Kickstart your creativity

Do you ever feel as though you are in a creative slump? One of my students flat out told me that she hadn't done any work on an assignment to create a portfolio of six ad campaigns because she didn't have any ideas.'None?' I asked. 'Not one.' she replied.
Curious, I asked what she had done to attempt to find some ideas. Had she looked down the back of the couch? Had she dropped a tab of acid?...or perhaps something a little more mundane like reading the brief carefully and looking for clues in the products themselves? The truth was she didn't have any ideas because she hadn't done any work.
Laziness is not conducive to having ideas and certainly not useful in exploring where they might develop (too many people stop when they think they an idea that might work - but I subscribe to thought that nothing is more dangerous than an idea-if it is the only one you have).

The bottom line is that creativity is work (magnum opus, opera, operation...).
Forget about being visited by the muse.
Step one is to address the problem to be solved. The likelihood that you will serendipitously arrive at a viable solution is nil if you haven't prepared your mind with the facts and information - the raw materials - creative problem solving.

Step two is to have some fun. Play with ideas. Join things up in surprising new ways.

Make a start.

And if you get stuck try reading A whack on the side of the head. It might help. Anything is better than just sitting there looking worried.

Comments

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...

ThoughtSpurs

Search This Blog