Category Archives: Creativity
Creative thinking is not a one time activity
Late last year, in response to an article that stated that you need to stifle your creativity in order to get promoted, I argued that you needed to become a credible innovator to cut through the smoke and keep those objections at bay.
Now, new research further indicates that people are biased against creative ideas. Among the findings: (more…)
The new logic of innovation
Apparently there is a food truck trend happening in the U.S. and everybody is talking about it.
What’s funny to me see is that in Mexico, food trucks are a street corner staple. We like to say that for every Starbucks that exists we have 20 times more food trucks on every other corner of every street. I’m exaggerating a little bit but it’s true, in Mexico they’re part of daily routine.
They type of food these trucks serve varies wildly, from tacos to tortas to sandwiches and even breakfast. These trucks serve people wherever they are, even in the the border crossing from Tijuana to San Diego. People who live in Tijuana but work in San Diego or Los Angeles, depend on these trucks for their breakfast.
So why hasn’t anybody else thought about this and why is it becoming a trend now? (more…)
How diversity helps break linear thinking in your innovation team
I’m not so sure if I should write this post. It contains an email with some info that is best to keep private. But I just can’t contain myself as it’s a visceral example of why having a diverse set of people with different backgrounds, education and mental models makes your team more likely to innovate.
Below is an email from a colleague, from our Creative Generalist venture, where she explains very vividly her on-site visit with a client (nanes were erased to protect identities): (more…)
How Happy Accidents Happen through serendipity
Two weeks ago we had a serendipitous event. A happy accident. We had a scheduled meeting with a partner at 8 am on Wednesday morning and our partner didn’t make it because of family issues. What’s interesting is that our partners office is on an adjacent street to an office building that is the first of it’s kind in Latin America. It’s the first sustainable building in the region.
It is a monument to innovation in my opinion because it is designed to be environmental friendly. Owned by VIA Corporativo, the building looks unlike anything out there but the most prominent feature it has is on the inside.
It has this hole in the middle. This serves a purpose, as this is what keeps the building cool and lets in natural light. The interior decoration is made up of recycled wood and concrete that are locally sourced. (more…)
How to get your ideas heard
We all have different creative styles, we all get our ideas differently. But what will set you apart is how you communicate them, that means not just verbal communication but visual presentation.
This isn’t a new idea, but in a world where people still like to sit down and discuss things before doing them, taking the initiative and coming up with a mock-up or prototype will go a long way in getting people to hear and experience your pitch.
I read this article in fortune magazine where it states that you should let your boss take the credit for your ideas but not your peers. But there’s a point not examined that’s getting your ideas heard first.
How do you do that? (more…)
Want to be disruptive? Be on the lookout for disruptive thinking
Last week I told you about a client who had an epiphany and now he and his company are ready to ‘think about what they’ve never thought about‘. Great, but where to start?
You need to new ideas. Different ones. That has to be clear. You need to think disruptively by thinking about what’s changing in the world and how those changes, in aggregate, can make your business disappear. You also have to look for entrants whose business model could potentially disrupt yours. You also have to look at how your customers tastes and needs have and may change. You also need to think about how you can/could disrupt yourself. (more…)
How to be creative like Eminem
I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of Eminen, the rapper. But do you know what makes him great at what he does? His uncanny ability to play with words and create lyrics that don’t seem to rhyme.
Anderson Cooper, from 60 Minutes, interviewed Eminem late last year. In the interview, among other things, Eminem tells Anderson Cooper about his song writing method. I thought this was interesting because Eminem can helps us learn how to be more creative and thought I’d post some of my thoughts here.
I can’t post the video here because embedding is disabled but you can watch the video on YouTube and the part where he explains his creative process starts around the 5 minute mark.
If choose not to watch the interview, here are some nuggets:
Anderson Cooper asks Emimen to explain what he means by ‘bending the words’, to which Eminem responds:
Just the enunciation of it. People say that the word orange doesn’t rhyme with anything and that kind of pisses me of because I can think of a lot of things that rhyme with orange.
Anderson Cooper continues, what rhymes with orange?
Eminem responds:
If you’re taking the word at face value, and you say orange. Nothing is going to rhyme with it exactly. If you enunciate it and make it more than one syllable, you can say like: I put my orange-forange-storinge-in storage-in a pourage.
Eminem continues:
You just have to figure out the science to breaking down words.
Eminem says that he thinks about word rhymes throughout the day and drives himself insane with it.
Anderson Cooper mentions and that he heard that Eminem used to read the dictionary. Eminem says he did for a very particular reason:
I just felt like I wanted to be able to have these words at my disposal in my vocabulary at all times whenever I need to pull them out. Somewhere they’ll be stored like locked away.
He then pulls out a box where he stores scraps of paper with words and phrases he’s written.
There are a few things to point out here:
1. Eminem has low associative barriers. Associating is a key habit of highly creative and innovative people. By ‘Bend the words by changing the enunciation’, Eminem is trying to ‘force a connection’ between words that seem to have no association whatsoever. He says he constantly plays with words in his head and drives himself crazy doing it. This isn’t surprising.
2. He’s constantly coming up with ideas and writes everything down. This shouldn’t be a surprise as musicians have to constantly come up with ideas. But, just the fact that he has a whole box where he keeps his notes (this part made me grin as I have a similar box with scattered notes) tells you his mind is working overtime. Good old fashioned pen and paper never goes out of style.
3. Practices creativity that works. In saying that he read the dictionary because he wanted to be able to have words at his disposal, Eminem essentially started systematizing his creativity a long time ago. Because our brains process a lot of information, it helps us remember things by placing in shelves in our minds. In Eminem’s case, a lot of words from the dictionary.
As explained in his book, Strategic Intuition, William Duggan says creativity works by taking elements on the shelves on your brain and they come together in new combinations. To be more creative and make new connections, you need to put more things on the shelves of your brain and free your mind to let them connect.
Being creative is hard work and takes practice
Breaking down associative barriers by forcing connections between things that have no obvious connection, relentlessly coming up with lots of ideas and having a system in place to help you fine tune your ideas is how you become creative.
As you can see, Eminem does this. It takes a lot of practice but if you like what you do, it’s fun work!
