Daily Inspiration: AI & Creativity – “With a little bit of courage and a whole lot of imagination, anything is possible.”

“With a little bit of courage and a whole lot of imagination, anything is possible.” – Timidus the Mouse

Everyone has always told me I should write a kid’s book. So I decided to try to learn if I could do a kid’s movie using an AI.

I learned I can – it’s the story of Timidus, the Mouse.

How did I do it? I took a blog post I wrote sometime back, used an AI to turn it into a kid’s story, and then turned it into an animated short, using an AI. I added a voiceover by Snoop Dog, using an AI tool, and added a somewhat hip-hoppy music track created by an AI.

My little movie is but 45 seconds long. I could make it longer and do the entire story, but I won’t pursue it further than I did, because I learned what I needed to know. I’ll move on with my journey of continuous exploration.

What did I learn through the process? A lot of new skills – and, as Timidus discovered in the story as written by an AI, with a little bit of courage and a whole lot of imagination, anything is possible. Here’s the video – ALL of this was done with various AI tools, except for the brief final assembly I undertook using my video editing software.

Here’s the story of how I went into this unique project.

First, I needed some content for my kid’s story, so I picked this blog post from my Daily Inspiration series some months back. “A bold future abhors a timid mind!” This post had to do with car companies, the future, and massive market transformations such as they are witnessing with the move to electric vehicle technology.

Daily Inspiration: Industry Transformation – “A bold future abhors a timid mind!”

I thought that might provide the basis for my story, so looked around for an AI that could do something creative with it. I stumbled across TextCortex – it’s an AI that offers all kinds of different tools, including one that will turn any material into something creative. I fed it the blog post –and it came back with the story of Timidus the Mouse. Whoah! I’m blown away. You can find the entire little story at the very end of this post.

The story begins like this:

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a timid little mouse named Timidus. Timidus was always afraid to take risks and try new things. He spent his days nibbling on cheese and hiding in his little mouse hole, never daring to venture out into the big wide world.

I decided I needed to know who this Timidus fellow was, so I went over to MidJourney to create him. After playing around a bit, I found a few options.

I chose the fourth one and ended up with a high resolution of whom I will call Timidus. He’s a cute little guy, isn’t he?

The next character in the story emerges in the next paragraph:

One day, a wise old owl named Big Thinker came to visit Timidus. Big Thinker was known throughout the land for his big ideas and bold approach to life. He saw something special in Timidus and knew that he could help him unlock his true potential.

An owl named Big Thinker, the denizen of knowledge and wisdom? I had to discover him too, and went through the same process – and found the one I liked!

Okay, at this point, I’ve got the main characters for my story. Time to animate. The tool-du-jour is Runway, and so I went over there and fed it to both the Timidus and Big Thinker images. It’s a pretty simple process – give it an image and ask it to animate it. On a free plan, you can get a 4-second clip, and expand it to 8 seconds – enough for my little movie.

I ended up with a few usable video clips and downloaded those. What about the land, far far away? Back I go to Midjourney, find something useful, and then drag it into Runway.AI to animate it.

Cool! I had the makings of an animated movie. But now I needed someone to narrate the story. I thought for a bit…

And spent a bit of time on LinkedIn, actually, while I went away from the project for a short time. And that’s when I had the idea – why not have Snoop Dog do the narration? If you are using LinkedIn, you will be aware that Snoop Dogg is all over the business social network as of late. He joined a few months ago and is sharing wonderful stories about creativity, innovation, big bold ideas, and more. I decided I must have Snoop narrate the story!

How could I do this? Well, with a bit of searching, it turns out that he has lent his voice to a service called Speechify, which will use the base of his voice to narrate anything.

I pasted in the story of Timidus, clicked generate, and had a voice track. It’s not perfect, but it will do.

Music! I now needed music as a backing track!  I have access to the Google Test Kitchen, where I can try out various new AI services they are prototyping, including a Text-to-Music generator. I asked for a music clip of a ‘slow hip hop beat, rhythm only, in the style of traditional hip hop‘, and got back a passable track. The Dogg would probably be horrified at it though. Maybe if he reads this one day, he can contribute to a real beat!

Finally, I needed a title screen. For that, I went over to Ideogram – it’s an AI that will let you generate text-based images. I couldn’t recreate the style of my land far, far away, but managed to get something workable.

Finally, I took all of these clips, the voiceover, and the music track, assembled them into a short 41-second video, and my project was complete.

And there you have the story of how Timidus began to think big, start small, and scale fast – and became a leader amongst his fellow mice.

Timidus The Mouse
Based on a Blog Post by Jim Carroll
Rewritten by An AI
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a timid little mouse named Timidus. Timidus was always afraid to take risks and try new things. He spent his days nibbling on cheese and hiding in his little mouse hole, never daring to venture out into the big wide world.

One day, a wise old owl named Big Thinker came to visit Timidus. Big Thinker was known throughout the land for his big ideas and bold approach to life. He saw something special in Timidus and knew that he could help him unlock his true potential.

“Think big, Timidus!” Big Thinker exclaimed. “The world is changing fast, and you need to keep up if you want to succeed.”

Timidus was skeptical at first, but as he listened to Big Thinker’s tales of 24-hour farming, battery-based cars and trucks, and decentralized energy, he began to feel a spark of excitement deep within him.

“Start small, Timidus,” Big Thinker continued. “Take small steps every day towards your big goals, and soon you’ll be scaling new heights you never thought possible!”

With Big Thinker’s encouragement, Timidus began to explore the world outside of his mouse hole. He scurried through fields of wheat and corn, climbed trees to reach the juiciest fruits, and even made friends with a pack of adventurous squirrels who showed him the thrill of daring leaps and bounds.

As Timidus grew bolder, he discovered a new passion for innovation and invention. He tinkered with wires and circuits, creating his own little gadgets and gizmos that amazed his fellow mice and even caught the attention of the wise old owl himself.

“Be bold, Timidus!” Big Thinker cheered. “You have a brilliant mind and a heart full of courage. Anything is possible if you dare to dream big and never give up!”

And so, Timidus continued to think big, start small, and scale fast. He became a leader among his fellow mice, inspiring them to embrace change and take risks in pursuit of their dreams. His inventions revolutionized the way they lived and worked, and his bold spirit inspired them to reach for the stars.

In the end, Timidus became known throughout the land as the greatest mouse inventor and adventurer of all time. And though he never forgot his humble beginnings, he knew that with a little bit of courage and a whole lot of imagination, anything was possible.

…This short story is based on the content in this blog post.

Daily Inspiration: Industry Transformation – “A bold future abhors a timid mind!”

A Bold Future Abhors a Timid Mind
by Futurist Jim Carroll
July 28, 2023

The old automotive industry is disappearing; a new one is being born. The old world of energy is shrinking; a new one has all the momentum. The old world of healthcare is no longer working; new ideas are flourishing. The old concept of insurance is from the olden days; the new one of real-time insurance is emerging. The old world of methodical construction and manufacturing is being replaced by new methodologies in construction and manufacturing.

You are either part of the reinvention and transformation, or you are irrelevant.

Bold new futures demand bold new thinking; bold changes require bold actions; bold transformations demand bold leaders.

You are either a bold leader aligned to this new world, or you are a timid relic of old thinking.

Nature abhors the weak; the natural selection of the species weeds out those who cannot take the bold, aggressive actions necessary for survival. The same thing is happening in business today; a natural evolution will weed out the timid, mild, inactive, and small-minded organizations that cannot keep up with the fast, aggressive, sweeping, and all-encompassing ideas of the bold.

You are either evolving, or you are wasting – because nothing great was ever achieved by those who are timid!

My catchphrase has long been this:

Think big, start small, scale fast!

It could also be this:

Think big. Be bold.

The world is changing fast, and your approach to reality will define your future. You won’t get ahead by being small and timid when the biggest, boldest challenges in your industry are occurring all around you. We’re shifting to a world of 24-hour farming, cars, and trucks are becoming battery-based computers, the energy industry is being decentralized, supply chains are being re-engineered for a new and different phase of globalization, oil is over, products are becoming connected and intelligent, financial services are being swept by new forms of monetary ownership and exchange. These are all seismic changes, and you won’t get ahead by dabbling around the edges and fooling around on the margins.

This is no time for thinking small. This is a time to think big and give it all you’ve got. The global economy is in the midst of its most massive change of all time as we head into the next phase of our new, connected, intelligent economy; There is no magic switch that brings back the ‘world before’ big disruptive trends – there is only the ‘world after.’

You can’t prevent what is going to happen – you can only choose to participate.

If you don’t understand that simple reality and don’t have plans for major transformations, you need to check your reality.

Everything is different, nothing is the same, and our future will never be what you expected it to be.

And yet, it is full of massive opportunities for those who are prepared to be bold and imaginative.

To you, it might be unrecognizable.

To me, it’s crystal clear and aligns perfectly with my core belief more than ever before.