One More Time with a "Little More Chicken Fat"

Here's some variety - a funny video with Paul Dooley (the dad in Sixteen Candles) trying to coax just the right commercial read out of an announcer in a comedy routine captured at The Bottom Line in New York. Enjoy!

The Fifth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Creating Ridiculous Growth Opportunities

At a company-first sales conference, we'd scheduled Tommy Lasorda as a surprise second-day speaker. My boss (a very different boss than in yesterday's post) was set to emcee the whole conference, yet at the end of day one, he said, “I have to spend the afternoon with Tommy Lasorda, so you emcee tomorrow afternoon.” Startled (and a little scared) by his comment considering there was no script and no rehearsal time, I took on the assignment the next day.

As it turned out, it was an incredible opportunity to be in front of the entire company’s sales team for a whole afternoon. With a pretty boring agenda of speakers, it created opportunities as the emcee to be interactive, funny, and get the entire audience to stand up and scream at the top of their lungs. That night, so many people came up to say they had no idea I was funny. In one afternoon, I went from being a quiet research guy to having a personality within the company and incredibly shaping the next decade of my career.

There are tremendous benefits for your team members (and for you) when you're willing to create ridiculous challenges and great opportunities to make them grow in ways no one else would ever imagine.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

What Did We Learn?

Craig Ferguson ends his Late Late Show program nightly with a brief segment called, "What did we learn on the show tonight Craig?"

For him, it's a regular comedy bit and a time cushion for the program's close where he reflects on specific moments from the show.

For us, it's a valuable question to ask and answer at any inflection point in a project that's in progress. It's a way to force stepping back and looking for broader, more general lessons to add to your personal or business survival toolkit (and potentially share with others).

Consider variations of the question as well. I try to ask myself at the end of each day, "What experiences from today could turn into Brainzooming blog items?" The discipline of asking the question and jotting down (or even tweeting) a few answers helps keep Brainzooming running each weekday.

BTW - If you're on Twitter, there's an effort today to move Craig Ferguson into the top trending topics list. To help, post a tweet that includes this hashtag: #CraigFerguson. For more info, you can check out a video on the effort and help the cause out!

Want to be More Creative? Relive, Reinvent & Really Blow It - Guest Post from Andee Weinfurt

This week's guest post is from Andee Weinfurt, who has one of my favorite Twitter names - HotCupofCopy - reflecting her dual interests in writing and hot caffeine. Andee lives in Weston, MO and is a copywriter for GlynnDevins Advertising & Marketing.

She admittedly relishes the weird / embarrassing / bad moments of life because they lead to great ideas and ultimately, greater creativity. Today, she shares her approach for how to get from crushing to creative!

While I’m always searching for innovative ideas to capture my creativity, my philosophy has never changed: The worse the situation, the greater the potential to create something from it.

Truth be told, my most embarrassing, unpleasant and downright disappointing moments in life have always been the stepping stones for my most creative endeavors. Many of you reading this, I’m sure, can relate. (If not, watch a John Hughes movie or listen to a grunge album from the 90’s.)

Case in point: when I was fired from my first job at sixteen, there initially seemed to be little worth remembering about the experience. Especially since I had to literally melt my tears before I could dry them (I was given the news in the kitchen freezer, to maximize privacy and apparently my humiliation). But everything that made that experience so utterly awful is also what made it a creative diamond in the rough: I wrote about it and years later turned in that essay to a potential employer as part of the interview process for a copywriter position. While I did get the job, it probably doesn’t speak so much to the piece itself as it does to the idea of using it.

Ever since, I’ve been using this go-to guide for capturing creativity, regardless of the ultimate goal:

1. Relive: Draw upon a bad experience. An embarrassing moment, an unfair outcome, anything is fair game. These experiences make us who we are, and who we are is unique (the most important criteria of creativity).
   
2. Reinvent: Take something from the bad experience, and turn it around to work for you. The irony, the humor, the timing — there’s bound to be something you can apply to the challenge at hand.
   
3. Really Blow It: Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. This will inevitably lead to falling flat on your face — and when it does, embrace the moment wholeheartedly. Then you can start the process all over again!

Sometimes the most innovative idea is realizing the value of an old one.

And making lemonade out of lemons? It still works. - Andee Weinfurt

An Early Career Lesson

From the Funny Eye for the Corporate Guy Blog series, Apprehensories.

Brainzenning - Basket Case

C-Level Strategy Issues

From the Funny Eye for the Corporate Guy Blog series, Apprehensories.

Rebranding Doesn't Have to Be Expensive!

This originally appeared on the Funny Eye for the Corporate Guy blog and is from an actual photograph of a Holiday Inn that was in the midst of changing its brand affilitation. Somewhere a brand manager should be dying a slow death.

Get Outta Here and Don't Come Back! April Fool's . . .Get Outta Here And Do Come Back

For April Fool's Day, here's a suggestion: Get outta here and check out the Apprehensories posters at the "Funny Eye for the Corporate Guy" blog.

I've used a few of them on Brainzooming since they take a bit of a caustic view of business life and bad jargon, including strategy and innovation topics. Think of them as anti-Successories posters.


So check Funny Eye out, add the RSS feed or email, and follow Funny Eye on Twitter, but please be sure to get right back here tomorrow! No fooling!

Random Inputs Week - Yea, That's the Golden Ticket

To wrap up the week, here's a link tweeted by Scott Frederick - an instructive scene from "The Office" if you'd like to see nearly all of the NOs standing in the way of innovation in just over 2 minutes!



Want to be more innovative? It's simple - do nothing that Michael does. Doesn't get much easier than that for a Friday!

An Online Ad that Made Me Laugh, Stop, and Click

ancestry.com "black sheep" online ad

A Good Competitive Strategy Reminder

Enemies - Some enemies are okay to have. Some enemies are bad to have. Snow plow drivers are horrible enemies.

Why Don't I Cheer at Restaurants Anymore?

Surf’s Up

Fun Shoestring Branding in the World of Finance

A Great Perspective for Turning Current Apprehensions into Positives

Dilbert’s Advice on Battling the Idea Squirrel



What have been your favorite web finds for the week? Leave them in the comments or email me to share them with everybody.

More Relationships They Don't You in MBA School

The New Anti-Strategic Thinking Chocolate - HATED IT!

Creative Freakout

My dad managed the TV station in Hays, KS where I grew up. His job was the source of an amazing number of cool experiences. One of the best was in 1975 when Topps sent him 3 cases of baseball cards. So what did I do all summer? I opened pack after pack of baseball cards. And 1975 happened to be a year with two rookie cards for future Hall of Famers – George Brett and Robin Yount. I still have 6 or 7 each of these cards!

Another very cool experience was getting a copy of an audio cassette called “Creative Freakout.” All I knew until recently was that it was done by the Heller Corporation in L.A., and that it has a hilarious story line right out of the late 1960’s, featuring some of the most memorable advertising jingles I’ve ever heard.

Poking around on the web, I found this link with more background on the recording and an audio file that contains (unfortunately) only the first half of the program. Take a listen, and you’ll find that it lives up to its title – prepare to freakout at these advertising protest songs!

BTW – For whatever reason, when somebody else has already answered a question for which you’re seeking an answer, it’s called secondary research, as if it’s less important or relevant than “primary” research. To someone who started life as a “secondary” researcher (me), it feels like a huge disservice (okay, it really feels like b.s.) since the knowledge and skills to be successful may be different, but are just as demanding as “primary” research.

So the mini-rant is in tribute to secondary researchers everywhere, but one in particular, who’s leaving our staff today to move to a really cool new project that’s at the heart of bringing online access to communities across the US.

Deb – you’re truly a unique talent, and it’s been an honor to work with and learn from you! The best of everything! And let’s do Crave, home of grilled cheese and tomato soup - a real creative freakout!

What Gets Said About Customers?

How do the companies we do business with feel about us as customers?

And no, not the standard corporate b.s. about being customer-centric, customer focused, or dedicated to serving us. How do the executives and the people we interact with really talk about us when we aren’t around?

Hope it doesn’t sound like the "Charge More" ad from Direct TV. But the ad works because we probably all suspect this IS what it sounds like. The scary part is that those suspicions are likely formed by what discussions about customers sound like at our own companies. If that’s the case, figure out what you can do to change it and start doing something about it right away!

A Friday Shrimp Special

This fun Friday (or any other day) exercise turns ho-hum ideas into bigger, more dramatic ones. We call the exercise “Shrimp” because it’s typically applied to small, leftover ideas (much like Japanese Steak House chefs save a few shrimp to throw at the meal’s end). Here are the steps:

1. Take 5 or 10 of your smallest, weakest, or run-of-the-mill ideas to reach your business objective.
   
2. Select an authority figure (it can be a boss, the board of directors, or a regulatory body) that could shoot down any new possibilities emerging from these ideas. The more distinct and well-known the authority’s personality the better.
   
3. Use your starter ideas to create incredibly outrageous possibilities by asking, “How could we turn this idea into something that supports our objective but that our authority figure would COMPLETELY HATE?” Remember, you’re going for GENUINE ANGER, not just discomfort; it’s okay to think inappropriate, embarrassing, even illegal possibilities. Go for at least 3 - 5 new possibilities for each starter idea.
   
4. Then, for each new outrageous possibility, ask the following question to bring it back to reality: “How could we carry out this concept in ways that are acceptable, realistic, feasible, or actually able to be implemented?” Don’t settle for less than 10 new concepts from each outrageous idea.

These new, more mainstream ideas will benefit from being stretched beyond the boundaries of normal thinking. They typically take on a surprising richness and depth by having been run through “Shrimp.”

Also by encouraging your group to engage in thinking outside conventions under which it normally operates, the exercise creates both great ideas and great fun! What more could you want for a Friday!

Offered Without Comment - Famous Creative Blocks