Creativity Outside of Business

Creativity is the root to all great ideas. Someone dared to challenge the normal and think outside of the realm of what is currently popular. For instance, Wayne Gretzky, arguably the best hockey player to ever play the sport. He took an area of the ice and made it the most versatile area for his style of play. Gretzky’s Office. This ability stems from creativity.

I know I talk a lot about how it helps businesses but creativity is a great skill to practice in everyday life. I recently had a discussion about how creativity helps with everyday life.

The show Shark Tank is the best example of how people take everyday life and apply creativity to it. The various people make life easier through a little bit of changing a product. One I remember had to do with the dryer and how his wife would use it all time. So he invented a piece that could be installed and save the family energy and money, to use the exhaust as a heating element for part of the house. However, the Sharks seemed uninterested because the product was too difficult to market. 

But this gentleman wasn’t unhappy. His creativity was able to help his family and that was the only satisfaction he needed.

Also, as a student, creativity is one of the greatest tools. It has helped me personally navigate from high school through college. In high school my creativity was focused towards getting out of assignments and ways to complete things quickly. However that has drastically changed in college to help me study and become a much more efficient marketer. I use creativity to stand out from my fellow classmates. One way students can use their creativity but sometimes aren’t aware is in their study methods. Flashcards work great for some kids, but what about those who have mastered the writing method?

I have seen some students study in groups and made it into a competition, and other have developed strategies that last weeks but stimulates every learning method. However, even these small feats of creativity can make a world of difference to individuals.

So the next time you do something unique to better another life, or your own. Remember that creativity was there for you.

5 Ways Creativity Can Help a Business

5 Ways Creativity Can Help a Business-

I think there has been a bad stigma with creativity lately. Any one who is really creative is viewed as a stuck up arrogant person who doesn’t obey the rules but produces valuable results. But that’s not the case, I believe everyone is creative. So I hope that you can begin to incorporate more creativity into every aspect of your business rather than just the creative department, after hearing some examples of how creativity can help your business elsewhere.

1. Management-

Being a great leader means a lot of different things. Mostly it means to inspire others to work harder. Being very versatile is an important trait for most leaders these days. Try sprinkling a little creativity into an already active leadership style, or perhaps into a failing leadership style. Being creative and specific to your team’s goals and dreams will help inspire your team to be the best they can. If your team works for a sports company try offering a team orientated goal not sports related. It may seem counter-productive but your team is already so heavily involved in sports let them explore their other passions. Perhaps a team trip to a comedy show or laser tag/paintball.

2 (1B). Problem solving skills-

I made this 1B because management uses this skill a lot however everyone uses this skill always. I find this to be a very important topic among today’ business youth. I recently attended a conference where I got some advice from a fellow marketing major one year older than me. They said that the main reason managers hire their interns, is because they don’t ask any questions. They understand the business and just figured it out on their own. Managers don’t have time to babysit employees, therefore they will hire someone who will leave them alone and figure it out themselves. I really liked this advice, because being creative can solve a lot of problems. The other day the projector in one of my classes wasn’t working with the computer. So a student took out their phone and played the video through the ELMO (A device similar to an overhead; but digital). Of course the sound was hard to hear but we didn’t have to waste time the next class attempting to watch the material.

3. Marketing -

Lets get the elephant in the room covered. Creativity is a very useful tool in your companies marketing plans. From an internal sense being able to appeal to current workers and provide an image that helps control employee turnover. Google does this very well, by providing employees with various perks of working on site. If you haven’t seen the movie The Internship I suggest it. Creativity does a lot for branding. Differentiation is one of the hardest parts of the business world today. By focusing on creative opportunities a business can separate themselves from their competition. Customers want what represents them the best, but sometimes just giving them that is pretty boring and digs a deeper hole. Being creative can fix that. Take the Dollar Shave Club. They built an amazing brand from such a creative idea and they just rolled with it.

4. PR/Customer Service-

Being creative in customer service is necessary. Social media is blowing up and right now a very popular topic. So if a consumer has something nice to say or offers a valuable review, make sure to be creative and authentic when responding. Don’t just send them a thank you tweet. Be creative and fun. Perhaps thank them and offer a chance to tour the factory, or thank them and publish their tweet on a bill board near their hometown. Make someone’s Facebook comment your cover photo for a day or show a picture of it hanging in the marketing/sales department for inspiration. There are tons of things you can do that helps build the consumer to business relationship that other companies are not doing.

5. Product Development-

Sure your product might be great on all levels and I’m not suggesting to fix something that’s not broken, however, the phrase “Just Keep Swimming” comes to mind. Don’t just stop developing; you need to be prepared to grow. In the business cycle products will eventually start dying out and you will need to rebuild interest in your product. Apple sets up their products years in advance and predicts the competitions developments and then implements ideas that keep them ahead of the competition.  So the only advice I can give is be open minded to every one in the company. A lot of people have great ideas but are too afraid that they won’t be heard. Make sure to offer a place for them to brainstorm together, perhaps a white board in a break room.

I hope that you can begin to incorporate more creativity into every aspect of your business rather than just the creative department.

To read more about creativity Please view more of my blogs!

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Creative Business

This week I want to discuss the idea of creativity in the business world.

Creativity is what drives a successful company. Creativity promotes new products, increases company growth brings change to society. This one aspect can make or break businesses.

I recently watched a few TED talks on creativity one of which from Alan Iny. He brought up this idea of creativity being unlocked by doubt. At first I was blown away by this idea. In order for one to create or better an idea, they must first doubt themselves. They need to throw away any previous beliefs that they had. They had to think inside the box.

However which box does one think in?

Person life box? Marketing box? R&D box? Or maybe management box? By thinking inside one of those boxes you can begin to be creative. Alan’s amazing example was the company BIC. They made pens, all different types and colors. But one day in a meeting someone said lets make a razor. They thought inside the box. Instead of reinventing the pen lets reinvent the company. As drastic of an example, imagine how crazy the person sounded who pitched the idea.

But that one individual did doubt. They doubted the idea that BIC was a pen company and realized they could be more. That is true growth.

In a talk by Joseph Pine, he discusses what consumers want and how it is effecting businesses. He touches on this idea of authenticity. Being different but staying true to yourself. If you mean what you say, consumers will feel more connected to your brand.

He builds on this idea of consumers changing what they want. Business began by providing commodities to consumers. Eventually this changed to goods, which evolved into services, and now there is a new way of selling to consumers. Selling the experiences. This way of branding has affected creativity greatly building the ideas that come from creating an experience. Now creatives need to plan the marketing, the in store mood, where things are placed, how they are perceived on social media. Everything is involved.

So many doors are going to open in the business world for individuals who can think differently in or outside the boxes. That is what I want to do. Bring the next level ideas to companies and help push their growth. My only question for the readers are:

What do we sell after experiences?

I personally haven’t come to a conclusion but I hope I can be one of the first. There’s so much potential profit to be made when the market changes. I haven’t the slightest idea of where to begin in my search but I’m sure in the next generation we will begin to see a change.

New perspective of Creativity

This week’s post is a reflection of my past couple weeks. Since starting this blog I have tried to put myself out there and reach out to some other’s ideas of creativity. For instance, I have been reading a book for class called Hey Mr. Whipple, Spueeze This!, a great read about Luke Sullivan’s experiences as an advertising creative. He made some points in a few of the earlier chapters about the creative process as a whole. Some I agree with and some not so much.

To start, he mentions a process that has been around since the 1940’s. James Webb Young laid out a 5 step process of idea generation that holds true today.

1.     Gather as much information on the problem as possible. Read, underline, ask questions, “be” the problem.

2.     Sit down and actively attack the problem.

3.     Drop the whole thing and go do something else. Let your subconscious mind work on it.

4.     “Eureka!”

5.     Figure out how to implement your idea.

All I can say is, brilliant. I completely agree that this process can work for one person’s need for a creative solution. The television series Mad Men shows this process working for them every time and it's even held true with me. However, I believe that in a group setting this wouldn’t hold true. When working with a team and trying to all collectively land on one idea, it would be pointless to all work intensely to just drop the issue and then hope one person comes up with a great idea. However, I have seen this process kind of work in a group setting.

Imagine a group sitting in a room trying to brainstorm a new slogan for their T-shirt company. They start by coming up with words they want to be associated with, that evoke a specific emotion to their consumers. As they bounce several ideas off each other one creative takes a second to think about how hungry they are. They start thinking about their options on their way home from work Chipotle, Subway, Papa Johns, that new Chinese place with the really good egg rolls. They then picture sitting down on the couch to watch late night tv and take a their first bite, when the phone rings and it’s their best friend wanting to go out. When all of a sudden they get an idea so pure, so different that they rejoin the conversation to share their experience. Then as a team they agree and begin working on the implementation of the slogan.

I’m guilty of that scenario a couple of times in a group project. Sullivan also brings up a great point of how people put into a position where the job to be creative induces fear. He believes that being a little scared is an integral part of being creative. He then quotes Woody Allen “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.” That is a great quote, and Luke Sullivan makes a great point. I personally feel as though fear does not reinforce the creative process. I feel as though being scared of your job is a natural thing. You have to report to someone more powerful than you regardless of how you feel about them. The fear of impressing is a common thing. Saying being scared is good for a job in the creative process is like saying you need to be a good skater to play professional ice hockey. It’s a part of life, just like skating is a part of ice hockey. Fear inhibits the mind, making you question choices in the best interest of yourself and your image. You don’t want to say anything that would be offensive or completely wrong to the problem at hand.

The way I think about it is every new idea is a good idea, but not every new idea is appropriate. For instance, I was on a project team with two fellow classmates. We pushed a project off until two days before it was due (bad idea to begin with). We spent the night bouncing ideas off each other until someone made a joke. This joke turned into a potentially good idea. The product we were creating an advertising campaign for was panty liners. One of the group members made a joke about what if you put a little face right in the middle of the pad. Then underneath put #ImSittinOn______ (insert face's name here). Focusing on the idea that this USED to be an uncomfortable topic. let's work to make it easier to talk about.

So stupid but after thinking about it we thought it was probably an idea no one else would even consider pitching because of how sensitive the topic is. We were even scared to get laughed at by people we will probably never talk to. So we wrote up the report and sent it in. We didn’t win, HOWEVER, the day after submitting it. We found another company with a commercial that’s out right now that featured a women talking about having “Sam” in her pants.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePWlvzDkiA0)

ODDLY similar to the campaign idea we came up with. 

So I hope you can see my perspective. Comment about your creative moments and share your thoughts! Remember to stay happy and stay creative!

Why Creativity?

Why am I writing about creativity? Great question Ryan.

I believe creativity is an under-utilized skill every person has.

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. ”
― Pablo Picasso

What is stopping individuals from unlocking the ability to question the norm and step out in a unique and individual way?

I’ll use this blog to explore this phenomenon and explain why I believe that creativity is a skill that can be improved and unlocked.

Being able to visualize ideas, describe them to others and be passionate about them isn’t impossible. I love exploring individual’s passions and helping them to make it a reality. Through my experiences with event planning and leadership I have really gotten to witness creativity in its most pure and innocent form. Last year, as the Activities Programming Board Nightlife Chair, I spent a few meetings figuring out what style of leadership would help me inspire my committee of about 12 volunteers to creatively brainstorm events for campus.

At first I had them do it as homework, so the following meeting they returned empty handed and we were back at step one. So then I tried a let’s go ask people what they want method. As a group we walked around or small library and our on-campus hangout spot asking students of all demographics what events would they like. It helped a little but the events that kids were asking for were things we are doing already such as comedians and magicians. We needed creativity and we needed new.

I used the time until the next meeting to really think about what would help this group of students. I thought back to the documentary 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park. In the movie the writers used a brainstorming method, in which the group sits in an enclosed room with a white board and starts writing jokes about things going on in today’s pop culture.

I decided to implement a similar tactic and have my group brainstorm just general ideas of things that make them happy, or things they think make other kids happy. Immediately I had a great response, the group was bouncing ideas left and right off each other. I sat and played devil’s advocate to keep them digging deeper into their thoughts of joy. We ended the day with the idea of a talent show.

The following meeting was round two, they came ready to talk about things that just made them happy. To have the group happy and laughing, before we even began helped take our ideas to a brand new level. We eventually ended this meeting discussing the different parts to an event called “Hamster Night”.

Hamster night became an idea because of the big human spheres that people get into and run around in. We then started putting ourselves into the shoes or tiny feet of hamsters and created a series of other games and activities that are similar to what a hamster would do.

This creative brainstorm was effective for this one size group and these individuals, various other methods can be applied. However the one common factor is joy. I believe that you must first reach a true and sincere feeling of happiness in order to drive an individual to creativity. Finding something that you are passionate about and enjoy will only open the doors to the various other ways to use or improve that one thing.

One could make the argument that any emotion can stem creativity. However let’s take anger for example. Anger is a self-motivating tool. On a busy day at the grocery store any one would be angry or frustrated. All these emotions result in the need to improve your situation, so maybe you scream at someone, or start cutting lines. Perhaps you start thinking about things you would improve. So you think, they need new staff, they have poor management, or there aren’t enough lines open. All negative influenced ideas.

These ideas, while observational aren’t proactive and don't bring new ideas to the busy shopper experience. Imagine now a person who truly loves the shopping experience and wants to help other people find the beauty of going to a central location for the most basic of human needs. This joy could spark the possibility of implementing televisions in view of the check-out lines so angry fans can still watch the game as they are picking up additional snacks. Another could be having tablets in the lines where consumers can take selfies (which are automatically uploaded to stores social media), play games, and the grocery store could advertise on them.

I hope that you can see the creativity in yourself. Just remember to be happy!