Analisys. No creative process can do without it.

In previous articles we have already established that creativity is a process, and that certain levels of preparation, critical thinking and analysis are necessary for successful creative production.
Even so, in the ICPP or 7-Step model for Integrated Creative Planning & Production I describe here, analysis (or review) is virtually permanent; present in some form or another at every step of the way.

It starts with the client briefing in step 1, but kicks in at full creative force once data gathering has been completed and the “Intelligence” generation process begins (step 2.3).
From there on to the very end of the process, critical thinking and analysis are necessary – for example – to determine which strategic proposal is likely to be the most successful, which idea or ideas have the most potential, which arguments are the most appropriate to “Sell” and/or “Bullet-prove” the creative product, or which media are the most effective to reach specific target audiences.

Analysis is ongoing even when the creative production cycle has ended in step 7, because after publication, the media- and research departments keep tracking and analyzing the consumer- and marketing data generated by any given campaign.
These data and their respective analysis are not only used to measure the impact and effectiveness of the effort, but also as input for the next campaign cycle, for example to fine-tune or modify strategy.

In advertising the strategic-creative process is a permanent, virtuous cycle, with every next campaign building on the knowledge generated by previous ones, combined with the profundization of the team's knowledge of the brand, product(s) customers and markets.
Contrarily, in many organizations  – even large ones – this permanent feed-back and analysis cycle appears to be rather less habitual, in spite of the sometimes astounding pace of change which can be observed in virtually any marketplace, today.

This week's interesting articles

Here are this week's articles I consider worth reading.
I regularly post links to articles like these on my Twitter stream so, if you like my likes and want to stay updated, you might want to follow me: @gerardprins

Business Insider: 14 Lessons From Benjamin Franklin About Getting What You Want In Life
Forbes: Why Creativity is more Profitable than Competitiveness
Forbes: Creating Innovators: Why America's Education System is Obsolete (Ed.: And not just America's)
Harvard Business Review: In Praise of Irrational Innovators
Harvard Business Review: Collaboration Will Drive the Next Wave of Productivity Gains
New York Times: The Creative Monopoly

More on creative and strategic thinking tools in my e-book

If you have the time to wrestle yourself through roughly 150 poorly written pages, you can download my thesis in e-book format
The 11 chapters I here present contain everything from the history of creative strategy to competitive environments of permanently accelerating change to an analysis of the Apple's reinvention strategy and the challenges that present themselves to modern, western society and its leadership.

It includes techniques and tools for creative, strategic and systemic thinking and an analysis of why I believe that many modern leaders are failing in creating an innovation inspiring corporate environment and/or in stimulating creative thinking in their peers and subordinates.
Happily not all of it is b-mol: I have found -- and cite -- the thoughts of authors who have interesting suggestions on how to create and foster loyalty- collaboration- and creativity-inspiring leadership, starting with Sun Tzu...

Recent interesting articles on Creativity, Strategy and Innovation

Here are some articles from the last few weeks that I consider worth reading.
I regularly post links to articles like these on my Twitter stream so, if you like my likes and want to stay updated, you might want to follow me: @gerardprins


Forbes: The Only Two Types of Enterprise That Really Matter
Forbes: Sony: How Industrial, MBA-Style Leadership Killed a Once Great Company
FastCompany: Has Innovation Lost Its Meaning?
FastCoDesign: What MBAs and MFAs get wrong about solving business problems
Harvard Business Review: Six Secrets to Creating a Culture of Innovation
Harvard Business Review: The Power of Small Wins
The Atlantic: How So-Called Strategic Intelligence Actually Makes Us Dumber

Problem Definition. The Most Critical Step.

It is no casualty that “Problem Definition” – in some wording or other – is an integral part of all the step-models described in a previous post.
However, considering Kevin Kelly’s tenth paradigm: “Opportunities before Efficiencies” subtitled: “Don’t solve problems; seek opportunities”, problem-definition seems to be too limiting a term in many of today’s competitive environments of accelerating change.

Moreover, an organization may not have or perceive to have any particular “problems”. This does not mean to say that it can sit on its laurels, though, even if only because competition, changing customer preferences, technological breakthroughs or even an ad-hoc crisis may present any given organization with a “Houston, we have a problem” moment at any given point in time, more often than not when least expected.

Therefore, I feel it is more adequate to speak of “Problem Definition & Opportunity Finding”, especially because these two are not in any way mutually exclusive.
In fact, the realization that an opportunity has presented itself to the organization, then turns into a “Problem” in the classical strategic-creative context, because it constitutes the problem definition that focuses the creative effort: How to take advantage of it?

Solid problem definition is of absolute essence, whether when solving problems or finding opportunities, because a badly focused, fuzzy problem- or opportunity definition leads inevitably to bad “output”: poor, or – worse – useless ideas and a waste of precious time, thus, resources.
This may not be a disaster in the case of a failing advertising campaign, however, in the case of corporate strategic planning, it may well mean the difference between life or death for an organization.

216 Creative-Strategic Thinking Tools, Classified into Categories.

Since my original research into models and theories for applied creative thinking – almost ten years ago – a number of new models have surfaced, while the associated list of concepts, methodologies and tools has grown considerably; apparently for two reasons:
1 - The inclusion of the Strategic Thinking parameter in the research field.
2 - An explosive growth of interest in “Creativity” since the turn of the millennium. In the first place from local and/or national governments and researchers, but also from corporate leadership, educators and parents.

As a result of this renewed interest, a large number of publications and studies address the topic and at least three Web sites contain extensive compilations on creativity, strategy, problem solving and most everything related.

On the other hand, being Advertising the oldest and by far the largest of all the so-called Creative Industries, it is a little disappointing to have to come to the conclusion that its contributions to a better understanding of creativity and creative thinking are scarce, in spite of its long-standing collaboration with the cognitive sciences, particularly anthropology, psychology and sociology.The most important individual contributions to the field come from advertising agency BBDO co-founder Alex Osborn, who is the father of Brainstorming, still – by far and large – the most widely used tool for collaborative ideation, Creative Problem Solving (CPS), 7-step model, and Osborn’s Checklist.

Models for the Creative Production Process

The creative process consists of a series of identifiable stages, documented in models such as the 5-step model (Wallas - 1926), 7-step models (Rossman - 1931; Osborn - 1953), 3-step model (Creative Problem Solving or CPS; Osborn - 1979), 6-step model (revised CPS model; Isaksen/Treffinger - 1985), and the “Model for Creative Strategic Planning” (Bandrowski - 1985), the latter aimed at achieving a better balance between the creative and analytical aspects of the afore mentioned models.
The existence of many more models – like the Basadur Simplex Process, for example – has been confirmed through desk research, however, none of these appear to contain significant new insights into the processes as described in the mentioned models; they generally either recombine steps from one or more of these, add intermediate steps, or are a combination of process and method, as is the case of TRIZ (Teoriya Resheniya Izobreatatelskikh Zadatch), for example.

The following models are universally recognized by experts and educators as either the most relevant or easiest applicable theories on the subject.
As their names aptly suggest, all consider a series of sequential processes or steps, some of which coincide, while others not.

What is creativity?

The term creative is “fuzzy” – in others words – means many different things to many different people.
This makes it necessary to clarify both the meaning and context of the word within the framework of this blog.
There are numerous definitions of the term, but English creative education expert and Ambassador for the European Year of Creativity and Innovation – Sir Ken Robinson – defines it so: “The process of having original ideas that have value”.

This is a practical definition for two reasons:
1 – It establishes that Creativity is the result of a process.
2 – It establishes that the Creative process is directed at generating valuable, original ideas.

Derivative of this definition is that the quality, originality and value of an idea are “umfeld” – environment – determined: where it may have value in one context, it may be worthless in others.
Moreover, where it may be unoriginal in one context, it may be original – thus – valuable in others; this explains why the “copy/paste method”, that is: copying an idea from one context to another, is a basic, yet useful creative tool.

Am I creative?

Popular believe has it that creativity is reserved to the so-called “Creative Elites”, located at the top of the white-collar chain in so-called “Creative Industries”, e.g. arts, advertising, design, motion picture, engineering, R&D, and so on.
This conviction is probably the most undesirable of all collateral damages caused by industrial-revolution education, and nothing could be less true.

Human beings are born creative, human evolution is the result of that creativity and people apply it in every aspect of their everyday lives.
People consciously or unconsciously use creativity to solve every day problems, but probably the most obvious example of human creativity is lying: the ability to present others with more or less elaborate constructs of alternative truths.

Unlike the many creative skills extinguished by industrial-revolution schooling, lying is the one universal creative social skill that upbringing and education are apparently incapable of eradicating, even though it is most likely the first “do-not-rule” parents and educators bring to bear on a young child: “Thou shalt not lie”.
The richness of the concept and its deep embedding in universal culture is best illustrated through language.
An article on Wikipedia identifies no less than 21 different types of lies, while cognitive science has busied itself with the phenomenon ever since Augustine of Hippo’s “Taxonomy of Lies” (± AD 395).

What is Creativization?

With innovation becoming more and more a decisive factor for corporate survival, and – according to the 2010 IBM Global Survey – a concern for 80% of CEO’s worldwide, it is surprising to observe how few organizations have innovation high on their strategic agendas, or even on their strategic agenda at all.

I believe that innovation starts with creative ideas, while innovation – as seen from a strategic point of view – involves the successful implementation of these ideas within the organization.
Even though in most organizations individuals or small groups may be responsible for the actual generation of new ideas, their implementation is a task that must be shared by the entire organization, and most particularly by its leadership.

The latter is, however, impossible to achieve without the strategic conviction that permanent innovation and reinvention are the only way for an organization to survive and thrive in an environment of permanently accelerating change.

A first problem – according to my research – is that many corporate leaders consider themselves “creative” or “very creative”, while – in fact – they are not; at least not according to classical creative assessment standards.
It seems fair to conclude that leaders who believe themselves to be (very) creative, but are not in fact, are likely to have similar misconceptions about the creative environment in their organizations, the incentives placed on ideation and the openness, receptivity towards the ideas of its members.