Luc Latulippe

What's inspiring you do things differently these days? I'm not talking about art or illustration. Finding inspiration there is easy enough with a visit to Drawn! every morning.

I'm talking about how you live your life, and how you work your work. You know what I mean? Are you efficient and productive enough? Are you keeping in touch with your friends as well as you should? Is your freelance business suffering in any way? What could you be doing differently?

Here, in no particular order, are things that have been inspiring me and helping to re-shape my thinking of late:

• Jane Siberry selling all her music as non-DRM'ed MP3's solely from her own site, and inviting you to pay whatever you choose to (including nothing);
  


• Listening to the wonderful Radio Lab podcasts (particularly the episode on "Emergence");
  


• Marveling at Adam Koford's success with his meme-tastic and very fun Laugh-Out-Loud Cats;
  


• Learning about PAL, the Performing Arts Lodge, a retirement community for Canadian performing artists (and subsequently, about the Hero Initiative, a US retirement fund for comic book artists);
  


• Reading about how Hugh MacLeod makes no attempt whatsoever to generate revenue from his popular "cartoons on the backs of business cards" idea (yet, 10 years later, is extremely well known, and has used the cartoons as a springboard for a very successful wine business);
  


• Reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (this book is wonderful; do yourself a favour and pick it up);
  


• Merlin Mann's ideas on personal productivity (besides his own video podcast, he guest-hosts on TWiT.tv's Mac Break Weekly);
  


• Marketing guru Seth Godin's blog, a great resource whether you run a big company like Toyota, or you're a self-employed freelancer (in fact, maybe even more so if you're a self-employed freelancer);
  

I'm ready to start doing things differently because, lately, work-wise, it feels like my old ways of doing things just ain't cutting the mustard anymore.

What about you? What's inspiring you do things differently?