Creative Quickie - Recap Your Odds & Ends

Spare a minute to recall what stood out for you last week, looking for creativity triggers in your recollections. If you're on Twitter, they make for great fodder to tweet as well.

Here are some things from last week on my creative quickie list:

• Important relearning of the week? When introducing a new idea, deliberately put yourself in situations that require explaining it. It really helps refine messaging much more quickly.
  
• Most interesting strategy question of the week? "In ten words, tell me what creates profit in your business?"


• Most surprising street sign? This one below. Where, but in Kansas City, is there a 10 hour parking sign?
  

• A good deed that's usually appreciated: Invite an introvert to go with you to a networking function. (Or to paraphrase @trmndsblndtte: Help de-flower an introvert!) If you're an introvert and someone asks you to an event, accept the invitation!


• Greatest inspirational messages while walking down the street? These from the school at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.
  

• Most innovative job title of someone I met? "Chief Creatologist"
  
• Most reassuring development? Encouragement from so many great people. Now to figure out how to engineer it happening every week! - Mike Brown
  

Creative Quickie - Take Some Time

Keith Prather and I attended the October 21, 2009 Central Exchange CEO Series luncheon featuring Beryl Raff, Chairman and CEO of Helzberg Diamonds.

It was an interesting talk, especially when she went off script, discussing challenges in her career, how she developed a specialty in turnarounds, and the first meeting with her new "boss," Warren Buffett.

The first audience question was about what type of atmosphere she feels fosters innovation. Her answer was one where the status quo is challenged all the time and people "talk about ideas."

There's your creative quickie: see how often you're challenging the status quo today (vs. settling for what's okay or routine) and notice amid the time pressures of business, if you're avoiding "talking" about ideas.

Don't rush to "just do something." Invest time in strategic thinking and challenge your world as it exists today. - Mike Brown

Creative Quickie - Flip Out

There are so many situations in everyday life that can be sources of current and future creative inspiration.

How do you become better at actually capitalizing on their inspirational value?

One way is to get an easy-to-use video camera and start capturing these situations.

Having a Flip camera with me nearly all the time this year has not only allowed capturing blatantly creative images, but has also refined my eye for spotting hidden creativity in more mundane situations.

Figure out which type of device works best for you - it could be a Flip, a Kodak (that's for former BMA board president Jeff Hayzlett!), or your PDA. Find the device that allows you to video at a moment's notice and build an inspiration reserve for when you hit a creative block. - Mike Brown

Creative Quickie - Wikiwaves

Riding the Waves

One night, based on my wife’s question about if and when George C. Scott had died, I followed Wikipedia links to Tony Randall, Jack Klugman, Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, Gene Rayburn, Bert Convy, Bobby Van, and Elaine Joyce - Bobby Van’s widow. (If you’re wondering, the clear theme was my rabid viewership of mid 1970s CBS game shows.)

Amazingly, it said Elaine Joyce dated J.D. Salinger for several years before marrying Neil Simon - who knew? I really have abandoned my earlier passion for pop culture trivia!

That revelation led to more clicks and discovering this 1951 Salinger quote on literary influences: "A writer, when he's asked to discuss his craft, ought to get up and call out in a loud voice just the names of the writers he loves."

2 Creative Quickies

1. Need a little quirky inspiration? Take a period of your life, pick a starting point, and do some Wikipedia surfing as source for semi-random inputs. You never know what cool places Wikiwaves will take you.
   
2. Expand on Salinger's idea and "call out in a loud voice" the creative influences you love. You choose where to do it - maybe it's a blog, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. Gosh, maybe it's actually really speaking them aloud. Simply pick the venue and have fun doing it! - Mike Brown

Brainzenning - Taking the NO Out of InNOvation

Brainzenning - MIght As Well Jump

Change the Room Around!

I downloaded this menu of standard meeting room layouts from a hotel where a strategic thinking session had been scheduled. Quite frankly nearly all of these layouts could be big inhibitors to innovative thinking. Put people in a conventional room arrangement, and you foster conventional thinking.

What can you do? Work with the hotel (ahead of time, ideally) to come up with a room layout that's anything but standard:

• Avoid lines of tables & chairs, especially parallel and perpendicular to walls
• Get round or square tables and arrange them randomly
• Scatter work areas
• Get a room that has way more space per person than the hotel recommends

All of these steps create a space for people to think, interact, walk around, and innovate!

Brainzenning - Basket Case

Creative Quickie - Beach Sounds

Get an audio file of ocean waves. Close your eyes, listen, and imagine you're on a beach.

Now let your mind wander creatively.

Creative Quickie Report Out - Here's How I Helped Someone Creatively

Everybody received an assignment Friday morning: look for someone to help with a creative challenge over the weekend and then comment here to create the Monday Creative Quickie post. The early submissions are included below. You can still add others in the comments section for today's post.

Mike Brown said...
My wife Cyndi honed her web skills by volunteering to do websites for our Church and her sorority. It helped both out and let her engage new areas of creativity. Mike

Jan said...
I'm helping my daughter who's away at college celebrate Mother's Day with us ... by breaking the rules. Instead of celebrating May 10, we'll observe Mother's Day May 17, after Kate's out of school and back home. It's important to know the rules, so you can choose to break them!

Terry said...
Today one of our field managers shared a great analogy comparing one of our old web tools to a simple remote control (you know, the kind that only has power, volume and a channel changer) with our new web tool that's more like a universal remote with more features. Envisioning a remote with thousands of buttons, I helped him take the comparison a step further by comparing our formerly separate online tools that required customers to go three separate places to my coffee table covered with separate TV, VCR and cable box remotes.

Amy Hoppenrath said...
I received a question from a professional associate today asking for advice about a project she is working on. She was stuck. After some discussion, we determined that before she would find the answers, she needed to ask more questions.

A Weekend Creative Instigation Assignment - You're Doing Monday's Post!

Don’t feel like you get enough opportunities to be creative in your job? Maybe so.

If that’s the case, here's an assignment for today and over the weekend: be on the lookout for an informal opportunity to use your creative talent to help someone else, then report back on it here by Monday.

Want a quick example - at a party earlier this year, one guest was talking about trying to come up with an intriguing name for her new business idea. I joined the conversation and offered to help generate some possible names. My motivation? I'd developed a new messaging ideation technique that hadn't yet been tested. This was a great low-risk way to see if it could really generate lots of cool ideas.

We both benefitted. She received more than a 100 possible names; I learned what worked and didn't with the new technique.

Be on the lookout for people with creative challenges this weekend and share a brief story in the comments section on this post, ideally by Monday. Let everyone know how you tried to help someone - either previously or over the weekend. And in so doing, you'll address another creative challenge: your comments will become the whole Monday Creative Quickie post!

So have a great weekend and report your successes in helping others with creative challenges on Brainzooming!

Creative Quickie - Dim All the Lights

Next time you're meeting in a room with windows, try turning off the lights for a different creative feel.

It can be calming and creativity-inducing to be in natural light vs. squirming under banks of fluorescent lights that practically scream, "Status Quo!"

Creative Quickie - The Creative Possibilities in Trash

Here's an on-the-scene report from Big Item Pickup in my neighborhood this past weekend. It provides a wonderful lesson in creative possibilities. Enjoy!

Creative Quickie: Use Twitter for Random Idea Generation

Random inputs are a great source of creativity starters, and Twitter is a wonderful place to look for them. Go to http://www.search.twitter.com/, enter a phrase of interest to you, and watch what links, ideas, and thought fragments pop up. (BTW - you don't have to be on Twitter to do this.)

I have searches going all the time on "innovation" and "creativity" that yield scads of thought provoking material - as demonstrated by yesterday's post!

Creative Quickie - What Inspires You?

Why wait until your creativity is challenged to think about ways to stimulate it?

Take a few minutes to complete this inspiration roster listing various things you know are creativity instigators for you. Then when you really need them, you'll have a ready list to turn to for inspiration.

What Inspires Me?

Place _________________________________________

Image ________________________________________

Person ________________________________________

Writing ________________________________________

Music _________________________________________

Time of day _____________________________________

Sound _________________________________________

Memory _______________________________________

Moment _______________________________________

Activity _______________________________________

Prayer / Reflection _______________________________

Creative Quickie: A Purrfect Creative Setting

One of my favorite ways to work at the computer is with my cat Coco sitting on my lap, purring. It makes creative time a warm, wonderful experience.*

* Unless of course you're allergic to cats. Don't try this Jan!

Let Other People Talk Week - Creative Quickie Quotes

For variety, I'm going to primarily shut up and listen this week, sharing links, quotes, and ideas on innovation, creativity, and strategic thinking. I'll offer my thoughts in the comments section at Brainzooming. I hope to find yours there too! Let's get started!

Creative Quickie - Creativity Quotes

Here are some quick quotes on creativity right from Twitter, so they may or may not be accurate. Enjoy them and add your cool quotes in the comments!

@ShaunConnell Rationality begets creativity. Until you understand the box, you can't think outside the box.
@healthyincome4u Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. ~Edward De Bono
@PopWuping "If limitation spawns creativity, is the limitless resource of the Internet a good thing?” — Alec Soth
@earthXplorer "Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected." ~ Anonymous
@pixelati "Creativity is the ability to see relationships where none exist." - Thomas Disch
@hottomali Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. - Scott Adams
@boxofcrayons RT @joevans: From Sir Ken Robinson: “If you are not prepared to be wrong — you will not come up with anything original.
@boxofcrayons RT @joevans: More Sir Ken: People are being educated out of their creative capacity. We do not grow into creativity, we grow out of it.
@JackieAustinBNC Creativity is generated by humor combined with conflict. WOW
@lildrummergie routinely doin somethin u enjoy over & over again, without variation or creativity, can diminish even that enjoyment. swimmin for instance
@pseudoliterat "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." – Charles Mingus
@gregnyc Fast Company Editor: "[Only creativity and aggressive innovation...will fuel a turnaround.]"

Creative Quickie - Doodle Night

Help Brainzooming Win a Free Blog Redesign

We're in the last days to vote for Brainzooming to get a free redesign in the Blog Bailout Contest. Here are the 3 quick easy steps:

1. Click on this link to go to the design company's website: http://tinyurl.com/bfrors
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the voting area. Click the button for "Mike - 'BrainZooming'" - it's the second one on the list. Then select VOTE.
3. Let anyone else know who might help out and vote for Brainzooming by February 10, 2009. Thanks for the help!

Creative Quickie Week – Random Creativity

Random inputs provide a great way to trigger creative thinking. But if you’re really stuck, coming up with rich random inputs may even be challenging. Arghhhhhh!

If you’re there, go to “Writer’s Window,” a website that generates random ideas to incorporate into stories, drawings, presentations or any other creative endeavor staring you in the face! Use the random idea provided, asking questions such as:

• How does the random idea fit with my situation?


• How is my situation like the random idea?


• If my situation and the random idea collided with each other, what would happen?

The combinations created should get you going in an exciting, new creative direction!

SPECIAL NOTE -Starting at Noon on 1/22/2009, you can begin voting for your favorite "innovation" definition under 140 characters long, by clicking here. I submitted these 6 possibilities:

• Innovation = Shattering the status quo into a million pieces that reform into something much better and more beneficial.
  
• Innovation = ((thinking randomly + borrowing liberally) / implementing successfully) * persistence * time
  
• Innovation = The ability of @Macker to create scads of "innovation" definitions.
  
• Innovation = The magic of imagining, implementing, & improving upon what's been done before to benefit others.
  
• Innovation = A fundamental, valuable improvement relative to the status quo.
  
• Innovation = Taking NO, not for an answer, but for the inspiration to bring something beautifully new and wonderful to life.

Be sure to vote for one of mine, but only if you think it really deserves it!

Creative Quickie Week - Right Brain, Left Brain, Whole Brain?

Lori Schade forwarded a cool site from the Art Institute of Vancouver with a quick test to see whether you are predominantly a left (analytical, objective, quantitative) or right (perceptive, subjective, qualitative) brain thinker.

Take the test, identify your thinking strengths and weaknesses, and devise your strategy for being a whole-brain thinker, i.e. drawing on multiple, diverse thinking perspectives to address a thinking challenge.

Some people are blessed with the ability to be whole brain thinkers on their own. For the rest of us, the best strategy comes down to surrounding ourselves with people who think in different ways than we do to challenge and expand our thinking. Get started building your whole brain thinking team today!