Creativity and Strategy- Objectives (Pt. 2)

Season 1; Episode 8- Objectives

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Intro- Objectives and Creativity:

Welcome to Beyond the Template, the more than “just talk” podcast.

This week, we’re talking good news, new moons, and new goals! Plus, I’ll share a few personal wins and pivots in my creative work as I establish my objectives. Our Expander of the Week is George Washington Carver, who proved that creativity and persistence can change both the soil and the soul.

Let’s dive into the GOOD news of the week!

Links for the following news announcements can be found in the podcast description, in my blog AND on YouTube if you are curious to read more:

• When books were being pulled from classrooms, teens from the state of Iowa started an after-school club to read them
• A ‘screen-free smartphone’, inspired by the walkie-talkie, was invented to let kids communicate safely
• Denver students are learning about drought-resistant landscaping to fight urban heat
• Children’s Laureate, Alex Wharton, shared his thoughts on the power of language, rhythm and reading
• MacKenzie Scott sold nearly half of her stake in Amazon to donate about $110 million to university DEI causes and programming
• An eighth grader was recently chosen as ‘America’s Top Young Scientist’ for 2025 in a competition for middle schoolers through their invention of “FallGuard”, a fall detection system that can “accelerate emergency responses to fall among older adults at home”

I feel like I remember being in competitions like this in school.  Once I invented a cane with a dense spring inside of it to provide a bit of decompression and lift.  My hope was to ease shoulder pain and stiffness for those using it.  I did not win (haha).  I hadn’t thought about this until I read this article though!  Can you think of any competitions you participated in as a kid which required creativity and innovation?  I would love to hear about your inventions!

On this note, I have started talking about learning during the 80’s, 90’s and early 00’s on my socials recently.  It’s been so fun to connect strategies I now know as good practice with things I did as a young person.  If you don’t follow me yet, my handles are all available in my blog where I also add the transcript and free downloadable each week.

Social media inspired another pivot for me this week.  I had a few interactions with some feedback, and think I need to switch focus a bit from myself onto you, my listener.  This is why feedback is so helpful!

So, instead of going on and on about my own reflections and discoveries, I will just give a quick recap, along with lessons that might benefit you on your own creative journeys.  This podcast is meant to be educational, engaging, and fun!  If you have an idea for me, please let me know.  I listen!

This past week…

Was a new moon!  Unlike full moons, new moons are amazing times to consider goalsetting.  No one should be surprised that I care about this (haha).  This new moon was in Libra, which means any goals set for it should be given an April deadline, which is when the next full moon in Libra will be.  PERFECT time for us to recalibrate on our projects and consider where we want to end up at the end of the season.

I am thrilled to share that also this week, one of my favorite writer/directors messaged me back on Instagram and then proceeded to email me personally (and THEN email me back once more laughing at my own response).  Her name is Jackie VanBeek.  She is hilarious and wildly unhinged.  I recommend watching The Breaker Uppers, Audrey, Nude Tuesday, or even just What We Do in the Shadows (where she plays the only lead female character in a predominantly male cast).  This interaction lifted me out of my sad little blue cloud I have been stuck in.  Her response gave me the same high I got when one of my favorite actor/script writers told me he liked my writing ideas for a project he (supposedly) is still working on.  I was high all day.  Same deal.  And making someone like her, a driven, creative, female in leadership, laugh when her entire career is based on comedy?  Holy hell, who am I right now? I love being connected to creative and innovative people.  It’s my all-time favorite thing.  This is why I am craving that community.  This is why I thought I should make this my season project.

But! I may be biting off too much in the time allotted (April is not that far away!  The new moon has spoken).  I realized that gathering people together in a group, without much of an online followership is a poor strategy.  And that’s okay.  The best creativity adapts according to need and when being provided feedback.  So, instead I have been looking into established platforms and groups to support with my ideas.  On Monday, I put myself out there by submitting a pitch to lead a virtual field trip with CreativeMornings.  If you don’t know about CreativeMornings, I will have their website in the podcast description for you.

I chose CreativeMornings after recapping the tasks I previously identified. CreativeMornings is a large FREE community-based platform, which offers community member led events, as well as key note speaker special events.  Events are both in person and virtual.  If my idea is accepted, I can just use the established platform, which meet all of the tasks needed. Once you have signed up for an event, you receive those lovely UX (user experience) nods so you have no questions regarding whether you are “IN” or not.  I figure I can learn from how they have everything set up for themselves and eventually use their approach as inspiration.

As part of my pitch, I had to come up with an agenda.  Here’s what I decided… Designing a workshop is ONLY impactful when you can meet the needs of ALL attendees.  Otherwise, it is not the best learning design approach.  Just because you can, does not mean you should.  I couldn’t support coming up with something for a new group of learners based on previous knowledge gathered from clients.  SO.  I pitched holding an Open Office Hour instead.  Attendees interested in building out their first learning experience sign up, send me a question, and based on these questions, I will design an hour-long reflective session where I answer their questions and allow for discussion amongst the group (this last part will only be included if I register it will be helpful!).  CreativeMornings isn’t offering this sort of Field Trip at the moment.  I proposed something brand new. I might be rejected!  But I know I can help, and therefore it will be their loss (and the loss of their members), if that’s the case.  Either way, it was worth a shot.

Finally, I went through what I envisioned if my pitch was accepted, and whether my objectives would align with cognitive, affective or psychomotor areas.  Narrowing down my idea to something concrete really set me on the right path to create a strong list of objectives that I can measure.  In design, we set out to accomplish something.  Objectives help us know whether we did or not.

So, all that to bring thing back to you. What’s making you high these days?  What’s lifting you up?

In terms of your own creative work, where do you see yourself ultimately going with it, have you had any pivots yet?  Have you changed your mind, or sidestepped (or side quested, I am looking at you my lovely neurodivergent friends), or changed your strategy at all or annihilating it completely?  Please share.  I would love to hear your stories.

How does it feel to consider these design best practices in your art, craft, or creative work?  Have you been inspired at all to move in a new direction, or add a layer to your work you had not yet considered?  Please tell me about these change points as well!

We will have another week to continue with these preliminary designs.  I won’t be posting a new podcast so I can breathe in my favorite season (and finish writing a new song for it with a new little video… to be posted on my YouTube and my personal Instagram…. PS that same actor/script writer who liked my ideas for his project ALSO liked the very first song I posted earlier this year.  Again. High as the new second moon NASA says has been orbiting around us the past 60 years.  Look it up, haha).

Alright it’s story time!  This week’s inspirational story is of the amazing George Washington Carver, our expander of the week.

George Washington Carver was born into slavery around 1864, on a small farm in Diamond, Missouri. His mother, Mary, was enslaved by a German immigrant named Moses Carver. When George was just an infant, raiders kidnapped both him and his mother. Moses Carver sent men to track them down, but only George was found, scarily sick and near death, and left by the side of the road. His mother was never seen again.

That loss marked the beginning of a life defined by absence and perseverance. The Carvers raised him as their own after emancipation, teaching him to read and encouraging his curiosity. George was fragile as a child, often too sick to work in the fields, so he explored the woods instead where he studied the colors of petals, the way roots grew, the hidden systems of nature that most people overlooked. The locals called him the “Plant Doctor.” He saw beauty where others saw weeds.  I bet he was a lovely child.  Can’t you see him exploring?  What a little sweet boy.

But education for Carver in post-Civil War America was not easy to come by. He often walked miles from town to town, working odd jobs and trading laundry for lessons. He was turned away from one school after another because of his race. Still, he refused to give up. When he was finally accepted into Simpson College in Iowa (an incredible feat as the only Black student there), he studied art and music first, before his teachers recognized his extraordinary gift for botany. They encouraged him to transfer to Iowa State Agricultural College, where he became the school’s first Black student, and later, its first Black professor.

At the turn of the century, Booker T. Washington invited Carver to teach at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The “South” had a problem.  Its soil was dying after being stripped year after year from cotton farming. Carver saw a way forward to make a positive change in the world, not through protest or politics, but through regeneration of the land and of the people. He taught poor farmers to rotate crops, plant peanuts, sweet potatoes, and peas to restore the land. And what he is most famous for, is his creating over 300 uses for the peanut alone (including dyes, plastics, and fuel alternatives).  Yet, he cared less about invention for profit and more about teaching self-sufficiency.

Carver was not naïve to racism or inequality; he simply met it with persistence and purpose. He refused to patent most of his creations, believing his knowledge belonged to everyone. When asked about his faith, he often said, “I love to think of nature as unlimited broadcasting stations, through which God speaks to us every hour.” His spirituality and science were inseparable.

Carver was mocked by some and revered by others. He advised presidents, met Gandhi, and lectured across the country. But at his heart, he remained humble and served as a quiet revolutionary. George Washington Carver’s legacy isn’t just about peanuts or plants.  It shouldn’t be simplified in his “output”.  I believe it’s about patience, imagination, and devotion to making something beautiful out of what’s been broken. He showed that true creativity begins not with what we have, but with what we believe is still possible.

When he died in 1943, his epitaph read: “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”

There are NO To-Do’s this week!  Happy Halloween and Day of the Dead to all and to all a good night!

I sincerely appreciate each of you…

Here’s to all of us continuing, even when it all feels like too much.  Here’s to deciding to keep trying to put ourselves out into the world so we can connect, collaborate, and create change.  Here’s to our community of makers and shakers.

Objectives and Creativity Outro:

Thank you for listening to Beyond the Template! You are doing great. Keep it up. Keep it creative.

My name is Caroline Amelie LeBoeuf. I have a degree in art and in counseling and also professional level certificates in educational advising and learning design & technology. Roles I have carried include illustrator, photographer, writer, traveler, mentor, instructor and most recently entrepreneur!

If you are curious to learn further about the work I offer my clients, check out cameliedesigns.com, that’s cameliedesigns.com.

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Digital download on Objectives and Creativity (NOTE: Repeat from Last Week):

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More from Caroline!

CreativeMornings

More on “The Expander of the Week“:

George Washington Carver

The Man Who Talks with the Flowers

The Scientist Who Saved the South 

“An Uncommon Life” 

GOOD NEWS of the WEEK:

Teens start an after-school club to read banned books

‘Screen-free smartphone’ lets kids communicate safely

Denver students learn drought-resistant landscaping

Alex Wharton

MacKenzie Scott

‘America’s Top Young Scientist’

Get SOCIAL with me! (connect with other listeners in the BTT community)

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• LinkedIn
• BlueSky
• X (Twitter)

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Until next time – keep shining for those who would otherwise remain in the dark.  Be the light!