The Brainzooming Group

The June Fast Company features its list of The 100 Most Creative People in Business 2013. Last year, we used the issue as a point of departure to share ideas, tips, and thought starters inspired by each of the creative people on the list. Last year’s series of Brainzooming posts based on the 100 Most Creative People in Business 2012 has received great attention all year long, and for this year, we’re taking a bit of a twist.

Given interest in the recent Brainzooming post highlighting more than 200 strategic planning questions, we used the stories from the most creative people in business list to generate strategic thinking questions inspired by the varied creative successes represented in the issue.

As with last year’s Brainzooming recap, these questions AREN’T in the Fast Company issue. Instead, we applied our technique of taking a case study and imagining the questions that would inspire someone else to get to the same place as the person or business in the case study.

So to repeat: this is ALL NEW CONTENT you’ll be reading throughout our series of posts. Later in the week, I’ll explain WHY I’m being so emphatic about this being content you won’t see in Fast Company. Stay tuned for that!

Branding and Customer Experience Questions Inspired by the Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business 2013

Today’s list includes twenty-five strategic thinking questions on branding and customer experience. Later in the week, we’ll feature questions on creativity, content marketing, insights, and strategy.

Branding Questions

How can you change your brand experience to cause people to want to spend more time with the brand? (12. Liz Muller - DIRECTOR OF CONCEPT DESIGN, STARBUCKS)

How would an artist create a live art event starring your brand? (16. Ai Weiwei – ARTIST)

What could you do to grow a large enough audience and facilitate a way for them to want to talk about your brand more and longer? (19. Fred Graver - HEAD OF TV TEAM, TWITTER)

If “cute” is part of your brand personality, how can you make your brand experience more childlike to enhance its “cuteness”? (22. Phill Ryu and David Lanham - FOUNDERS, IMPENDING)

What do your customers love about your brand, and how do you respect what they love when you freshen your brand experience? (25. Jason Wilson - LEAD PRODUCT DESIGNER, PINTEREST)

What are the hidden aspects of your brand experience that hold new, untold, and intriguing stories? (63. Roman Mars - HOST, 99% INVISIBLE)

How can you start serving the cool part of a market that isn’t being served sufficiently? (68. Rosie O’Neill and Josh Resnick - COFOUNDERS, SUGARFINA)

Customer Experience Questions

If your product were completely interactive with a user’s touch, why would it be exciting for them to touch the product? (15. Ivan Poupyrev - SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST, DISNEY RESEARCH)

What are you doing to add more personalization (that provides value) into your customer experience? (17. Michelle Peluso - CEO, GILT GROUPE)

How would fewer choices make things easier and better for your customers? (67. Aerin Lauder - FOUNDER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, AERIN)

How can you offer customers a smaller set of options, but give them more flexibility and higher performance as a trade-off? (30. Bob Mathews and Gary Chow - SENIOR RADIO FREQUENCY ENGINEERS, AT&T)

If you redesigned your business – even if it’s a stodgy business – around delivering “more fun for customers,” what would have to change about your customer experience? (35. Alli Webb - FOUNDER, DRYBAR)

How would your brand’s customer experience change if you designed it for the lowest common denominator technology instead of the newest technology? (4. Kirthiga Reddy - DIRECTOR OF ONLINE OPERATIONS, FACEBOOK INDIA)

What can you do to translate what you know about your customers into pleasant surprises for them? (46. Jackie Wilgar - EVP OF MARKETING, LIVE NATION)

What are new ways you can turn customer research efforts into customer design opportunities? (48. Tina Wells - FOUNDER, CEO, BUZZ MARKETING GROUP)

In what ways could you create opportunities for your customers to meet, talk, and bond? (56. Sarah Simmons – CHEF, CITY GRIT)

How can you make the online and offline experiences of your brand have the same feel? (64. Tare Lemmey - CEO, NET POWER & LIGHT)

If your customers don’t have a 100% success rate with your product or service, how can you make it more like something they can do/use with complete success? (66. Michael Buckwald and David Holz - COFOUNDERS, LEAP MOTION)

What can you do to feed information to customers about what other customers are thinking / choosing / doing right now? (70. Kevin Bruner - PRESIDENT, CTO, TELLTALE GAMES)

In what ways can you bring together people who wouldn’t otherwise meet but would find value in doing so? (71. Caroline Ghosn - FOUNDER, CEO, LEVO LEAGUE)

How could you turn a complicated process in your customer experience into a one-step process? (73. Katelyn Gleason - COFOUNDER, CEO, ELIGIBLE)

If your product requires training to use, what do you need to change about it so you can eliminate all training? (74. Aneel Bhusri - COFOUNDER, CO–CEO, WORKDAY)

What is pre-planned in your customer experience that would benefit from being spontaneous, and how can you make that happen? (75. Andy Cohen - TV HOST, EVP OF TALENT AND DEVELOPMENT, BRAVO)

How can you make it easier for potential customers to go from receiving a reminder about your brand to taking action (with telepathic communication as the end goal)? (85. Grace Woo - FOUNDER, PIXELS.IO)

If combining live events, social, and crowdsourcing is where it’s at, how do you use social to let the crowd, whether in-person or remotely, influence your event? (87. Bozoma Saint John - DIRECTOR OF CULTURAL BRANDING, MUSIC, AND ENTERTAINMENT, PEPSICO)

Mike Brown

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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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We’re big believers in strong connections between strategy and creative work. It’s been a topic on the blog, and it’s a key component of the strategic thinking workshops I conduct.

Strategy and Creative Work Passing in the Daylight

I was talking recently with someone involved on a team creating a response for a customer inquiry. For various reasons, team members building the strategy for the response worked separately from those addressing the creative elements. Since the strategy people and the creative people were working one after the other, instead of together, a variety of late in the process issues developed.

As the person sharing the story related it, some issues were addressed successfully, many were addressed in a compromised fashion, and some were never addressed in an integrated way.

Eeeek!

5 Reasons Strategy and Creative Work Must Be Integrated

Listening to this person’s frustration prompts these five reasons it’s vital for strategy and creative work to be integrated. In this example, all five reasons contributed to falling short in creating an optimal response.

When a strategy and creative team are working together . . .

1. The creative team can do initial design with an integrated view of the end product

Without knowing key decisions the strategy team was making over the course of a week, the creative team sat idle awaiting input. By the time creative team members received the nearly final content, team members were behind the gun to get the creative design turned around with adequate review time to meet the deadline.

2. It allows the strategy team to efficiently deliver direction and content

The strategy team didn’t understand the final format the creative team was creating. As a result, they threw “stuff” over the wall to the creative team in ways that made sense from a strategic standpoint. What was convenient for the strategy team wasn’t optimal for the creative team, unfortunately, since the divided team didn’t talk throughout the development process.

3. Clarifying questions from the creative team can be placed in context

As the work moved into creative development, the creative team asked for more input from the strategy team. Because strategy team members lacked a frame of reference, they viewed the request as too encompassing for the time available. The result was the strategy team passed on sharing additional information. After the fact, strategy team members discovered they had over-estimated what the creative team was asking for in the request, creating a gap that went unaddressed.

4. It keeps creative team members from guessing when needing to fill last minute blanks

No matter how well a process is planned and managed, there will be last minute details and gaps to be filled. In this case, because the strategy and creative teams were disconnected, the creative team wound up filling last minute blanks without sufficient input. Some blanks were filled appropriately; others weren’t.

5. The creative team won’t leave out important things because they don’t fit the design

The strategy team had made decisions about the customer response’s positioning and compelling support points to reinforce the recommendation. Lacking visibility to the decisions or a strategic understanding why it received some of the content, the creative team varied the positioning and left out significant detail behind the support points. Why? The content didn’t fit the design and creative direction developed in isolation.

Sounds like a cluster? That’s why strategy and creative efforts need to be integrated.

As a former associate used to say, “This wasn’t open heart surgery. No one died.”

That’s certainly true in this case, but the disconnect between the strategy and creative teams created a needlessly under-optimized business result. That’s just one reason why when we’re conducting a live strategy, business performance, or innovation workshop for a client, we push for having both strategic and creative team members included.

You can’t have one or the other group represented and expect the most successful result.

Are you with us on how imperative it is to connect strategy and creative work? What do you do to make sure it happens as successfully as possible? – Mike Brown

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Learn all about Mike Brown’s creative thinking and innovation presentations!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Hang on with me as we slam together a couple of apparently random experiences this week. Trust me; we’ll wind up with a strategic lesson here.

Instigating a Strategic Lesson

A reading at morning mass this week from the Gospel of John involved Jesus talking about the apostles being “in the world” but not “of” the world. The point is since His followers should focus on the importance of a heavenly reward, time in this world needs to be marked by a sense of detachment. While human functioning, making a living, and being of service to others are important, the expectation is to resist becoming overly enamored with things (in particular) that belong to this world since they are fleeting relative to eternity.

This may seem a simple enough statement, but the world beckons so strongly with so many attractive diversions – both good and (many) bad – that it’s an incredibly challenging call to live out successfully.

Another Version of the Strategic Lesson

My trainer recently had me begin using myfitnesspal, a weight and fitness monitoring app. I whined like crazy, but within days, the accountability of logging all my exercise and everything I ate changed my behavior dramatically. Seeing the numbers behind my eating caused me to cut down on snacking, especially late at night when I am writing.

One number that surprises me daily is the outrageous amount of sodium in pre-prepared foods.

One day I had a partial order of leftover Chinese food for lunch, munched an appetizer at a happy hour meeting, and ate a sandwich based on a recipe from my family’s former restaurant that my wife made for dinner. When everything was plugged into myfitnesspal, my daily sodium intake was nearly double the recommended amount. The surprising thing about my huge sodium intake is I pick up a salt shaker once a year – maybe.  I don’t add salt to food.

Slamming Two Experiences Together

If you had asked me before myfitnesspal, I’d have confidently told you I was “IN but not OF a salt-filled world.”

My gigantic sodium number tells a very different story tough.

It’s clear that through uninformed and lackadaisical decision making about what I eat daily, there is way too much sodium in my diet. What has seemed harmless or not even an issue is, I now realize, something harmful.

And the Strategic Lesson Is?

As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to decide what you plan to do to build your business.

It seems even easier though, to pursue other enticing (potentially overhyped) possibilities that promise to build your business – but not directly and not right away.

In my case, these activities include creating content in lots of venues, exploring intriguing possibilities, and putting additional time into opportunities that once seemed promising. They all tend to be about reaching a new / different / bigger audience that SHOULD yield even greater success than the same old audience.

Absent some way to measure and monitor how much time, energy, and effort is going into all these enticing activities relative to the solid activities to build a business however, you can get away completely from what matters for your business.

The cumulative impact is you wind up being not just in a world of overhyped possibilities, but spending most of your available time on them.

When we started The Brainzooming Group, I sketched out a decision making hierarchy for ranking and narrowing promising but more speculative activities. Because of my interest in trying new things and challenges in saying “No,” that decision hierarchy is still in a long-ago shelved notebook.

So the strategic lesson from these random events this week is it’s time to actually apply the decision making hierarchy and stick to it.

How about you? Can you benefit from this strategic lesson in your business?

By the way, thanks for hanging on with me to get here. – Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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This month’s #Ideachat (organized by Angela Dunn on Twitter) was guest hosted by author Jennifer Louden and focused on the extent to which people either claim or hide borrowing ideas from others. Jumping in late, the group was addressing topics such as the impact on your creativity of others borrowing your creative ideas and whether ideas can be “owned” in this day and age.

On the former topic, my response was it all depends on who borrowed the creative idea, if I wanted them to borrow it, & whether they matched up my ideas or content with other people. If they put me in good company, that can be quite a kick.

If you’re really intent on getting something done and think you have a creative idea to realize positive change, the best thing that can happen is others claiming ownership of your ideas. Maybe you accomplish this by being obvious and blatantly saying, “Here, TAKE MY IDEA!” Often though, you have to be much more subtle and kind of leave your creative idea “mentally” laying around for others to find and claim . . . much like they might pick a coin up off the ground and consider it found money.

Leave Your Ideaprints on a Creative Idea

As the #Ideachat group discussed idea ownership, my response was that in the world of social media, it seems you own an idea by being able to point to your first use and predominant sharing of it. I cited Joe Pulizzi and content marketing as a prime example. Joe put a term to the concept, developed it, and shared it for others to expand upon it. What was important was it was readily apparent Joe Pulizzi was the first person everyone remembers talking about content marketing as an idea.

As I tweeted during #Ideachat, when you put an idea out there for others to use, it’s a good idea to leave your “ideaprints” all over it, just as Joe did.

Just like finerprints, ideaprints are indicators you had your brain all over an idea before releasing it into the world. Maybe the idea was yours originally. Maybe you adapted the idea from something else. Either way, if you’ve added value to an idea, your ideaprints signal your brain touched the idea somewhere (ideally early) in its life.

I’m sure Seth Godin has written about something like ideaprints, and there’s a marketing company using the name, but here some ideas for how to place your ideaprints on an idea:

1. Secure the typical and appropriate legal protections available – copyright, trademark, patent
2. Develop a unique or at least distinctive name to describe the idea
3. Frequently use the distinctive name you created online and in other places
4. Develop your idea into a more fully fledged concept
5. Author a great deal of content about the idea that continues to expand on, describe, and make it more usable by others
6. Make it easy for others to advance the idea whether in total or in part
7. Create an organization that embodies your idea
8. Cultivate a group of people who will point back to you when others ask them where they heard of the idea
9. License the idea to others

There are definitely more ways to leave ideaprints, but amid our #Ideachat conversation, those were the first ones that came to mind.

Making It Obvious Your Brain Was All Over a Creative Idea

I think being adept at leaving ideaprints on your most important ideas is an important skill to hone.

One of the last #Ideachat topics covered whether challenges in attributing ideas in the 21st century will lead to more or less creativity. My answer was it depends on the attitude people have toward ideas. People who spend their time chasing down others to protect their ideas will spend a lot less time on generating ideas and a disproportionate amount of time on idea protection.

Far better to spend much of your time coming up with ideas, a little time being more obvious with your ideaprints, and most of your time making things happen with your ideas – whether it’s you or others doing big things with them! – Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Learn all about Mike Brown’s creative thinking and innovation presentations!

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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The June 2013 issue of Psychology Today includes an article on “The Enemies of Invention.”

It is a compilation article featuring five authors’ perspectives on factors standing in the way of creativity and innovation.

The article also includes creative ideas from each author on how to get around these impediments to creativity.

Creative Ideas for Defeating “Enemies of Invention”

Here are snapshots of each of the five authors’ perspectives, along with our Brainzooming point of view on these creative ideas:

1. The Danger of Starting in the Same Old Place by Art Markum

“Don’t think differently. Think about different things.” 

The point is when we start from the same frame of reference as the creative challenge we face, we come up with run-of-the-mill ideas. Instead, we have to begin by thinking about other things from different perspectives. Brainzooming Article: What’s It Like?

2. Fear of Failure Narrows Vision by Peter Gray

We “work best when we are playing, not when we are striving for praise as a reward.” 

To be creative, don’t be so serious so much! Have some fun and play! Brainzooming Article: Kids and Creativity

3. Concentration Is Creativity’s Killer by Sian Beilock

 ”Turning your attention to something that requires just a little bit of concentration is a better way to jump-start the creative process.” 

Don’t concentrate so much on the task at hand. To instigate your creative possibilities, free up space in your mind to let your creativity work. Brainzooming Article: Finding a Huge Task to Avoid

4. The Downside of Avoiding Imitation by Christopher J. Sprigman and Kal Raustiala

“In practice, creativity is a cumulative process, one that often involves tweaking, adapting, and melding existing creations.” 

As we say so often, borrow existing ideas and twist them into new creative ideas all your own. Brainzooming Article: Lessons in Borrowing Creative Ideas

5. Battling Boredom Thwarts Serendipity by Peter Bregman

“Wasted moments are ones in which we often unconsciously connect the dots.” 

Resist the temptation to fill your head and attention with stuff that gets in the way of creativity. You’ll be much better off if you pursue empty-headed creativity! Brainzooming Article: Perhaps not surprisingly, we don’t have an article on doing nothing as a way to spur creativity. We’ll have to get on that right away!  - Mike Brown

If these creative ideas for defeating enemies of invention intrigue you, check out the links below for each of these authors’ books (affiliate links):

                                                                                  (Affiliate Links to Books)

Learn all about Mike Brown’s creative thinking and innovation presentations!

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Talking with a senior executive about creative ideas and strategic planning for his organization, he mentioned being a published business cartoonist. He showed me his very funny cartoons that appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal, among other noteworthy business publications.

I asked him how someone not cartooning full-time managed to publish cartoons in the Wall Street Journal. He directed me toward a publication with specific details for the types of content publications seek for their audiences and how to submit ideas. Ultimately, he said it’s a numbers game where you have to actively and regularly submit enough creative ideas to get some cartoons published.

Getting Your Creative Ideas Out There

On the surface, what he shared is common sense. In fact, playing the creative ideas numbers game and the importance of content resonating with the intended audience are topics we’ve covered here.

The big surprise for me though was you don’t have to be a full-time cartoonist to submit cartoons to publications.

Why my surprise?

As a kid, I submitted a variety of stamptoons (drawn cartoons which incorporate a postage stamp in the design) to Boys’ Life magazine. All my stamptoons were summarily rejected and returned with a letter saying they weren’t up to the magazine’s standards.

While that was a one-time rejection for a twelve year old, I took it as a general pronouncement my cartoons weren’t good and there was no need to submit them anywhere ever again unless I happened to develop into being a professional cartoonist.

Even though I kept drawing cartoons and even created a business humor blog largely featuring cartoons, it had NEVER occurred to me to submit cartoons to a publication.

Overcoming Rejection of Your Creative Ideas

You see, so much material in the Brainzooming blog is offered for your benefit. The impetus for much (most?) of it, however, is the need to regularly work through MY OWN blocks, fears, and apprehensions with creative ideas.

There is no reason in the world why I couldn’t take a shot at getting cartoons published, but it had never occurred to me as a possibility before last week. Because of an anonymous person at a kids’ magazine years ago who didn’t like my creative ideas, I have only shared my cartoons on my own sites online because I allowed my creative horizons to be squelched.

I’m not sure what to say for myself other than that if you struggle with whether you are creative or talented enough, keep trying to figure out what works for you to get beyond your creative apprehensions. Maybe it’s reading. Maybe it’s doing. Maybe it’s talking to someone who is doing something with the types of creative ideas you’d like to do but never imagined you could.

Whatever it is, don’t ever give up on the search for sharing your creative ideas. – Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you improve your creative thinking skills and generate fantastic ideas! To boost your organization’s innovation success, contact TheBrainzooming Group to help you rapidly expand strategic options and create strong implementation plans. Email us atinfo@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we’ll deliver these benefits for you.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Event marketing can be part of the brand building strategy for an organization of any size. While the size and scale of an event will vary based your organization’s objectives, if you’re investing in event marketing, you want it to support your strategy and work as hard for you as possible.

12 Articles on Event Marketing and Developing Memorable Audience Experiences

These twelve event marketing articles from the Brainzooming blog archive provide a strong starting point for moving an idea for an event marketing effort into a solid brand building strategy.

Creating Memorable Audience Experiences

A three part formula for designing and creating memorable audience experiences through event marketing.

Making Every Occasion an Event

An approach to making every gathering an event to maximize the impact with your audience. Whenever multiple people come together, take the time to make it special.

A Checklist for Integrated Program Planning Success

While not specifically event-related, the steps you’ll want to take to integrate your event with other activities in your organization are all here.

Sponsorship Strategy – Attention, Strong ROI, and a Non-Traditional Strategy

An overview of the strategy The Brainzooming Group used to create and roll-out a non-traditional sponsorship strategy related to the Google Fiber implementation in Kansas City. It’s a formula other organizations can use successfully for event marketing .

Free Speech? Try a “Fair Trade” Speech Strategy Instead

Speakers can be a big cost item in event marketing programs. It’s smart to invest in speakers who can deliver compelling content to create memorable audience experiences. If the budget it tight, however, here are ways to create real value to help attract strong speakers with fewer dollars.

Project Management Techniques – 6 Project Manager Mistakes to Not Repeat

Again, this isn’t exclusive to events, but many of the situations behind these project management lessons were born out of producing big corporate event programs.

Fireworks Displays-10 Event Secrets for Fourth of July Excitement

You can take a variety of event planning cues from a fireworks display to apply to your event.

An Innovative Business Conference Audience Experience – 7 Vital Elements

If you’re going to promote your conference as innovative, you had better incorporate these seven elements.

Capturing Big Ideas and Strategic Connections: Big Ideas in Higher Education Conference

This is a great companion to the previous article on creating an innovative business conference. The Big Ideas in Higher Education Conference was the height of a new type of event.

Create Lasting Memories in Online Events – 10 Ways to Do It

Ten specific ideas for creating memorability specific to online events.

Customize a Customer Brand Experience Very Simply

Customizing a customer brand experience doesn’t have to high tech. You can do it by knowing your audience along with a piece of paper.

Kansas City Marketing Communications and Social Media Panel Take-Aways

When you’re doing event marketing, build your strategy around how to make peoples’ dreams come true through a unique event. - Mike Brown

Subscribe for Free to the Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic new ideas! For an organizational creativity boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these innovation benefits for you.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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