Are You Facing a Creative Imbalance?

Being in the transportation industry (as I was) meant a lot of time spent thinking about balance, and not being too heavy inbound or outbound. In moving things (or people), the ideal state is the same number arriving and departing. If you're too heavy outbound, it means you have lots of things going out, but very few coming in. Heavy inbound is the opposite - many things arriving, but few leaving. Within the economy, there are distinct geographic and industrial patterns in the movement of goods and people. As a result, transportation providers are constantly trying to achieve balance within their networks.

All of this has a direct tie to creativity. It's not difficult to find yourself in creative imbalance, with a disconnect between the amount of creativity you're producing and the creative elements you're taking in to fuel your own pursuits.

Typically, I run heavy on the outbound side of creativity. Part of it is my personality; part of it is a strategy to provide real-life testing of the various creativity-instigating exercises and tools I share. If I'm creatively spent and a particular approach helps spur my creativity, chances are it will work for you as well.

Right now though, I'm so heavy outbound, it's a little ridiculous. Beyond blogging and tweeting, I've been doing a lot of proposal writing (which is a wonderful situation to have), building messaging for the business side of Brainzooming, and trying to do more commenting and guest blogging, too.

One problem of being too heavy outbound in transportation is you wind up with all the equipment you need to function located somewhere else. You have problems making commitments because you lack necessary resources.

What that means for me in the creativity world is trying to force myself to schedule an all inbound day - no blog writing, no tweeting, no thinking about what I should be communicating. Simply a day to read, absorb, replenish, and learn, unencumbered by the need to say something.

Quite a goal, and I'll let you know when it's achieved! In the meantime, how's your creative balance? - Mike Brown

Domino's, Conan, and 3 Fundamentals for Communicating Big Brand Change

There are lots of discussions on whether Domino's is brilliantly innovative or colossally mistaken in the redesign of its pizza with new crust, sauce, and cheese. It's obviously a multi-dimensional brand question involving both major product and communications decisions.

Not having eaten Domino's for years, I don't know whether it's better or not. Instead, the question here is how to creatively present a major strategy change to customers? Do you do a mea culpa, as Domino's has done, saying we've heard you, and it's necessary to change? Or do you take an even more aggressive stance and sell against what you were doing previously?

While some commentators have said Domino's is doing the latter, it depends on what communications you're watching.

Its 4-plus minute "documentary" version of the story presents a Domino's message of, "We've heard your concerns and have been working hard to address them." Editing to sound bites for a TV spot, however, pushes the message closer to, "We sold you crappy food, and said it was good." By the time comedians and the public get a shot, it's, "We suck, and frankly, we didn't care...until now."

Here are three communications take-aways from Domino's to consider when implementing a major change:

• Go out of your way to NEVER sell against what you used to do. Violating this simply makes you look stupid ("If you knew you sucked, why were you doing it in the first place?"). Your loyal customers will also FEEL stupid ("They say they suck; what does that make us for liking what they did?").


• There's a fine creative balance since your focused change message will change based on who's shaping it. Even if you followed the first lesson, somebody outside or inside your own organization will wind up messing up the message (intentionally or unintentionally), ensuring you will be selling against your history.


• This issue isn't limited to brand changes and turnarounds. It applies to internal programs, reorganizations, career changes, etc. When you're making a dramatic change, really think through your strategy and what you really want to offer as the rationale.

The Conan-Leno Tonight Show debacle at NBC is a relevant example of these three fundamentals. I've never been a big Conan fan, but watched during his last week to see how he handled the messaging relative to the three lessons above:

• Conan didn't message against the past, as much as against what the future held. He skewered NBC, but focused more on the ridiculousness of the current moment and future changes in forcing his decision to leave.


• His well-known ironic, wink-of-the-eye comedy style gave him lots of room to play with the situation. And as his late-night comedy competitors weighed in on the story, he took an underdog role, laying claim to being the most respectful defender of The Tonight Show brand legacy!


• Amid this significant brand and career change, Conan used the last moments before his highly-compensated, highly-enforced silence, not to savage NBC, but to talk instead about the pride in his 20 year association with NBC. Watch the excerpt below from his final episode to see a tremendously classy way of messaging a nasty change and doing it with dignity.

Periods of major change are great proving grounds for brand marketers. Go to school on these two very prominent examples for approaches and learnings to use in future turnarounds you face. - Mike Brown

The Memorability of Creative Job Titles - Guest Post by Misty Stocksdale

I caught up with Misty Stocksdale last fall at a Kansas City tweetup hosted by Shelly Kramer and Laura Lake at Manifesto - a very cool, very dark setting. We exchanged business cards, but her attention-commanding title at Total Home was only visible the next morning: Multi-Skilled Genius.

After checking the company's website and seeing that everyone had equally cool titles, I tweeted Misty, asking asked her to share the rationale and impact behind them. In the first guest Brainzooming post of 2010, here's Misty's take on creative job titles:

The Kansas City home remodeling industry is home to thousands of contractors, business owners, project managers and installers. Attend an industry function and you’ll collect an array of business cards: different sizes, shapes and colors; identical titles, labels and monikers.

Peer-to-peer networking and executive-to-prospect interactions should be memorable and distinguishing. Anything less makes the connection insignificant and possibly forgettable. A name, for the most part, cannot be altered. But a job title, on the other hand, leaves room for creative flexibility and long-term impact.

My small business decided to do away with the traditional title syndrome two years back. We no longer hire Painters, Accountants and Marketing Managers. Instead, we recruit Artists, Number Crunchers and Multi-Skilled Geniuses. We showcase these distinct titles on our email signatures, business cards and website contact pages.

A creative job title sparks ice-breaking curiosity. It removes standard barriers and it allows an individual to be instantaneously expressive of who they are and what type of work they do. The creative combination of a few words can make for an interesting calling card that will inevitably set the Head Chef of a home remodeling company apart from every other Owner/Manager in the room.

Our titles evoke friendly responses from clients and professionals, alike. The obvious creativity and flair behind such a title is inspiring to a person who will potentially be working with us. The titles offer a window to our attitude and make us just a little more memorable in comparison to our peers. In an industry that values the skillfulness of reformation, the innovativeness of renovation and the resourcefulness of imagination, the last thing we would want to do is get lost in the crowd. - Misty Stocksdale

Get Up Early

Next time you're stymied when trying to get a creative project done, try this: get up very early when it's quiet and your mind's clear and devote the extra time to getting the project done.

Using potentially your most creative perspective of the day (even if you're not a morning person) is an appropriate strategy when a project requires your freshest innovative thinking. - Mike Brown

Not Even One of These Things Is Not Like Another

I was in my first meeting the other day of a group expected to help shape strategy for an organization with domestic and international reach to a mainly young audience. Of the eleven people present, ten were Caucasian males (mostly baby boomers), and the other was a Caucasian female baby boomer.

Ok, big problem looming!

Next time you're on an input-giving or decision making group, look around at the participants. If you're lacking diversity on any important dimension relevant to your target audience, voice a concern.

In this case, after challenging ourselves on the group's composition, one member offered to have his wife take his place. Nice sentiment, but hardly a fix for the underlying problem.

Leaders need to aggressively look out for diversity and ensure it's taken into consideration, even when it means reaching far outside their traditional networks to include different people. Beyond being an issue of propriety, it's critical for innovation and sound strategic decision making. - Mike Brown

11 Ways to Back Out of a Creative Dead End

Most of the US has been pounded with cold and snow the past few weeks. Don’t know about you, but it makes me feel my creative spirit is at a dead end when things outside are cold, bleak, and dark.

So what to do to turn a creative “dead end” into a “live start”?

Here are the ideas I wrote down for myself the other day to break out of my creative doldrums:

• Be around fun people
• Spend some fun time with my wife
• Nap without worrying about losing valuable time
• Go someplace bright and warm
• Go someplace dark and warm
• Finish something (realizing that, unfortunately, blogs aren’t ever done unless you quit them)
• Find someone who loves something I created
• Seek out people who have good news to share
• Appreciate what I have
• Get worn out from working out and quit eating holiday treats
• Make a cool handwritten font

That’s what I’ve been trying. Please add your ideas to the list too! – Mike Brown

When People Don’t Understand There Are Lots of Ways to Be Right

What’s your first reaction to a new possibility? And importantly, what are typical reactions to new possibilities from the people who surround you? Lately, I’m encountering more people whose first reaction is why something won’t work, how they know better than I do about it, or who simply react with a hostile tone.

For someone who espouses openness to ideas, I’m seeing detrimental impacts on my attitude. When you hear enough negatives, it can lead you to also start reacting negatively to new possibilities out of frustration, spite, or self-protection.

What to do in this type of situation? Overtly model positive behavior and hope they get it? Challenge them directly on how they dampen creativity? Leave the relationship for the sake of creative self-preservation?

No single answer works - each choice has its own advantages and peculiar stumbling blocks. Sounds like some type of combo is in order. We’ll see how that possibility works. – Mike Brown

10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today, December 31, 1999, I met Jan Harness, my (then future) creative instigation partner, via phone call.

When I've shared the specifics of first talking with Jan, people have commented how sweet it is I remember the event in such detail. Really though, the story's a great example of creating memorable brand experiences.

A post last October spelled out a formula for memorable brand experiences springing from the convergence of three factors - personal interests, emotional intensity, and a brand's role in the experience. Against that framework, here's how the story of meeting Jan played out:

1. High Personal Interest - I was charged with creating presentations for our company's introductory 2,000 person customer conference which was barely 2 weeks away. Among the challenges, there was no convincing the CIO that with Y2K looming, nobody cared about the history of the computer - her desired way to open her speech. With many other presentations also needing massive amounts of writing effort, it seemed so hopeless my boss was finally convinced I needed outside help for it all to get done.


2. Emotional Intensity - The conference was a big deal, with high expectations for success. We were having various production issues, so the pressure was intensifying as time slipped away. The news was also filled with stories about the ominous potential danger from Y2K. All that led to a pretty vivid sense of the date when Jan and Barb Pruitt got on the phone to see how they might be able to help rescue me.


3. A (Personal) Brand's Role in Enabling the Experience - We quickly figured out the basis of how we'd work, and Jan got started. Within the two weeks leading up to the conference, Jan came in, learned our company and the presenters, and dramatically improved our ability to creatively communicate our important messages. In fact, she had such an impact before the show that she became part of the traveling team responsible for the conference’s on-site production.

So you see, with the high level of personal interest (creating a successful conference from one that was teetering), emotional intensity (both personal emotions and the global emotion and visibility of what 1/1/2000 held), and an incredible brand experience (Jan's amazing contribution and the start of our creative team), there's no way the experience wouldn't be indelibly fixed in my mind.

As a side note, Jan and I have a brother/sister kind of creative relationship, i.e. we pick on each other (okay maybe it's me picking on Jan) constantly. Yet when @lqualls4444 asked the other day on Twitter if Jan knew how much I appreciate her contribution to my creativity, it was great to say, "Yes." Amid a recent late night email rant, I'd shared "lavish praise" for Jan's talents. Here's an excerpt:

"...this experience has reinforced for me not only what a talented writer you are, but that you are the [dare I say] unique [or at least relatively rare] strategist who happens to also be a fantastic writer. There's a HUGE difference between getting words into sentences and a bunch of sentences on a page and organizing thinking, themes, and words in a consistent, strategic flow. You are the best of anyone I've ever worked with at doing that. You create tremendously high expectations for others after having worked with you, and I'm not sure there are many out there who can meet them!!!"

So, if you need a great strategist who also happens to write fantastically, seek out my creative instigation partner of 10 years, Jan Harness! - Mike Brown

The Twelfth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Look for the Improbable to Happen!

We don't have kids, something we came to terms with relatively early in our marriage and have accepted as part of life. While it means missing out on a range of incredible experiences, we've been able to do things for others (particularly our niece and nephews) that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. The net of it is accepting what life hands you and making the best of it.

Last year, our niece Valerie called and asked to speak with me. This was unusual, but as I've written before, Valerie has lived an unusual life. That includes getting married initially in a group wedding ceremony on Valentine's Day 2008 at Loveland Pass. This was an event the family first learned about when my mother-in-law saw it reported on the Weather Channel!

When Valerie began talking about a second wedding ceremony where friends and family could be present, I was hesitant since we'd have to play a big role in putting it on.

As the phone conversation began, I told her our ability to help was limited since her cousin was getting married about the same time and we might have to get Valerie's grandma to it. While stating my case, Valerie interrupted to ask, "Would you walk me down the aisle?"

Walking a bride down the aisle was something I'd long ago come to accept as an "I'll never get to do it" moment. Suddenly my tone changed and being able to do something I never thought I would do completely changed my perspective. I was all for wedding ceremony #2 and making it happen.

The life-changing lesson here is the important reminder to remain perpetually hopeful. Things you think can never happen can happen. If there are possibilities you've shut out of your life, maybe it's time to open them back up.

And in true Valerie fashion, she followed her life-changing comment with another incredibly touching one. As we were getting ready to walk into the ceremony, she told me, "Who else would I have asked to give me away. With everything you guys have done for me, you're like my father."

That's Valerie!

Wrap-up: Hope you enjoyed this series on life-changing words! For the rest of 2009, I'm going to focus on getting ready to consolidate the Brainzooming and MikeBrownSpeaks blogs into a new location that Seth Simonds has done great work in setting up.

The new site will have the blog and include more information on the Brainzooming business and our service offerings. It will also feature additional tools not able to be included on the Blogger platform. The transition date is still TBD, because when it happens, I want to make sure it's as seamless as possible for email and RSS subscribers.

That's what's coming, so in the meantime, have a great holiday and rest of 2009! Thanks for reading Brainzooming! - Mike Brown

The Third Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Giving the Okay to Challenge Thinking

Early in his tenure, our CEO shared his ten business principles. I don’t remember nine of them, but one stood out for of its simplicity, matter-of-factness, and wide applicability: “Don’t do anything stupid.”

I've used this admonition numerous times when attempting to slow (and ideally thwart) ill-founded ideas others felt really strongly about pursuing. When you can invoke the CEO's own words, it provides a lot more credibility in challenging dumb stuff and trying to do the right things for the business.

The approach's success oriented me toward the tremendous leadership benefits of sharing what really matters in easy-to-understand words. If you can get your message distilled in a simple, clear way, it frees up team members to use their own perspectives and innovative spirits in beneficial ways a leader could never anticipate. I've written several times about my own struggle for simplicity and have tried to take this learning to heart.

As an example, I was leading a motor sports program in what was then called the Busch Series. It's considered to be a second-tier series in NASCAR behind the "Cup" series, where everything costs 3 to 5 times more to sponsor. Our challenge was creating a program with a top tier Cup sponsorship's impact with a relatively small investment. This potential dilemma was at the heart of our internal program strategy: "We're doing a Cup level program with a Busch Series budget." With that direction, the team understood our constraints and was freed to be more creative and challenging in how we attacked our goals.

Think about what simple strategic guidelines you can share with your team to help them be more effective in carrying out the most important activities.

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

The First Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Helping Another Recognize Their Talents

Chuck Dymer is a strategic mentor, having done more than any single person to help me understand lateral thinking processes and how integral they are to business success. You could say I've borrowed everything I know on innovation tools from watching Chuck do what he does so masterfully.

After working with Chuck on various projects, he said to me, “You make other people more creative just by cheering them on.” While always enjoying participating in brainstorming sessions with others, its potential impact had never occurred to me.

Chuck's comment, though, caused more deliberate reflection on this "talent" I’d never considered and how it could be used more widely. This led to incorporating lateral thinking approaches into additional business activities, speaking topics, and ultimately, Brainzooming.

Are you working with others who display talents you see that they don't realize? Give them a gift by pointing out these talents so they can start considering how to use them even more beneficially. - Mike Brown

Out and About Marketing - Coca-Cola and Ore-Ida Experience Marketing

Admission - I quickly grow impatient (yet only slightly unruly) in crowded stores.

Fortunately, my Flip camera has helped keep me out of trouble recently (kind of like Cheerios for geeky adults), creating amusement in finding great marketing strategy examples to capture.

To get you ready for the time spent in stores this week for Thanksgiving preparation and Black Friday, we'll share a few "out and about marketing" examples this week. Be on the look-out for ones you see and submit them as future guest Brainzooming posts!

Merchandising Can Be Experience Marketing

Why have boring grocery store displays when they can be colorful, fun, and create memorable visual experiences? These two stacks of soft drink boxes for Coca-Cola products are from two local grocery stores - Price Chopper (left) and Hy-Vee (right).



While the pumpkin at Price Chopper was just plain fun, the Hy-Vee display was a top-five highlight for the Kansas City Chiefs this season!

Taking the Experience Home

This product makes me both proud and ashamed to be in marketing.

Talk about turning a generic category (tater tots) into an experience for multiple audiences. These Ore-Ida ABC Tater Tots are innovation rock stars on multiple levels!

For parents, they combine two high interest experiences - learning and getting kids to eat. For kids who enjoy school, they're great fun; for those that hate school, it allows them to work out a little aggression on these dreaded Sesame Street sponsors. Plus, I love how easily you can imagine the idea coming straight out of a Trait Transformation exercise!

So why do they also make me ashamed to be a marketer?

Because they're tater tots! How much cool brand experience does it take to get ANYBODY, let alone kids, to eat tater tots? I LOVE tater tots, but they're not "trainer-approved." So how about applying cool brand experience strategy to vegetables and fruits that are less processed, less fun, and healthier! - Mike Brown

Starting Over, Part 2

I'm a huge fan of NOT starting from scratch. If there's a remnant of a leftover idea, approach, or possibility sitting around, I always want to begin there and get that much of a head start toward a final goal by incorporating what I've done before.

Earlier this year, long-time friend Vince Koehler stopped by while in town. Vince shared his approach on collateral updates: he requires his staff to throw out all the copy on a brochure that's being redone and start over.

The reason? Doing so forces strategic thinking and a fresh creative view of the program that's being marketed. There's the potential for tremendous innovation value since this is another way of forcing a different look at a familiar topic.

If you've got a project that looks and feels like a re-do, why not give this approach a try? Toss out everything that's gone before, and it will feel just like starting over. - 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

Borrowing Brilliance - A Guest Post of Sorts

I attended the KC Small Business "Think Bigger" luncheon recently when guest speaker David Kord Murray discussed his new book, "Borrowing Brilliance." The tome covers 6 steps (defining, borrowing, combining, incubating, judging, and enhancing) to build from others' ideas.

While several people afterward expressed frustration with Murray's presentation and demeanor (some of the frustrations were very justified), he shared a number of valuable points. Here's my take on the highlights he covered (thus the designation of this piece as a guest post of sorts):

• To get to a core issue, Murray suggests asking, "What's the problem above the problem we're considering?" This is a different and helpful way of expressing the question, "What are we trying to achieve?" He cited an old, but relevant, example. In the 1920's, Ford defined the issue as building the cheapest car. GM identified a more fundamental issue: making cars affordable. Its problem definition led to auto financing's introduction.
  
• Murray expressed a clear disdain for unfettered brainstorming, claiming stronger ideas emerge when more judging is involved. He has a point, in that once you've moved from divergent to convergent thinking steps, solid evaluation approaches do push you closer to more readily implementable ideas.
  
• In using different perspectives to look for analogous ideas, Murray shared a borrowing continuum to look for ideas in Same, Similar, and then Distant domains (i.e., your industry, a related industry, a radically different industry). This concept has been discussed frequently in Brainzooming (and the "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" ebook is structured similarly), yet this was a new, actionable way of expressing the approach.


• He talked about "aha moments" occurring in the shower so frequently because we've typically minimized conscious thought, allowing the sub-conscious to sift through raw materials it's been fed. I haven't tried scheduling a group creative team meeting in the shower yet, but it again emphasizes the value of changes of scenery and activity in ideation.


• Murray passed along an interesting factoid: Walt Disney conceived Disneyland not as an amusement park, but as a movie starring the park's guests. Instead of "rides," mini-movies were then developed in which guests star for a few minutes. I'd never really thought about it, but it makes perfect sense. It's also a great example of selecting a rich core concept and using it throughout the innovation process to create strategically consistent implementation.

All these are helpful insights. Now here's one for new authors (i.e., David Kord Murray): when a well-known local bookstore (i.e., Rainy Day Books) helps co-sponsor your appearance, maybe your closing book slide should feature its logo along with (or even instead of) the major online bookseller brands you chose to feature. Just saying. - Mike Brown

Musings on Creativity + Innovation in Business - Guest Post by Meghan M. Biro

Today's guest blogger, Meghan Biro, Founder of TalentCulture, calls me the most patient person on Twitter. One day earlier in 2009 when back home with my parents, I saw Meghan tweeting with someone in my network, checked out her intriguing profile, and had a short Twitter conversation with her. Not sure if it was then or later, but I asked (maybe begged) her to do a guest post for Brainzooming.

She said she would, and I began my patient waiting. I'd reach out about once a month to see if she was still considering it, and each time she said she was. That was good enough for me!

In the meantime, we've talked by phone, paving the way for another great business relationship initiated on Twitter. So without further delay, here's Meghan's take on creativity + innovation in business (it's well worth the wait!):


We are a generation raised to believe we are creative. Some of us actually are lucky enough to be employed as creatives; the rest of us, who received colored markers and sketchbooks in kindergarten, must look for ways to draw out the sparks of creativity we secretly nurture while working as accountants, engineers, administrators or in other career paths not known for rewarding creativity.

The dirty little secret many people live with is that creativity is not usually rewarded in the workaday world. So how can we nurture creativity in our work? What are the warning signs that someone we work with is trying to sabotage our creativity, and what can we do to counter resistance?

First, let’s look at some quick creativity-boosters.

• Take time for someone else. The conventional wisdom is to take time for yourself, but turn that around, reach out of yourself and set aside 15 minutes a day to think about someone else, and how they are creative. Contemplate the different point of view this person presents; talk to them and ask questions about what they like, not what they do.
  
• Try something really new. Listen to music you think you don’t like. Commit to buying a CD or checking out live music– don’t just download a song - and listen to the whole thing. Sample new sounds and accept the challenge of something you wouldn’t normally choose.
  
• Ask a question. Then commit to listening to the answer and allowing what the other person says to influence your thoughts. Too often we have the answer we want to hear formulated before we ask a question.
  
• Learn something new every day. Commit to learning – and using – a new word every day. Or read history instead of a novel. Teach yourself to dance. Try something new and expand your perceptions, physical coordination and mental agility.

All of these things can be done easily, and all can make you a more creative person.

But what if you work with someone who seems to suck the creativity out of every situation? You know the signs: this person interrupts others or pushes away from a conference table with crossed arms when they hear something they don't agree with. This person can kill creativity by walking into a room – if you let it happen.

Here are a few ways to work with that person creatively and collaboratively:

• Look outside your context. Your experience of a person may be that he or she is not creative. Try to look at that person from his or her context – manager, colleague or employee – and open yourself to his or her experience of your comments.
  
• Use active listening. Listen to the person speak, restate what they said as a query, and add a comment of your own that brings in a new idea. Open up a closed mind by reassuring the person that you heard them - before you add your comments or ideas.
  
• Engage the person by taking the time to learn what he likes, and acknowledging that bit of humanity. Maybe this person reads a lot, or has a beloved dog, or loves to ski. These are cues to that person’s creativity, and acknowledging them gives you an emotional bargaining chip in your next attempt to infuse the workplace with creativity.
  
• Work incrementally. Someone who is uncomfortable with creative ideas may respond better to small changes than big, bold ideas. Keep your creative goal in mind but break it down into components and advance your position slowly. It’s worth the effort to see creativity bloom.

Dare to take every action with a spark of creativity and you’ll feed your soul and lift the mood of your workplace. What are your creativity-builders? - Meghan M. Biro

Research Review Week - Design Driven Deliverables

W5, a market research company based in Durham, NC is a strong proponent of “design driven deliverables,” defined as “any method of communicating research findings that goes beyond the standard research report.”

In a time when it seems like attention spans continue to decline, it's fundamental to be able to form research results into meaningful stories that carry an impact with your audience. Very often, if you're willing to push your thinking and spend some time on a deliverable, the right communication vehicle is anything but a standard research report.

W5 considers four types of design driven deliverables:

• Graphic – Results depicted visually in posters, booklets, stickers, note cards, etc.
• Sensory – Stimuli that engage the senses in various ways, including textures, audio, video, and smells.
• Experiential – An interactive presentation of results in ideation sessions, dramatization, experiential tours, immersion rooms.
• Installation – Physical environments that convey understanding, including displays, large scale murals, shadow boxes, and artifact installations.

You can check out more information through W5 white papers on this and other topics at company’s website. - Mike Brown

Remember to check out the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference website for updated tweets, videos, and articles from the conference. You can also track the conference at #amamrc on Twitter.

The Best Laid Plans Result from Creative Thinking - Guest Post by Sage Bray

I first connected with Sage Bray when she was nice enough to do a tweet pointing her Twitter followers to Brainzooming as a great blog for creative inspiration. Her Twitter name (@aSageInRealLife) and profile were both tremendously intriguing. Sage is involved in a very cool blend of freelance writing, art, and consulting with small businesses and solopreneurs. Her published work has appeared with Inc. Magazine, The Poor Chef, Examiner.com, and a myriad of other online periodicals. She blogs about making a living from creative endeavors on aSageInRealLife.com.

In today's guest blog, Sage shares her perspectives on the benefits of placing creative thinking at the heart of planning:


Creativity isn’t really about random inspiration although it does seem that way sometimes. What it is really about is exploring options. Instead of falling into the “It’s done that way because that’s always how it’s been done” mode of thinking, you step outside the box, break new ground, push the limits, or get radical. Those are acts of true creativity - an essential, but often overlooked, component for a growing, vibrant business.

Even if you ask for innovative thinking from your employees or yourself, it can still be a fairly rare occurrence. That’s because it’s too easy to jump at the first viable idea that comes along. I have a rule: I must come up with an absolute minimum of three solutions to any business problem—although I try for at least 10. This means lots of wacky, crazy ideas which are fun and do result in some really interesting ideas. But it’s having choices that forces me to compare the pros and cons and really analyze what is possible.

For instance, if you want to get the word out about, say, your new casino style gaming site, you may think it’s innovative to start a campaign on Facebook, get fans, and start networking on gaming forums. And you could, and probably should. But what else could you do? There is traditional print advertising, which is becoming the rare thing to do these days. Under certain circumstances though, that could be the best choice to direct your funds, especially if you have a very targeted market. How about getting someone to dress up as Elvis and pass out coupons for free trials at local festivals? Or offer free life-long subscriptions to a couple big entertainment bloggers? Are these viable solutions for your marketing? You may laugh at the idea of some guy dressed up as Elvis promoting your business, but I know several businesses that do exactly that and they have seen significant measurable increases from this kind of promotion. No solution is too crazy - not if it works.

However, being creative and innovative does not mean just doing it differently. It means doing it well, in the best way possible, using the ingenuity you draw from others and from your experiences. Keep up your reservoir of ideas by reading plenty of blogs and newsletters, attending trade shows and local meet-up groups, and brainstorming with colleagues.

Don’t limit your exposure to things related to your specific industry either. You can glean fantastic ideas from both related and unrelated industries by simply asking yourself how their innovative ideas can relate to what you do.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel (although that sometimes happens) to keep your business growing and flexible. But you do have to be prepared to do things differently and look for creative solutions to even the most common problems. Keep in mind, the objective is to do whatever you do well. Sometimes the answer you need will be something completely ordinary and what you’ve been doing all along. The thing is, you won’t know if it’s the best solution without thinking creatively about it. - Sage Bray

A Brainzooming Creativity Manifesto