Creative Reaction

Don the Idea Guy offers 10 Idea Inspiring Lightning Rods, a list of ways to constantly expose your creative self to potentially inspirational ideas.

Though this list is aimed at individuals, it works on a number of levels, and even more powerfully, for creative companies. Many of the ideas can be incorporated into the work environment; others could be used as social activities. Your company could:

• share magazines and paperback books
• arrange lunch hour or after-work museum field trips
• hold book discussions
• have show & tell once a week allowing team members to inspire one another
• play word games as teams
• have a variety of music on hand
• attend lectures
• participate in Pecha-Kucha
• create a Wiki of inspirational ideas and web sites
• take classes together (or even offer them on-site!)

Please add your own ideas in the comments!

It’s such a simple thing, yet we often allow ourselves to get “too busy” to take care of fundamentals such as feeding our souls. Managers, do your part to inspire those around you!

I’m a somewhat passive fan of architecture, mostly through the pages of Wired magazine and my RSS feeds, and I almost didn’t watch this TED video of architect Joshua Prince-Ramus describing the design process of Dallas’ Wyly Theater. And that would have been a shame.

But I did watch the video and I would urge you to do the same, even if you don’t care much for theater or architecture. Watch it to learn from the collaboration process involved. Watch it to think about your approach to your clients. Watch it to shape an inspirational environment for the artists you manage.

Another great TED video. This one by Julian Treasure about the ways (both positive and negative) that environmental sounds affect us, including a shocking statistic on open office noise. Managers and owners should watch this, especially when planning work spaces!

Lessons learned from moving startups to new offices via Lean Startups offers some excellent, practical advice about what to do once you’ve Bulldozed Your Cubicles. It also contains a link to one entrepreneur’s account of a company losing its edge after moving into a comfortable space.

Having an office environment that fosters creativity is a delicate balance. Too few comforts can prevent work from getting done. Too many comforts and you go soft.

(Click on the “environment” tag for numerous posts on this subject.)

Last Spring, Wired Magazine had a pictorial on the evolution of the cubicle farm, offering a glimmer of hope by stating that today’s designers are trying to “part the sea of cubicles and encourage sociability”.

Harvard Business Publishing suggests parting them with a bulldozer.

“Cubicle cultures just don’t work… (they) discourage collaboration, stifle employee engagement and, as a result, strangle innovation at the exact time when it’s desperately needed.”

What does work? An environment offering a combination of private space to get work done and communal spaces for collaboration.

Read both articles for short profiles and office furniture companies offering alternatives.

Who would think that a 128-slide HR presentation could be inspirational? This one  has statements such as, “Imagine if every person at Netflix is someone you respect and learn from”. Try to keep in mind this is a company that is big enough to be publicly traded.

TechCrunch has some great commentary and the embedded slide deck, which can be viewed full-screen.

Managers, set aside some time to scour this Netflix presentation. And be prepared to take notes.

I came across Where I Write in Wired magazine. It is a photo essay by Kyle Cassidy, which documents the creative work spaces of Science Fiction and Fantasy writers. Soon the photos as well as interviews with the authors will be compiled into a book. Where I Write is now in the sidebar (under “Inspiration”) along with On My Desk and This Ain’t No Disco. Check them all out and be inspired!

This article from the Idea Champions archives explains the process of creating a culture of innovation where none yet exists, and aptly chooses the metaphor of clearing brush and planting a garden. As the article states, creating such a culture is simple, yet it’s hard work!

Springwise profiles Creative Caravan, a house-swapping/subletting service that caters to the creative industry. Great idea!

“Will the niche service be able to compete with established behemoths like Craigslist? Creative Caravan feels there’s a degree of trust in sub-letting to someone from the same industry, making both parties feel more comfortable with having a stranger inhabit their home. Network-building and a shared focus on aesthetics could be added benefits.”

Could be the perfect way to work on a script or a novel, or simply work outside the office.

Harvard Business Publishing has an excellent 10-lesson post about “organizations whose strong and adaptive ownership cultures give them a powerful competitive edge” distilling years of research and insight. In a sentence, a healthy corporate culture leads to happy employees and happy customers. Short, but very meaty post, much of which applies to Small and Medium Businesses. Chew well.

The Heart of Innovation features this brainstorming primer. A post with two LONG lists; twenty-six brainstorming failures, then twenty-six antidotes/opposites.

Life is too short for negatives. Skip down to the positives. Creativity will flourish given constraints, focus, ground rules and conditions.

What a great Topic. Wait. Harvard Business Publishing? Really?

Oh, it’s Gina Trapani of LifeHacker guestblogging. Alles klar.

• READ the post.
• DO everything it says (thus leading by example).
• BUDGET so that your staff can do everything it says. (Especially the part about a good chair and monitor real estate!)
• TRAIN so that your staff can do everything it says.
• ROCK.

I came across this really interesting article on Boston.com today, entitled, How the city hurts your brain …And what you can do about it. Recent research is showing that the hustle and bustle of the city – traffic, retail signage, noise, crowds, people talking on cell phones and especially navigating (on foot) through all of the above - essentially overwhelms the brain, leaving little processing power for much else.

“While the modern city might be a haven for playwrights, poets, and physicists, it’s also a deeply unnatural and overwhelming place.”

“Scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control.”

The cure for this urban-induced mental blight is nature, even in small amounts. Trees, plants, gardens and parks can have a significant, positive counter-effect. “Natural settings, in contrast, don’t require the same amount of cognitive effort.”

“While people have searched high and low for ways to improve cognitive performance, from doping themselves with Red Bull to redesigning the layout of offices, it appears that few of these treatments are as effective as simply taking a walk in a natural place.”

There are a number of considerations here for managers/owners of creative businesses, all of which affect attitude and creativity:

• Where are our businesses located?
• Should we consider relocating once our leases are up for renewal?
• Can we include plants and small trees in our workspace designs?
• Can we design our workspaces in a manner that allows outdoor views of greenery?
• How can we encourage our employees to spend more time outdoors during the workday and over the weekends?

I happen to spend quite a bit of time on Newbury Street in Boston, which is mentioned twice within the article, so I especially need to be aware of the dangers here! Looks like I should spend a little more time a block over on Commonwealth Ave., which has a mall. (The green kind; “a shady public walk or promenade”.)

“I make more mistakes than anyone I know. And eventually I patent them.”
-Thomas Edison

Harvard Business Publishing’s Discussion Leader Blog has a post about the value of learning from mistakes, which is an ongoing theme here at CR. (See here, here, and here.) The post is framed by current political discussion of choosing leaders, so for those of you who need a break, I’ve excised the good stuff and brought it here.

In choosing leaders “most people seek a litany of accomplishments that demonstrate sound judgment, and failure is considered radioactive.” This is a shame, as “the character and worldview of leaders are shaped not via their accomplishments but by their setbacks in the crucibles of challenge”.

Shifting gears slightly to look at “mistakes” in a business context, the post points to a Business Week cover story, saying that “breakthroughs depend on failure, and the best companies leverage their mistakes” and that “according to that article, ‘breakthrough innovation… requires well-honed organizations built for efficiency and speed to do that what feels unnatural: Explore. Experiment. Foul up, sometimes. Then repeat.’” (italics mine) This is a business principal known as “intelligent fast failure.”

So experimentation and honest mistakes should be expected and encouraged as many creative breakthroughs are happy accidents. Are we encouraging creativity and innovation in our workplaces through experimentation and fast failure? Or are we stifling creativity by quashing mistakes?

The romantic notion of being a creative recluse in a cabin by a lake in the woods is far from the day-to-day reality of a collaborative creative business. Time management as well as the “management” of interpersonal relationships is an integral part of work.

Making Time to Make by Merlin Mann of 43Folders deals with exactly these concerns from the creative person’s perspective. We’re going to repurpose Merlin’s article to take a look at meeting creatives’ needs from a managerial perspective.

One of the keys to productivity is making a conscious choice to determine the most important thing to be working on at any given time. Of course, this choice alone is not enough; structures and conditions must be present to shelter creatives from distractions and the office environment must be conducive to creativity. Ultimately, it is up to managers to ensure these conditions are present.

Merlin’s article is primarily about interactions with people and determining what is appropriate; specifically, interacting with people “enough”, yet not so much that work is inhibited. It asks a series of questions (and I’ve added a few of my own) to optimize both work and creative output.

Environment/Conditions:

• What kind of environment does my talent need to do its best work? The needs may change depending upon personalities, moods, energy, and even the time of day.
• What can I change today to protect that environment for extended blocks of time?
• How much busy work is expected of the creatives? Meetings? Paperwork?
• Does the busy work support the creative work by optimizing blocks of time or inhibit it?
• Can you assist with the busy work or hire an assistant to do this for the creatives?

Time to Create:

• How can we allow our creatives to be “unavailable” for blocks of time?
• How can we keep interruptions away from them?
• Can we shield them from phone calls, e-mail, IMs, and meetings?
• How can we structure work schedules to allow blocks of time to work?

We need the entire company as well as clients and collaborative third-parties to understand the reasoning for this.

Finally, creatives need to be trained to be social and yet stay on task. “Creative breaks” such as foosball or video games are healthy in small doses.

• Which kinds of interaction with clients and co-workers are necessary?
• Can we encourage mealtime interaction?
• Do co-workers make unnecessary demands on your creatives’ attention?
• Can we run interference if need be?

We may need to be the bad guy for them. Enforce a kind of elitism where you help shape interaction to focus on the bigger picture, whether that be the current project, client service, or long-term career decisions. Some requests for attention do not even deserve a response.

Ultimately, this is about keeping perspective. Creatives’ ideas are our company’s products; they’re often the primary source of income. Everything that gets in the way of ideas is a waste of precious talent, so let’s allow creativity to flourish!