Make the Creativity Visible is Post #11 and the last in a series from a presentation entitled 11 Great Creative Slip-Ups: The Most Common Mistakes in Brainstorming. The introduction to the series begins here.
The problem: Generating ideas is an invisible process
Creativity is an activity that’s largely unseen.
For most people, brainstorming is a solo, if not an introverted, activity. Sure, there can be showy displays – the cry of Eureka!, a snap of the fingers, a dash of a drawing for instance.
But the complex art of creating an idea happens silently inside the head.
(Remember, incubation – internal thought aka daydreaming – is one of the five necessary steps of creative thought.)
In truth, the only visible way to demonstrate the hard work is to show creativity’s outcome: the good idea.
Very often, clients don’t see the creative process, probably because most of them they don’t care how an idea’s made. They just want the good idea.
Or, maybe too we often separate the client from the process, either consciously or unconsciously
- Some clients are notoriously critical of, or have no patience with, brainstorming generally
- They aren’t involved so the team can surprise the decision maker with their ideas
- They (or we) don’t see it as their role
- We don’t think to ask (even though we constantly talk to them about strategic elements, like the budget)
- We aren’t sure how to involve them
You might ask, So why do I care? It’s invisible. So what?
There's two very important reasons why creativity must be visible
I loathe the concept that “strategic people” work, yet “creatives” have fun.
Apparently Strategic People sweat, labour, pontificate and decide important things, even better if it involves a calculator and an Excel spreadsheet.
On the other hand, Creative People don’t do anything visible. Except for meandering down to the local coffee house for a venti gluten-soy-free-latte and ancient-oates-kale croissant made by Himalayan artisans … oh, and return with the Big Idea.
As. If.
Creativity needs to be valued.
Strategy is not more valuable than creative. If that’s how you or they think, good luck with your continuous improvement, innovation, and change management program. Or anything to do with marketing, advertising and communications.
Without creativity, nothing would ever change. Everyone of us knows at least one story of an organisation which collapsed because it could not change.
Ideas don’t just “appear” to a senior executive or the client. If they do, they’ll also assume creativity is a breeze – which it decidedly is not.
By extension, if it’s easy, it’s not worth anything. Which means they’ll take the idea for granted.
Most of all, if they take the idea for granted, it’s not a big leap that they’ll think you are to be taken for granted.
In other words, you’re as inter-changeable as the ideas themselves.
Creativity needs to valuable.
The single best business-creative advice given to me was Never give away good ideas for free.
In fact, as a dear fellow creative director and friend used to say about his clients: I’m going to hold it all the way over here, out of arm’s reach, so they can see it, smell it, taste it … but not touch it. I’m going to make them salivate over it until the price rises to its actual worth.
Bless. And he’s right, it works. Basis human psychology that people want things they can’t have.
So yes, I have a problem continuing the mirage that creativity is invisible. Generating ideas is a difficult task. It requires a significant amount of work. And, a brilliant idea can be worth millions of dollars.
Even my ranting soap box moment aside, I also have to give this final post an arbitrary “half-point” becuase this topic isn’t easily winnable, if at all.
Creativity will always be invisible to the majority of people. Many will take the process for granted. At the end of the day, there is absolutely a magic to it that strategic thinking will never have.
For others, we have an exciting challenge to proactively engage people to be part of, and understand, the work, details and decisions that go into making imaginative big ideas that change things – if not the world – for the better.
The Solution: Make your creativity visible
Here are three suggestions to make your creativity more visible.
1. Ask the decision maker or client how – or if – to engage them in creativity.
As much as possible, I’ve asked my clients or supervisors how much they want to be part of the creative process.
Some may only want to be involved with the strategy development so they know the creative direction.
Some are curious about the process I’d take once I have the strategy: how we’d brainstorm, what activities we’d do, how long steps last, what decisions we’d make.
Others want us to have our internal brainstorms first. Perhaps they’d join a later one, or come and see the results of the meeting so they could help select the ideas.
More often than not, your client may not know what you do, or how to be involved, so be prepared with articulate answers so the entire process doesn’t sound random and disorganized. If they say no, at least you’ve made the physical creative process visible.
2. Invite the client to take part in brainstorming.
Everyone knows the dangers of bringing a critical or negative client to a brainstorm. Three tips.
- Hear and manage their expectations in advance
- Outline and enforce the brainstorm or ground rules
- Have a brainstorm prior to the client’s involvement so you have ideas, just in case
There are other ways to engage clients. Instead of bringing them to internal brainstorms, do brainstorms externally, for their teams or with the target audience.
Use solo brainstorming techniques. Give instructions, games or exercises to team members to create ideas on their own terms, and include directions how to submit or post ideas internally or online for others to see and discuss.
Other clients – especially very analytical ones – prefer to come after the brainstorm is over. Looking over all of the ideas gives them a sense of where you’re going, if not stimulating a conversation about which ideas they prefer and why.
Even if they don’t participate, these methods literally and visibly show them the physical creative process in action.
3. If you do some type of elaborate brainstorming, show it to the client.
To launch a new ice cream product, we did a brainstorm in a supermarket (after getting approval from the store manager. Don’t try this at home kids!) We used the video in the pitch to show the client our ideas, as well as our commitment and passion.
In a brainstorm for a line of women’s fitness products, we created a mood board on an entire wall of a conference room. We took photos of it and used it as artwork for the pitch.
It’s common to embed video of the target audience in the pitch, why not do the same with the brainstorm?
The key is brainstorming these types of opportunities in advance. It’s not so easy to be creative in retrospect. Brainstorm how to show off the brainstorm.
What other tactics have you used to engage clients in the visible part of creativity and ideation? Please add your thoughts or comments below.
If you want to return to the original article with links to the other ‘Slip-Ups’, click here.
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