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It’s always fun when there is a perspective from Dilbert on creativity. I’ll admit my surprise though the first time I read through the Sunday Dilbert as the boss looks for an employee who is creative.  This particular Dilbert comic seems ripe for being viewed as insensitive.

The more I thought about this Dilbert comic (and trust me this is not a perspective based on schooled psychology) though, it illustrates a point at the heart of so many messages about creativity and innovation on this blog.

This potential employee claims his particular combination of ADHD, dyslexia, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia definitely makes him creative, with Dilbert checking the Internet to find each of them does indeed correlate highly with creativity.

Who Is Creative and Who Is Not?

When you think about it, those conditions and other genetic or developmental issues people have that are considered outside the “norm” cause them to experience, process, and respond to life in very different ways than most of society does. Those differences may be more frequently perceived as “creative” specifically because they aren’t the typical responses of most people.

We see creativity in unique, or at least unusual, responses we wouldn’t have imagined. If everyone had been able to come up with comparable responses, they’d be run of the mill and not creative.

Learning from Dilbert on Creativity

That’s why it’s vital, if you want to be more consistently creative, to mine the perspectives you have or can manufacture that place you outside the norm. These atypical perspectives can cause you to experience, process, and respond in very different ways than everyone else might, thus enhancing your creativity.

Where do those atypical views come from in your life?

They can emerge from a variety of places, including these:

• Your distinctive talents and interests
• From how people with different roles than you approach things
• By looking at things the way a kid does in a grown up world
• Through doing things the way they’re done outside your industry
• Trying to mimic more extreme creative perspectives

Go find the perspectives where you aren’t “a normal” (in the words of the Dilbert comic) and create away with your atypical self! - Mike Brown

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

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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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It’s Friday, and this post was written on Thursday night. You know what that means? Hang on for a Larry King post . . . You can learn something from someone you don’t respect, but it’s much harder to respect someone you can’t learn from . . . It’s been a long time since first grade, but I saw the little red headed girl from grade school at our local Starbucks. Her smile has not changed one bit . . . I’m a lot better at stress-induced eating than stress-induced creativity . . . I love the world of multiple screens except I keep muting and increasing the volume on the wrong screen . . . Why is it I can watch Pawn Stars & not go to a pawn store, but 2 minutes of Diners, Drive-ins & Dives, and I’m ready to start eating?

Social Media Hype and Cool from Way Back

Fear, forgetting, and fecklessness can all get in the way of making progress . . . Maybe one little change will be all you need to fix a problem. But sometimes, as they say in NASCAR, you have to take a big swing at it. It just depends . . . Someone having the right words in their Twitter name doesn’t mean someone knows ANYTHING about those right words . . . At some point, you can either talk about your area of expertise for 3 1/2 days straight…or you can’t.

Attention social media rock stars: If you’re going to describe your blog using hyperbole, make it grammatically correct . . . Some people were talking about how my grandma used to go places with a camera and tape recorder. She was a content creator before content creation was cool . . . It’s amusing when someone “whiny tweets” you about nonsense, then goes back & deletes all those tweets (and by “amusing,” I mean “pathetic”) . . . You can tell I’m more than mildly amused (or befuddled) by the cool kid hype out in the Wild Social Media West.

Hate Not, Want Not

Why do they call them “task forces” and expect people to volunteer? “Fun forces” would make more sense, even if it is a lie . . . Three people I hate? Whoever designed airport bathroom stalls to swing in, people you’ve met before who won’t say their name next time you meet them, and salespeople who talked to you once on the phone three months ago who expect you to recognize them by their voice and first name . . . Ever notice how people say they want interaction at conferences, but they really just want to be talked to – and gifted with a copy of your slides . . . What if Pavlov had a cat? How would that have worked out for him?

Who Said That?

It’s fascinating to meet someone new who’s already formed a perception of you that’s so counter to what you think of yourself . . . Right now, I appear to have about 4 mini-offices located around the house . . . You can’t tell how warm the social media water is by standing on the side of the pool & pissing into it . . . One of my high school teachers gave us Hollywood Squares tests. Each person had to answer one question out loud in class. If you were wrong but bluffed well, you still got points . . . I continually forget how many lines I’ve lifted from “Broadway Danny Rose,” i.e. “It’s late, we’ll get right out of here,” “I’m willing to bet that your full of good ideas, but what you lack is confidence, ” and “You can’t ride two horses with one behind.”

There’s a reason for most everything I do, but it may have nothing to do with the reason you think . . . Official spokespeople say official things. Passionate observers provide the real sense for a story and what’s happening . . . People at TEDxWyandotte kept telling me to, “Break a leg.” Two days after the Kevin Ware deal, that wasn’t what I wanted to hear . . . I read about someone described as being a bold social media presence. The first thing out of her mouth was she watched TED videos all the time for inspiration. Obviously the standards for bold were cut by 95%, and I missed the announcement . . . It’s not just me that thinks what I think, but that doesn’t make it any better or easier to deal with.  - Mike Brown

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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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I’ll admit I was tempted to create an April Fools blog post for today on “The Top Ten Reasons Creative Thinking Is Overrated.” It would be a funny and quick post to write (ten spoof reasons followed by “April Fool”) during what’s going to be an already hectic week.

Then I remembered a post author Jim Joseph wrote last year extolling brands creating April Fools social media as a way to show a human side. I replied to Jim’s blog saying I’d considered writing a post with reasons why a brand shouldn’t do April Fools prank social media.

Well, fundamental brand strategy won out over blog writing expediency!

5 Reasons April Fools Prank Social Media Is a Joke for Your Brand Strategy

Here are five reasons April Fools prank social media content is a joke when it comes to your brand strategy:

1. Your brand represents a promise, and unless you’re Penn & Teller or Stephen King, tricking your most important audiences is likely not part of your brand promise.
2. Just because another brand creates April Fool prank social media doesn’t mean you should. If another brand jumped off a cliff, does that mean your brand would too?
3. Your brand doesn’t use “funny” and “surprise” as a part of its brand strategy and brand experience any other day of the year. Doing it one day a year doesn’t make your brand seem human. It just makes your brand seem confused or that it is a mindless follower.
4. Since your brand is more conservative than it is fun, you will only approach April Fool prank social media half-heartedly. If you are going to introduce humor into social media, you should be broad and/or consistent with it so your audience gets it.
5. Self-deprecating humor is safer than “at your audience’s expense” humor. Can you turn your April Fool prank social media idea into one where your brand is the butt of the joke? Would you want to? Probably not.

What do you think about Aprils Fools prank social media and its fit with brand strategy?

You can say I’m too much of a stick in the mud, but if a brand tries to make fools of its customers, that doesn’t seem to be part of a great brand strategy and brand experience. And on that point, I’m serious. No joke.  - Mike Brown

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If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

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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Yes, I Wear Orange Socks

I’m not sure where the Wall Street Journal got a picture of me in my orange socks to put in this ad . . . Bill Gates had a story in the Wall Street Journal recently on how to solve  the world’s problems. Maybe he could solve PowerPoint problems first and then get back to us . . . For whatever reason, food doesn’t just miraculously appear in the refrigerator. As much as it seems like it should, it never happens.

If you’re going to be a week off on the date when an event is, it’s better to be a whole week early . . . Not a good thing: Calling your new trainer by the name of the trainer you’ve been working with for 6 years . . . You mean that Matthew Perry show is still on? Really? Really?

Late Night Twitter

Ever spend time on late night Twitter or Facebook? Here are my typical reactions, “Eeeek. Sheesh. Nice. Liar. Again? Watch out. Who are you?” . . . Intriguing that they deleted all the former Pope’s tweets on @Pontifex but the account still kept its 82 Klout score . . . People criticize the Catholic Church for medieval thinking, but you have to remember: IT WAS  AROUND IN THE MIDDLE AGES to be thinking.

For as competitive as I am, I don’t get into “my THING is bigger/better/earlier than yours” discussions. If you go there with me, you automatically win . . . I once wrote a clean limerick that started with the line, “There once was a girl from Buckhead.”

I Love My Freudian Slip Checker – When It Works

From a speaker I saw, here’s a quote to tweet if you’re into tweeting quotes: “It’s like. Um. You know what I mean” . . . Two typos that got through the Freudian Slip Checker that I’ll be using in presentations: Tirade-offs and sueprising . . . Every rubber band that’s stretched snaps back – or breaks. Think about the repercussions.

I hate that it’s easier to go from 0 words to 900 words in a blog post than it is to get from 2,300 words to 900 words . . . Thinking just now: If not for similes, there would be hardly any blog posts written . . . It has been a snowy winter, and I’m not sure which caused more muscle pain: The 19 hundredth day of blogging or the 3rd day of snow shoveling?

Just because something matters to you doesn’t mean it matters to everyone else. That’s Exhibit A in proving you’re wrong when you think everyone is like you . . . In my opinion, the Award for the Best Blog Post Title Ever goes to It’s T-Bone Walker’s World. We’re All Just Doing Two Shows a Night in It. It just doesn’t get any better than that, people . . . Rants have a narrow range of length to be effective. Too short and you simply sound disagreeable; too long and you seem like somebody the FBI should be watching.

That Was Never an Argument Just Now

Personally, you have to pay me to argue. I don’t argue with just anyone for free . . . My most recent thing I wanted to say to a client and didn’t: “How would I know? Because I’m not 25 and just got out of college. That’s how I’d f’n know”  . . . I’m not sure what just happened here, but I hope not to regret it tomorrow . . . As we say around our offices, “When in doubt or you don’t have anything else to run, run a Larry King column.” - Mike Brown

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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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Spend enough time on social media channels and you’ll see some amazingly narcissistic tweets and Facebook updates from self-fashioned or mysteriously-ordained social media celebrities, all in the name of social media sharing.

While there are so many ways to write narcissistic tweets and Facebook updates, these eight formulas (all based on actual messages I’ve seen or received) provide a handy guide if you want to increase your insufferability factor on social media.

Want to try the formulas yourself?

Use the words in quotes and fill in your own specifics for the ALL CAPS PHRASES to make the eight formulas work to your best advantage.

8 Social Media Formulas for Narcissistic Tweets and Facebook Updates

Knock yourself out!

Social Media Formula 1: Not (You) in My Backyard

“Spent time in my”

+ HOUSE LOCATION FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER LIVE IN

+ “house by the”

+ BODY OF WATER FOLLOWERS WILL WE’LL NEVER LIVE BY.

+ “Wow!”

Social Media Formula 2: The “Hey, Retweet this for Me” Direct Message

A SELF-CONGRATULATORY STATEMENT (i.e., “One of my best articles”)

+ URL FOR THE ARTICLE

+ DEMAND FOR A RETWEET

+ MY NAME

+ “Plz”

Social Media Formula 3: The Miracles I Work Despite Jet Lag

“Have been on 10 planes in the last three days, but I’m touching”

+ HOW MANY LIVES YOU’RE TOUCHING

+ “lives. I’m so worn out.”

Social Media Formula 4: You Shouldn’t Be Here

“I’m with”

+ CELEBRITY NAME

+ “at”

+ NAME OF REALLY HIP LOCATION AND EVENT.

+ CELEBRITY NAME

+ “is real people!”

Social Media Formula 5: You Wanna Know a Secret?

“I’m going to”

+ INCREDIBLE PLACE FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER GET TO GO TO

+ “, but it’s a secret, so I can’t tell you any more about it!”

Social Media Formula 6: Rubbing Elbows (and Noses . . . but my nose isn’t anywhere near the elbow) with Rockstars

“Great meeting today with”

+ SOCIAL MEDIA ROCKSTAR NUMBER 1

+ “and”

+ SOCIAL MEDIA ROCKSTAR NUMBER 2.

+ “Glad I’m me.”

Social Media Formula 7: Oh, the Places I’ll Go

“In a”

+  INCREDIBLE CAR FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER BE IN

+ “on my way to”

+ ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME EVENT FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER GET TO GO TO

+ “to do a”

+ COOL THING FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER GET TO DO.

+ “Can’t wait for it to be over.”

Social Media Formula 8: Faux Self-Depreciation

“Don’t call me a Social Media Rockstar. I’m not one of those.”

+ MAKING IT CLEAR BY YOUR EVERY TWEET, UPDATE & ATTITUDE . . . YES YOU DO THINK YOU ARE ONE

Do you have some favorite formulas to add?

This blog post idea has been sitting around for more than a year. Looking back, that’s probably a very good thing since these messages will ideally have been long forgotten by the people who inspired them!

What types of tweets and updates do you find insufferable? Care to turn them into formulas and share them in the comments? And I will understand if you want to wait a bit to share them! - Mike Brown

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

If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

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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I love a good rant, and today, we have a great innovation rant from our friend Woody Bendle. What’s got Woody ranting today? Best Practices. Note to self . . . don’t mention Best Practices around Woody. Here’s why:

An Innovation Rant about Best Practices by Woody Bendle

I don’t want to get off on an innovation rant here, but I was in an office the other day waiting for an appointment, picked up an industry trade publication, and started flipping through it. This was an industry trade publication COMPLETELY different from anything I would normally look at, but something caught my attention. Then I just got fired up. There was a piece talking about benchmarking and industry best practices. There it was . . . BEST   PRACTICES!

I HATE the expression “Best Practices!”

Well, maybe I really don’t hate the expression, but rather what this phrase represents (or doesn’t) for innovation in many businesses today.

No, on second thought, I really do hate it!

How many times in your career have you heard, “What we need to do is some category benchmarking and our goal is to adopt industry best practices.” Blah-blah-blah… snore-ing!

Ultimately, what “best practices” really means is this: “Let’s try to be more like the guys who are currently kicking our butts, and maybe they won’t be kicking our butts anymore!”

That’s pretty inspiring huh?!

The problem with adopting someone else’s “best practices” is by the time you’ve adopted their practices and processes, you’re still behind!  You can bet they’ve already developed a whole new set of best practices, and you’re going to have to catch up all over again!  That’s why they’ve been the best!

And another thing!

Best is SINGULAR. Best is without peer! Best is best. You can’t have two bests! I checked the dictionary; Merriam-Webster will back me up on this one.

If you’re just trying to employ the current industry best practices from your own market, what you are maybe doing is adopting potentially better practices than the ones you’ve been using. That sort of sounds like process improvement to me! Can you say Six-Sigma?  Which is fine! I’m a huge fan of Lean and Continuous improvement!  But, this isn’t adopting industry best practices! Remember? There’s only one best! (see above)

I guess the thing that bothers me most about adopting or employing “best practices” is that it just feels really lazy. I mean come on! You’ve got to be better than that! Right?!  Don’t your employees deserve better? Don’t your shareholders deserve better? And you can’t tell me that your customers don’t deserve better!

How about we CREATE our OWN Best Practices?! Our own unparalleled best practices! Practices that are soooo BEST that we’re the ones kicking butt!

Don’t jump the shark! Leapfrog your competition! Jump so far beyond your category’s current production possibilities frontier that you land in another galaxy!

So, come on . . . Embrace innovation!

Let’s do something no one has ever done before!

Let’s create practices and processes that no one has ever thought of before!

Let’s use our minds!

Let’s use our imaginations!

Let’s use our ingenuity!

Let’s get on with innovation and kick some butt! - Woody Bendle

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Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative thinking and ideas! For an organizational innovation success 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 benefits for you.

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Praise for Brevity

I am all about the essence of things. No time for the long form of anything. My attention span is 135 characters . . . There were a number of Brainzooming blog searches early this month on “how to get even with a sociopath boss.” So, I guess it’s going to be THAT kind of year . . . Whoever came up with wine in a milk carton is on to something . . . Sometimes you just want to check a conversation off the list and the other person is all, “Talk, talk, talk.”

Confession: I really need to pay better attention. To a variety of things. Apparently . . . Words that are kind of alike, but completely aren’t when you mix them up: alleviate and elevate . . .  If anybody needs some sorts, let me know. I’m running to the sorts store because I’m definitely out of them right now . . . Instead of “Join My Network,” LinkedIn needs an “I’ll make an effort to meet you in person, first” button . . . How many words can you swallow?

I’m still on the lookout for that one advertising agency whose slogan is: We’ve done the “offering integrated solutions” thing & now only offer “siloed, specific answers” . . . Overheard on television recently: “The crusades were notoriously bad for booty.” I kid you not . . . That moment in the middle of the night when you realize you have obviously done something heinously wrong to someone, and all the little things you’ve been noticing really do add up to a huge passive aggressive retaliation you’ve been too blind to realize, perhaps in part because when you have asked them what you’ve done wrong, they say, “Nothing.” Yeah, that moment.

Social Media and the Blogging Life

Blogging Forecast: There’s a strong sense of wanting to write blog posts this evening, but we’re only predicting a 10% chance of a completed blog post by midnight. Expect continued cold creative prospects throughout the weekend, giving way to heightened anxiety and scrambling to publish whatever’s done by Monday morning . . . For whatever reason, it amuses me to no end to leave Dr. Seuss-like responses to peoples’ Facebook updates . . . Commercials running during reality TV shows always seem to have a high correlation between someone’s cleavage and their claimed expertise – no matter what the subject . . . I live in the shadows where the snark grows. If I ever write an autobiography, I think I have my title: “Where the Snark Grows.”

Something I’m completely fed up with on Twitter? Blog posts explaining why Twitter rock stars are unfollowing everyone because it’s simply become too much for them. Puh. Leez . . . Opine: To state an opinion. Epine: To blast an opinion to thousands of your social media followers . . . Think about this: It’s tough to relax when you go camping because everybody is in tents . . . My mother asked me, “What are you into?” I told her, “Blogging. I’m into blogging. As in, ‘Thank you sir, may I have another blog.’”

Did you know that “pagophilia” is the need to eat ice? I got that really bad . . . You want a life lesson? Here’s one for you: Forgiving, forgetting, not hurting, and starting to care again don’t all happen at the same pace . . . A combination I don’t like = Winter + Sunday Afternoons + Lots of Work to Do + Sense of Being Behind + Haven’t Worked Out in Days + Anxiety . . . Notice how there aren’t any over/under disagreements on scotch tape? Maybe toilet paper should be sticky on one side, and presto-chango, the age-old toilet paper argument goes away? - Mike Brown

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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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