OLDIES, GOODIES ... AND TODAY

Critics love to bash the now.

Trashing the au courant simply means that, whatever the medium, whatever the solution, it can’t stand up to the tried and the true.  Like “melts in your mouth, not in your hands.”  J&J’s response to the Tylenol tamperings.  The magic of Apple fans.

We don’t buy it. 

Sure, Mad Men and the ever-increasing wave of nostalgia for past songs, themes, and content is one trend.  Yet the richnesses of our collective experiences and our tech obsessions are way diverse, and way too numerous to say “yesterday was better.”

Today is a time that calls for innovation in the face of eight-second attention spans.  It cries for strategic thinking when confronted with employees who are overloaded with messaging and conflicting priorities.  And it clamors for changes in behaviors when, on the surface, all seem calm and unperturbed.

And that’s why the now is so exhausting to those of us who try to drive actions inside and outside.  Figuring out cohorts and developing and measuring campaigns that will make that needle move are the 21^st century’s challenge.  We’ve got to juggle roles as psychologists, market researchers, brand protectors, and premier communicators to succeed.  We need to study up on learning methodologies, software programs, and visual motivation (among many other topics) to ensure that our clients and our companies work well in this confusing and complex world.

Would you have it any other way?

READY, SET ... DRAW!

There’s something to be said for doodling during meetings.

According to Presidential biographers, our nation’s leaders indulged – a lot.  JFK drew sailboats; Reagan, cowboys and hats.  And Eisenhower, pictures of himself as a younger, stronger citizen.

The growing presence of whiteboards in the office, not to mention the increased number of virtual meetings, begs for white paper and pen (or pencil) to illustrate.   Drawing while otherwise occupied might, for sure, be a symptom of boredom; at the same time, it allows us to focus on what’s being said.

That kind of child’s play appears in other parts of work life:  mainly, in those corporations where imagination and innovation seem to be treasured.  HP devoted Friday post-lunch afternoons to thinking and tinkering, while 3M’s famous 15 percent “to do your own thing” came up with such hits as Post-it notes.  Today, Apple, LinkedIn, and Fusenet, among others, allow techies specific amounts of time to dream, develop, and create products or initiatives that will further the business’ goals.

Wait, though:  True experimentation, very often, results in failure after failure after failure … before netting any type of success.  How lenient are companies in allowing their best and brightest to continue to think after a series of no-gos?  Will goals and structured space generate great ideas that turn into worthwhile and revenue-producing products?   Are the innovators among us seduced by the 9-to-5 and accompanying benefits?

Or what we’d suggest:  Let’s decamp to a nursery school or kindergarten and watch, for a few hours, how children play.  What they do in terms of toys, space, and each other to create an environment in which they are genuinely happy, expressive, and, yes, inventive.  

It’s something we’ve lost.  But we – and our employers - can regain it. 

How?  Your answers more than welcome at cbyd.co.

SPEED KILLS!

Okay, our headline was a cheap trick … but we hope we grabbed your attention.

When we talk “speed,” it’s referring to the amazing work sprint, the time spent, from start to finish, on any one project, any one deliverable.   That race applies to those of us in creative and consulting fields as well as our colleagues employed in manufacturing and retail positions.

The question then becomes:  Why?  In our humble opinion, it’s caused by what researchers call the confluence of events.  Think about it:

• Quite simply, digital means fast.  We’re accustomed to orders acknowledged in nano-seconds, to 140-character tweets, to FourSquare apps that immediately email receipts.  Why not for work?
• Industry and competitor pressures don’t help.  “First to market” seems to be the bible for many CPG and tech companies, with “fast follower” a close second.  [And you know what that means for all department heads and executives.]
• Business quicks.  A number of years ago, the giant SAP released its ASAP program … yes, shortcuts to implementing enterprise resource planning software (which typically eats money, and time, and resources).  Beyond IT, everyone is looking for the immediate or near-instant solutions, from home plumbing issues to worker productivity tools.

But what fast doesn’t allow is the ability to plan, to think, and to go with your gut.  In the creative biz, agencies are now competing against briefs completed in less than a day.  The time-honored RFP process is being shortened, not by days, but by weeks.  Sure, there are ways to stave off the speedy wolf at the door, but at what cost?

Here’s our call:  Set reasonable timeframes, realizing that everyone has his/her own pace.  Allow space for quality thinking … which can happen at any time, individually and in groups.  And recognize that the “Eureka!” moment, whether for product innovation or a campaign, works best in association with a multitude of other activities and thoughts.

STORMING AND FORMING, JAMMING AND SLAMMING

It started, innocuously, with an ad exec detailing his brainstorming process in 1953.

Thanks to Alex Osborn and his Applied Imagination, millions have faithfully followed his prescription for ideation.  Simply put, the greater the number of ideas generated, the more likely a winner or two will emerge.

Today, that’s so outdated.  Pundits and scholars alike poo-poo that methodology, each group creating their own version of the ‘storm. 

Some contend the fault lies in the admonition to “withhold all criticism until later.”  Others chime in, asserting that a constructive conflict is necessary to create healthy (or unhealthy) discussions.   What will matter most is the composition of the group, say psychologists, since great output is heavily reliant on different perspectives.  After all, they emphasize, discussions in a familiar setting with comfortable work colleagues do not lead to innovative solutions.

The extreme perspective:    Groupthink doesn’t work well.

How do we get inspired, anyway?  Many count on innovation communities, where conversation flows and participants are free to join (or not).  The pinnacle of that is jamming, a process first popularized by IBM in 2003 when figuring out its values.  Rules of the road, of course, accompany the jam: small teams, clear definitions, opt-in attendees help unearth new ideas.

In our opinion (and you just knew we had one!), more than the architecture and lists are the freedom and space to create.  We’ve held solving sessions in all formats, from traditional to online discussions.  What drives us to the right solutions, in most cases, is our focus on different industries, different experiences, and, yes, the unusual associations between the two.  Sometimes, it happens in one meeting.  Sometimes, outside that venue – in a shower, on a morning run, reading at night.  It’s not something that can be mandated within a certain period.  It just, er, happens.

As easily as peanut butter and jelly- jam.