Unlocking your creativity
I wrote some of my best words on creativity back in December 2009, when I published a farewell letter to my friends and ex-colleagues at Leo Burnett. I’m gonna quote a small part of that note just to get you started on the subject of today…
“…Be bold. Let the strength of your desire give force and movement to your every step. When you embark strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory. Be brave to live your life more creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by quite knowing what you are doing, but what you will discover will be wonderful. What you will discover will be yourself…” (read more)
Creativity is magical. Clients in the advertising world spend millions to get good creative work. Creativity is one of those features that doesn’t discriminate between an MBA/CFA holder and a humble tea-boy in a chunky office. You don’t have to be handsome, educated, western, religious…etc to be creative. Creativity is a city of perfect equality. Everyone has the same opportunity of being creative, should they have the talent and understand the disciplines your brain has to go into.
Today, we are all lucky to be living in a world where there is an abundance of information. The convergence of media brings to our finger tips the latest knowledge customized in the way the perfectly fits our lifestyle. So, here I am now sharing with you some pieces of knowledge you could never imagined it exists before.
Have you ever thought that you could actually train your memory and use some small tricks to make massive improvements in your memory ability. Tricks that can help your brain memorize numbers without your mobile’s address book, or names of people you met them five years ago or even memorize a 20 pages speech like the ones of Obama without even any notes!
Kevin Trudeau’s Mega Memory Program: How to Release Your Superpower Memory in 30 Minutes is a revolutionary in that sense. When I first listened to his strategies and tactics on how the memory works and how we can improve it, I was really astonished. I invite you to get it, you won’t regret.
The point I’m trying to make here is that there are certain areas in our brain we know little about and in fact we can still find information that can help us improve it. When I was in Leo Burnett, we often discuss “creativity” and people say: “dude you’ve got to be born creative in order to be creative”, and I used to agree but having case studies of the most creative people ever lived on the planet, we’ve maybe reached to a collective knowledge around the topic that could probably boost our creative capabilities.
Davinci for example, has seven key principles that made him the genius of all times, here below is a display of those in their mother language (Italian) as described in Michael Gelb’s book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci:
1. Curiosita: Never ending curiosity
2. Demonstratzi: Think for yourself, become an original thinker
3. Sensatsiony: Sharpen your senses
4. Sfumato: Embrace uncertainty, learn to ultimate your intuition
5. Artishienza: Balance art and science, logic and imagination
6. Corporalita: Balance the body and the mind
7. Connectsiony: Everything connected to everything else
I invite to read this book, its very entertaining, it really says it all and explains each of the above in more depth.
If this blog was able to do one thing today – that is inviting you to explore the wonders of your brain via investing time into learning about science and research, then I would be grateful.
I hope this blog left you a bit more inspired.
From “customers” to “raving fans”
This is a quick one today, its just a three bullets that acts as the core ingredients of endorsing your customers into your business. Its about changing people’s perception from trying to sell them, to trying to engage them. The customers of today are smarter and thats why successful companies are driving them into living an experience when getting in touch with your product or service. Experiences that are memorable, remarkable and truly adding value to their lives.
So, if you are convinced that brand experiences will win you the hearts and minds of your customers, then here is a simple way of how to start brainstorming, I call it the Triple D:
1. Decide what kind of experience you want your customers to have when they interact with every aspect in your company
2. Discover any suggestions your customers have that will improve your business
3. Deliver the experience plus a little bit more
Hope I inspired your day or added a bit of flavor to your work, always remember the Triple D for building raving fans to your business, not just customers.
Good luck.
