things “illegal” and impose penalties or consequences for things that are not socially acceptable, but human cultures have at various times legally or socially disapproved of everything from believing in God to believing the world revolves around the sun; from slavery, to interracial marriage, from polygamy to monogamy. Human taste, opinion law and culture are hardly dependable arbiters of Truth.
6. If there is no God, we don’t make sense, so how do we explain human longings and desire for the transcendent? How do we even explain human questions for meaning and purpose, or inner thoughts like, why do I feel unfulfilled or empty? Why do we hunger for the spiritual, and how do we explain these longings if nothing can exist beyond the material world?
For further reading, see Ravi Zacharias’s book The Real Face of Atheism, and C.S. Lewis’s bookMere Christianity. The RZIM website has many excellent resources on atheism, www.rzim.org, as does the Centre for Public Christianity, www.publicchristianity.org.
- Mar 08, 12
Big Krit - “Boobie Miles”
(language warning)
- Mar 07, 12
- Jan 30, 12
- Jan 26, 12
Sex, Marriage, & Fairytales.
Well said.
Props to my man Matt Robertson (@CIKProductions) on the video work.
- Jan 22, 12
- Jan 21, 12
Incredible covers. 12 minutes of face-scrunching.
(props to @JustAdvocate for the vid)
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Tweets
- Pau Gasol just solidified his legacy or lack thereof #Fail
- Durant #Respect
- OKC has been bitten by the #BlackMamba #TroubleAwaits
- You've had an epiphany, I see RT @dremurray22: Ok ok. I give. After 16 years I will say it. Kobe is the closest to Mike we've seen.
- Only one person we can blame for this Westbrook injury #Stern
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Photos
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Wall
- Check out the title track off @lecrae's #ChurchClothes produced by yours truly (Hosted by Don Cannon) --->http://illhype.com/news/2012/04/26/illhype-exclusive-lecrae-announces-church-clothes-mixtape-hosted-by-don-cannon/
- Had the opportunity to produce the much-anticipated collaboration between KJ52 & Lecrae for KJ's album. Here's the video! Go cop it on iTunes http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IfES42vdfno
- Until next time, Atlanta. Next up...Florida!
- In the studio with @lecrae listening to some of the stuff I produced on #ChurchClothes #Crazy
- Find an idol in your life today & crush it #Prayer
- Artists - I have made a private stash of beats called The Vault. These tracks are available for purchase for less than my normal rate. Some of these are totally new, and have never been heard before. If you are interested, shoot an email to WitsVault@gmail.com to gain access to The Vault.
- Jesus washed Judas' feet knowing he would soon betray Him. Love those who wrong you #Humility #Grace
- KJ52 talking about his new album "Dangerous". I had the opportunity of producing the song "They Like Me" featuring Lecrae http://t.co/ZZBAG9lH
- Mobile studio. Today's stop? Japhia Life's crib to work on Westside Pharmacy.
- "I wish I had known then, what I know now. That when you get to the top, there's nothing there." - Jack Higgins #WhatAreYouChasing
- Smh back to work I go RT Dre Murray (@dremurray22): Wit focused on the Knicks during our session! http://instagr.am/p/H-jzrNhJkE/
- "A genius is the one most like himself." - Thelonius Monk #ProducerTip
- Telling other people your plans/goals is usually a breeding ground for jealousy/bitterness #PrayMore #TalkLess
- Shao Lin!
