All in Creativity
Many years ago, I worked with a senior consulting partner who liked to talk in puzzles. Instead of giving us specific marching orders, he’d talk around the issues and then ask us to put together a deck for his review.
For example, as we’d talk through a proposal we were working on, he’d talk about the client situation, the range of issues they were facing as well…
One of the staples of modern air travel is the flight safety video. It’s an aviation regulation that’s designed to ensure everyone is appropriately briefed on flight safety procedures in the event of an emergency.
If you’ve ever taken a flight, you’ve sat through one. And if, like me, you fly a lot, you’ve not only sat through them, you’ve likely tuned out during the briefing.
I love guitars.
I especially love guitars that are handcrafted and expertly finished. Guitars that are works of art, that use the best materials, the best pickups, the best strings. When I play guitars like these, I feel as if they improve my dexterity, my creativity and my tone. I feel as if the music I produce immediately improves. They make me a better musician.
We crave clear cut answers. We love How-To’s. We keep looking for the ultimate 10 Step Process.
Why? Because we’re always on the hunt for clarity, predictability and, more to the point, security. It’s a natural human desire.
The problem, though, is that when we’re creating (a team, a piece of output, a business), that’s not often possible or realistic.
In school, we’re taught a range of different subjects - from history to math to science to art to music to physical education. We’re tested, judged and evaluated on our proficiency in each of these disciplines, and by the end of it, given a numerical average of our performance across all of these areas, otherwise known as our Grade Point Average (GPA).
When I left consulting about a decade and a half ago, I went from an environment where I had plenty of support structures and resources at my disposal, to what was essentially me, a laptop and a desk in my home office.
It was a massive shift, and one that required me to rethink what I focused on and how I got things done.
We tend to romanticize the path to success. We maintain this perception that getting there was a straight-forward path. Particularly when we see others achieve it. This view that these folks took step 1, then step 2, and so on and so forth, until they achieved what they set out to do. That it was a clean path. That things just happened for them.
The truth is…
There's a cynicism we tend to have when it comes to advertising and branding.
So many brands adopt personas based on their desire to attract a certain type of consumer. These personas are fashioned on the basis of deep consumer research, canvassing their likes, dislikes, tastes, preferences and more. Some of these personas succeed, others don't.
It's natural. We start a new project or new initiative and we get excited, as we should be. We see the potential for change, the potential impact and we want to make sure it's a success.
So we plan. We think through our goals, all the needs and requirements, where we need to get to. We identify the piece parts needed to make for our definition of success, because…
On October 10, 2007, Radiohead released their seventh studio album, In Rainbows.
The album marked a milestone - not only for Radiohead fans (like me) eagerly awaiting the release of the band's first album since 2003's Hail To The Thief, but also for the manner in which it was released.
The Arctic Monkeys, an English rock band, recently released their sixth studio album, Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino. The album itself is a marked departure from their prior music, which was more straight-ahead rock. This one is more relaxed, more laid back, with each song an almost cinematic and (at times) introspective episode unto itself. It's the kind of album that reveals itself, little by little, upon successive plays.
I was listening to a podcast the other day in which the main subject of the show - a storied entrepreneur - made a very interesting comment.
If you have to create an “innovation center”, then you’ve already failed.
In the movie, "The Matrix", Neo's (Keanu Reeves' character) education - his understanding, acceptance of, as well as his ability to fulfill his true potential - is centered around belief. Belief that the world as he has known it has been defined by someone else's rules. Belief that these rules are there for a specific purpose, and that this purpose is not only serving someone else's goals, they are limiting his true potential.
When I was 16, I decided to move from Hong Kong to Karachi to study for a business degree. It was a decision borne of economics more than anything else, but it seemed to make sense at the time, given the reputation of the school and my family ties there.
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." (Lao Tzu)
We love stories. We love telling them. We love listening to them. We love creating them. We love being part of them. Stories define our lives and our experiences. They remind us of who we have been and help make us who we are. They also shape who we want to be.
"We are living in an increasingly digital world that craves analog sensation."*
Digital is ubiquitous. From our work to our hobbies to our entertainment to our commerce, the digital-to-analog ratio in our lives has ramped up exponentially over the last two decades. To the point where the promise of digital has now become very much a reality.
It's natural to fall in love with your product. We spend a lot of time developing and nurturing them, cultivating them to the point where we are ready to put them in the market. And when customers are receptive to what we have to offer, once the uptake is there and the product is generating profitable margins, we double down.
So, as anyone who follows English football knows, my team, Arsenal, is going through a pretty bad patch right now. There are a host of contributing factors to this, which I won't get into, but they've all culminated in a lack of belief within the team when they're on the field.
In sport, as in life, the safe play won't make you a champion.
It might help you avoid a loss, maybe even get you the odd win here or there, but it won't propel you to the top of the league.
Great songs can have multiple lives. When they come into our lives the first time, they are fully formed. The melody, the chords, the lyrics, the production. They cast themselves - cement themselves - in our collective consciousness, more often than not, affixing themselves to a particular point in time, a feeling, an emotion.
