What’s good and what’s crap? Why do celebrate crap? This is the topic of this week’s podcast, and a discussion on our journey through embracing crap making and coming out better for it.
I saying I repeat early and often is “Ok-ness is the enemy of greatness”. You see, most stuff that exists is good enough, and that goes for people too. …
Here’s an interesting question, does the internet threaten creativity or nurture it?,
It depends on how you look at it. When we think about the internet, we think of many things: websites, blogs, social networks, social media, etc..
All these components of the internet let us express ourselves in one way or another, connect with people we know, meet strangers, learn from others and create with others. But, while all this is great, the other side of what makes us human also makes it onto the internet.
With the help of internet, you can have a successful social media campaign, when effective, can bring profitable results to your business like exploding your traffic and getting more leads for higher conversion. Social media is probably the foremost popular and one among the foremost powerful internet marketing tools today that the majority businesses are now using it to profit from the results.
Really, the internet both inspires and stifles creativity, here’s how…
Creativity, by it’s nature, is about bravery. So, to think creatively is to challenge the status-quo. Great!
One of the common benefits of having access to so much information and people is that we can find answers rather quickly. But this benefit has immediate consequences when we stop paying attention to human nature, for people will congregate around the same ideas on social networks which eventually leads to group-think.
What does that mean?
A few years ago I wrote a piece on how social media is group-think on steroids because it puts critical thinking to sleep. Critical thinking and creativity go hand in hand, but the megaphone that is social media turns people into lambs drinking the same kool-aid; making critical thinking irrelevant.
Where all think alike nobody thinks very much, and thus the status-quo stops being challenged.
See, the internet doesn’t make us more stupid because, in general terms, we’re stupid and shallow to begin with. But it may help some of us to become dumber and more shallow faster and more efficiently.
Simply put, the internet (if we let it) doesn’t eliminate human bias; it amplifies it.
Not all is gray, for many great things happen because of the internet. I, like others, have used the internet to solve problems by collaborating with people from around the world. These connections came about because of serendipitous exchanges on Twitter and other mediums; the type that fuels innovation.
The advantage of the internet is open communication, so the simple act of sharing a thought on Twitter can become a conversation. Same goes with blogging, it brings like minds together. This is a good example of how the internet nurtures creativity. Beyond my immediate family, I’ve met all the most valuable people that I know through the internet.
My take is that just like innovative businesses understand that group-think is an enemy of innovation and thus create mechanisms to counter it, if we understand how this dynamic applies on the internet, we can counter it.
It’s important that we do because the future of work will be much more digital and collaborative than it is today; I guarantee it.
Bottom line: The Internet has the power to both bring out the best and worst in us. I foresee we’ll be debating whether or not technology make us stupid well into the future, but let’s put it to rest right now: Technology doesn’t make us stupid, it makes us smarter.
There a many traits that separate innovators from non-innovators, one of them is the ability to perceive differently. Put simply, perception separates the innovator from the imitator. Thus, innovations come from non-conventional views. So, if we’re to develop our own capacity for innovation, as well as create a culture that produces and delivers consistent game-changing ideas, we need to develop the ability to perceive differently.
How?…
What do all creative cultures have in common? The common answer is that in order to figure out which ideas will work, people move fast to implement those ideas. I’d argue that more important than that is the ability to recover from failure just as fast:…
Our businesses are the products of the choices we make every day. Whether we choose to spend an hour with a client, an hour on paperwork or an hour cleaning up the office, each option has an impact.…
in Creativity
We all want to have that crazy idea that changes everything for the better. Though ideas are a dime a dozen, in the big scheme of things ideas aren’t that important; there is no innovation without execution. Still, it all starts with an idea. Therefore, our future depends in our ability to generate, capture and develop those insights. …
Happy New Year! Last week I vacationed in Mexico City, where I ringed in the new year. It’s the first time I’ve spent considerable time there, it’s a huge city and covering it in a week is impossible. Good thing they have sightseeing buses, or turibus as they’re known there, that take you on different routes to show you “what you need to see” around the city. So, I took one!
Even as a tourist I still reflect about the experiences I have with products and services I interact with in my travels. Friends of mine also know that, so when I posted a selfie of my cousins and I on the turibus I was not surprised that I friend of mine who lives in the city quickly tweeted back that he wanted to know my thoughts about my turibus experience.
Late that night, I sent him an email with my thoughts; which could be summed up this way: it was good, but not great.
The turibus, is a convenience “get to know the city” service Mexico City offers tourists and residents. The key word is “convenience”, a time saver. And as such it’s not bad, but it didn’t blow my mind either; I believe it’s the same situation with sightseeing buses in other large cities. Thus, you have the same expectations about sightseeing buses in large cities.
To a true innovator, that smells like an opportunity to raise or redefine expectations. How?
First of all, ask yourself a fundamental question: what are people really trying to accomplish? An easy answer is people hire a turibus to get educated about the city and its culture.
Great! Next, ask yourself one question: how might I make this more interesting?
The point of asking yourself, “how might I make this more interesting?”, is to question your own assumptions, shift your perspective and not mindlessly follow the first thing that pops into your head.
In addition, I like to use other adjectives such as:
The last three being the criteria I use to determine whether or not an idea has the potential to be innovative: new, surprising and radically useful.
The point is you shouldn’t accept the current reality as a given. Remember, reality is malleable; don’t be afraid to set standards. True innovators aim to be the only ones, not the best or first ones. That intent comes from setting, meeting and exceeding their own standards; not everyone else’s. Thus making competition irrelevant.
With that said, though I won’t do a thorough exercise on how I would approach said challenge, below are some questions that you can re-purpose for other domains to help uncover assumptions as well as understand current expectations; I’ll use the sightseeing bus experience example:
Next, ask yourself: how can we better the sightseeing bus experience by delivering an unexpected and radically useful solution?
Here are some thought provoking questions to get you warmed up:
Bottom line: products and services can quickly become dull and routine; even to tourists. Sometimes the fundamental goal people are trying to accomplish changes, other times it doesn’t. Our job as game-changing innovators is to constantly raise and/or redefine expectations by questioning assumptions, looking beyond the obvious, and understanding that oftentimes people can’t articulate what they really want. Let’s show them something they would never think off.