Creative Streak

Other People's Words: Quotes on Quotes

I'm often asked for creativity quotes. Hmm, never sure how I feel about quotes. Hmm x 2, perhaps some quotes to help me decide.

On the positive side:

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself. Marlene Dietrich

Sometimes (quotes) are the best way to say what needs to be said. Marva Collins, noted American educator

It is a good thing for an educated man to read books of quotations. Winston Churchill

On the negative side:

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. Ralph Waldo Emerson

A witty saying proves nothing. François-Marie Arouet (known by his pen name, Voltaire)

He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors. Rudyard Kipling

And perhaps the most honest side:

I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things. Dorothy Parker

Cool Tool: Phrasr

Here's another brilliant web tool to share with brainstormers. (Thanks Ralph for the new addiction.) It's called Phrasr, and it's a fun way to search Flickr for images matching key words. You can find it here. There's also a good article about Phrasr here from AppScout.com (a great site for new apps, obviously).

I've attached a screen-grab for a search using the terms creativity, ideas and brainstorming.

On its home page, type in a series of words, and the application will pull up images with those key words. Pick and choose from the suggested images, and when finished, you can double-click the image to link directly to the Flickr site.  You can also archive your searches from the home page to retrieve later. Great site, great fun.

Cool Tool: www.WikiMindMap.org

How's this for an interesting web tool? WikiMindMap (http://www.wikimindmap.org/) allows you to create mind maps of Wikipedia entries. Here's a sample of what it created for the word "brainstorm."

Besides English, it searches ten other languages. It allows you to bring any word from an individual branch to the centre for additional mind maps. By double-clicking any word, it links directly to the specific Wikipedia entry.

Yeah, yeah - I know all the bad things about Wikipedia. (Read: Don't send me e-mails how horrible it is.) And, some of the mind maps I created had a few odd suggestions. When I typed in "ideas," it included "hamsters." Perhaps because a hamsters' superfamily is "Miroidea"? As my Grandma used to say, "The mind reels."

Still, a great addition for brainstorming! Enjoy!

Organising Information (Part 3, Force Field Analysis)

The Force Field Analysis is another helpful tool to organise information so to extract its insight in advance of a brainstorm. The original model was developed in the 1960s by German psychologist Kurt Lewin to visualise the opposing forces inherent in any issue or situation. The analysis of these forces - both the driving forces (those promoting change) and the restraining forces (those resisting change) - helps to determine an appropriate plan of action. Lewin's original model and its methodology can be seen here.

The Force Field Analysis model I use is a slight variation. Re-arranging the columns allows a team to separate and articulate the drivers (or opportunities) from the barriers (or issues). It’s strictly a personal preference, but I find the Force Field Analysis (instead of the SWOT Analysis) is more ideal for the field of communications because the situational columns help define the existing, preferred and worst mindsets or perceptions of important audiences. In turn, this helps to identify the key communications opportunities to leverage and the communications issues to address. It’s also an excellent resource to use to develop a message house, and of course, a terrific way to start a brainstorm.

Creative Crumbs

Some recent reading.

Social Notworking: There Goes Our People Skills

By Nick Galvin, from the Sydney Morning Herald on 12 May 2009. Are social networking sites destroying how people communicate in real-world situations? Probably yes and probably no. For every person I meet in my workshops who under-estimates the complexity of communications, I’ll show you another who has found relevant and compelling ways to communicate using social media. If you're curious, you can see the hilarious video of the Idiots of Ants skewering Facebook here.

Sixteen Habits of Highly Creative People

By Shalu Wasu, from his blog Ticked By Life, on 26 August 2008. Yes, this is an old post – perhaps you’ve seen it already – but there’s a wealth of interesting points here on the attributes of creative people. I constantly get e-mails – some quite nasty – berating me for believing creative skills can be taught. For the record, I believe YES the principles of creativity can be taught – and should be taught – in schools.  I can only dream of being as eloquent as Ken Robinson on this subject.  Read his short white paper from Principle Voices here.

What Kind of Genius Are You?

By Daniel H. Pink, from Wired, Issue 14.7, July 2006. A long but interesting article, Pink writes about senior economist David Galenson who theorised that there are two types of genius – the “Conceptual Innovator” who do break-through work while they’re young, and the “Experimental Innovators” who do their important work later in life. Much of Galenson’s work focused on artistic creativity, but I think there are parallels to and key learnings for business creativity as well. How do you manage a “conceptual innovator” in your team? Is there any way to nourish and inspire the “experimental innovators” so they contribute sooner than later?  And, at any point reading the article, I dare you not to think: "Sweet Jesus, I hope I'm in the latter category."

SWOT Analysis (Addendum)

How funny. I thought a post on "the most tired of strategy tools" (thanks Gene) would be ho-hum to people who read my blog. And yet, in 24 hours, it generated the highest number of hits and the most comments. Here's the three most common points:

1. More Questions. To the list of questions of Strengths/Weaknesses and Opportunities/Threats, add these three questions (all variations on the same theme): "So what?", "Who cares?", "Yes, and?" Anyone who's developed a SWOT knows it's easy to dive so deeply into the research that objectivity can float away. These questions help ensure your team is being honest, objective and realistic. (Thanks Paul, Lesley and Ed.)

2. The SWOT as an Evaluative Tool. Finish the SWOT Analysis by turning key "tasks" into action steps - either by developing a strategy or (even better) a tactic. A simplified SWOT Analysis is a good evaluative tool to determine the quality of the best strategies or ideas. (Thanks Andy G., Marian and Suzanne.)

3. Action Plan Ingredients. Action plans are typically comprised of several elements. (Thanks Jaroslav and Berrit.)

• What are the next steps?
• Who is responsible?  Also, do we need to bring in others?  Who and when?
• What resources are needed?  In particular, what's the budget?
• What's the timeline?
• What are the deliverables?

Organising Information (Part 2, SWOT Analysis)

Managing and organising the information gathered from research is important to creativity for several reasons. By putting similar or relevant information together (that is, putting it into context), you can understand and unlock its potential insights. Then, once you have critical insights, you can use brainstorming to develop potential strategies or potential ideas for implementation.

Organising Information (Part 1)

Analytical thinking is the important “middle step” between strategic thinking and creative thinking. My favourite definition of analytical thinking was developed by David Stephenson, a professor in the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK:

• Standing back from the information given
• Examining it in detail from many angles
• Checking closely whether it is accurate
• Checking whether each statement follows logically
• Looking for possible flaws in the reasoning, evidence, or the way conclusions are drawn
• Comparing the issue from other points of view
• Checking all the assumptions
• Searching for any contradictions

To enable analytical thinking, information is sorted and organised after gathering to help decipher its insights - usually in a chart or graph. The two most common tools are the SWOT Analysis and the Force Field Analysis.

Communications Planning

Before I close out the topic of questioning over the past few weeks, I thought I'd share one of the simplest methodologies for communications executives (either in-house or consultants) to use in developing a plan of action which is both strategic and creative.  (Credit for the original list goes to the brilliant Barbara Smith who pretty much taught me most of what I know.)

The purpose of the questions is to uncover insights which will improve the quality of your brainstorms. If you use a similar series of questions to guide communications planning, please send me an e-mail, and I'll be happy to post variations in the future.

Questions for Communications Planning

1. What are we trying to do? (What are the campaign objectives?)

• Regardless of us (the consultant/the agency), what is the business objective you (the client) need to achieve?

• What role do you want communications or public relations to play in helping you achieve your business result? (What’s the communications objective?)

• How are we going to measure our success?

Field Trips

The desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world. John LeCarré

Research, questioning, listening, analysing are all critical elements of the creative process. However, there is no substitute for personal, direct experience. As a science, it’s called anthropology. In business research, it’s frequently called learning journeys. For the rest of us, it’s called a field trip.

While field trips can range from the casual and impromptu, or from formal and pedagogical, the basic objectives remain the same: to get a better understanding of human nature through observation and discovery. More so, by understanding the present, field trips are one of the most critical ways to understand and predict the future. The best explorations are those which seek to find the people who are looking ahead and thinking differently.

Oftentimes, the field trip is combined with – or turns into – a brainstorm because pivotal field trips braionuncover real or potential insights about what might be. Depending upon the urgent or the surprising aspects of the insights, the ideas begin to flow automatically and unexpectedly.

There are variety of ways to set up field trips, but a few essentials are common to any type.

• A knowledgeable guide, who might also play the role of the facilitator. Sometimes the guide has a support team who helps coordinate the activities or logistics, such as transportation and accommodation.
• Participants, who might range anywhere on the learning curve from highly educated to uninitiated.
• An agenda which might be specific to one situation, theme or hypothesis, or might combine a variety of elements, such as meetings with the target audience or its influencers (focus groups to informal conversations); site visits to locations where the audiences live, work or play; or events, workshops, prototypes and best practices which educate and inform about the target audience and related topics.

Specific points about the agenda:

• Make sure it’s provocative. Don’t just go to places to confirm or justify your hypotheses. At the same time, go with an open mind.
• Allow time for flexibility in your schedule.
• Part of the agenda should also include time for reflection, discussion and debate. Again, depending upon the type of insights uncovered during the field trip, it’s best to plan for reflection as soon as possible to keep the learnings and knowledge fresh.

A well-organised and challenging field trip has residual effect beyond the tangible outcomes of quality information and a productive brainstorm. Teams can be transformed by the group experience, not to mention they are fun, positive, stimulating and refreshing.