Creative Exercise #16 is Pick a Fight

Tharp states that “Creativity is an act of defiance.”

What are you defying?  Are you willing to defy your usual route to the office and see what the new scenery inspires?

Would you defy your typical lunch selection in order to experience a totally new set of taste sensations?

Dare you to defy your evening routine and pick up a book, rather than watching TV tonight… what ideas may come from that?

“Every act of creation is also an act of destruction or abandonment. Something has to be cast aside to make way for the new” says Tharp.

If you never destroy/abandon/change, then where is the vacuum creativity can fill in your life?

Here’s a quick brainstorming tip.

Next time you’re stuck on predictible, unoriginal ideas, try this:
Think 180°.

1. Ask yourself, “What is the LAST thing I would do in this situation?” or “What is an idea opposite of these?”
2. Make a list of the ideas that come to mind.
3. Read over the list and evaluate WHY each idea wouldn’t work.

Now, you may not use any of the ideas you’ve listed, but you’ve stimulated new thoughts. After you explore the opposites, you may go back to one of your original ideas with a twist. “What if we create this product, but market it to women in business instead of men?”  “What if we do the seminar on these topics, but the seminar is free, we charge for lunch and sell snacks during breaks?”

Sometimes thinking outside the box is most helpful when you eventually bring the ideas back inside the box.

7 Reasons No One Likes Your Ideas
Why don’t people listen or use your ideas?  Here are a few clues.

Pull! 10 Signs You’re Shooting Down Good Ideas
Are you as open to new ideas as you think?

One Idea Forward, Two Opinions Back
What’s the difference between an idea and an opinion? Why does it matter?

Ponder This: Q&Q
A new take on Q&As

Byproducts of Busy Bees
A dedication to those who make a difference. 

A Free Exchange of Ideas
How do trust and risk affect the sharing of ideas?

The list is based on statements by Brad Pitt’s character in Fight Club. Below is my favorite:

Tyler’s Eighth Rule of Innovation:

“This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
Brian does a great job of expounding on this statement and seven others.  It is well worth the two minute hiatus to check it out.

Collaboration creates teams of teams.

Organizations that encourage collaboration will see greater interdepartmental and interorganizational teamwork. A sense of interdependence creates a desire to involve others in on the work at hand.

Conspiracy creates lines and sides.

Information is held in silos. The grain is harvested, then stored where it simply rots.

Teams do not grow from shared experiences. They fight to steal from each other’s silos of information, recognition and reward.

Conspiracy divides individuals, centering them around lower goals and agendas.

Myopia causes conspirators to focus on self-centered goals which don’t benefit the larger organization(s). Consequentially, they do not rally followers around them because their vision is narrow, short-sighted and low on impact.

Collaboration unifies individuals around a common, higher goal.

By collaborating, individuals and teams discover common goals held across the divide. By broadening horizons, collaborators broaden their vision and hold onto the higher goals that impact the BIGGER picture. Consequentially, collaborators attract followers who desire belonging to something bigger than themselves.

Collaboration stimulates growth.

Individuals must be empowered in collaborative environments. Collaboration encourages delegation as the vision and input of direction is bigger than one person.

Conspiracy stunts growth.

Long-term, conspiracy mindsets eventually stifle growth. Conspiracies may have early growth spurts, but are midgets as adults when compared to their potential through collaboration.

Thanks for throwing down the gauntlet Alex! I hope you and others find this stimulating, and perhaps generate your own beliefs on the effects of collaboration vs. conspiracy.

Just read a Tom Peters “Cool Friends” interview from a few weeks ago with Stephanie Palmer, author of Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience.

  

Here are a few of my favorite nuggets from the interview:

tompeters.com asks …

Stephanie, what’s the big idea here?

SP: “Good in a room” describes anyone who presents themselves and their ideas effectively. The phrase originated in Hollywood and it’s used by agents and producers to describe people who pitch ideas well. I teach people to use, in their own industry, the tactics that work in Hollywood.

……….

Tom Peters has espoused the elevator pitch as one of the supporting columns of Wow Projects. The goal of the elevator pitch being, if you get into an elevator on the first floor with your boss and you’re trying to sell an idea, you want to sell it by the time you get to the 35th floor. You say the elevator pitch is a myth. Why is that?

SP: I think the term “elevator pitch” incorrectly implies that it’s appropriate to pitch in an elevator. Communicating quickly and concisely is important, but you should never pitch when you don’t have time to continue the conversation. A moment’s access with someone who doesn’t know you is not an opportunity. Your first interaction with someone sets the stage for the relationship to come. You shouldn’t start pitching your idea to someone before they know who you are enough to care about what you’re saying in the first place.

High-level buyers are pitched all the time. They know when they are hearing something that’s been repeated to dozens of other people. If you haven’t taken the time to build rapport and customize your pitch to that person’s specific needs, it’s a sign that you’re an amateur. Every buyer is unique, and your pitch should reflect that.

……….

You also say that networking is a waste of time. Why?

SP: I think most people who think they’re successful as a result of using traditional networking techniques succeed in spite of those techniques, not because of them. Traditional networking is generally a quantity-based approach. The idea is that if you meet enough people, accumulate enough names, you will eventually find people who are a good fit. On the surface this makes sense; you’d need a large pipeline of people because statistically only a few of them would be a right fit for your business. It’s a bulk mail strategy, sending out a lot of letters and seeing what comes back. But bulk mail is expandable, whereas we are not. The bulk mail approach doesn’t work so well in establishing genuine relationships because we only have so much time.

Therefore, instead of spending small amounts of time with lots of people, I suggest spending more time with fewer, carefully chosen people. Use a quality based approach. Upgrade from bulk mail to a handwritten letter with a first class stamp.

……….

But in as much as you don’t believe in the standard group theory of networking, you do still have a network. You categorize people a little differently than most people’s A, B, and C lists. Could you describe your system?

SP: I don’t like using the terminology of A, B, and C groups, simply because I know that I don’t want to be on anyone’s C list, and I don’t think that anyone else does, either. I start with Good People to Know, which is anybody who I think for any reason might be someone I would like to know in the future. It may be someone whom I’ve met at a conference or a barbecue. If I think that person is really interesting for whatever reason, business or personal, I’m going to include them in my Good People to Know.

If I meet someone, and I know that I have no interest in them, I’m not going to include them in my rolodex or keep tabs on them. Doing so is like being a relationship pack rat. I’m not looking to have the world’s largest network so that I can brag, “Oh, I have 10,000 people in my list.” I want to be more focused.

My next group I call the VIPs. Those are people whom I would like to have a business relationship with, but maybe I don’t know them. They’re my target list. Twenty people is the maximum that you should have on your VIP list.

My last group, and most important, is the Inner Circle. Those are the people that are closest to you, who support you professionally and personally. Those are the relationships that I spend the most time nurturing. Their support has been the most valuable for me, personally and professionally.

……….

It looks like a worthwhile book, so I’m buying a copy. Might write my own review when I finish it.

You can see more about “Good In A Room” on Stephanie Palmer’s website.

Executive editor Mariette DiChristina conducted a roundtable discussion involving three experts on creativity:

John Houtz is a psychologist and professor at Fordham University. His most recent book is The Educational Psychology of Creativity (Hamptom Press, 2002).

Julia Cameron is an award-winning poet, playwright and filmmaker. Her book The Artist’s Way (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002) has sold more than three million copies worldwide. Her latest book is The Writing Diet.

Robert Epstein is a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego. Contributing editor for Scientific American Mind and former editor in chief of Psychology Today, Epstein has written several books on creativity, including The Big Book of Creativity Games (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

Below are a few quotes I found interesting.

Read the rest of the article and see what you cull from it.  Perhaps it will inspire you to unleash more of your creative potential.

I got some correspondence on The Idea Orphanage that encouraged me to share advise on reclaiming your idea orphans. I guess it would be rather cruel to raise awareness of the lost and abandoned without giving a way for you to help. So, here are a few ways to get the adoption process started:

1. Write them a letter.
Let them know you haven’t forgotten them. If you don’t write the idea down, you probably will forget it again. Then we’re right back where we started. While you’re putting the idea to paper, also write down the reason you abandoned it. This may help you create solutions to the original hurdle(s).

2. Adopt as a couple.
Share your idea with someone else who might help you “parent” the concept. This also creates some accountability to the idea. Someone else may push you to meet timeframes or make greater commitments.

3. Prepare a room.
If you’re going to bring a little one into your life, you have to create a good home environment. You’ll need to make space in your life, so create that margin now. Do you have the time and overall capacity to add something else to your plate? We don’t want to have a case of neglect on our hands.

4. Consider Their Age
You should treat the idea differently based on age. A younger idea may need more feeding and development. An older idea may need more acclamation to your environment. A lot may have changed over the years, take that into consideration.

5. Know Your Parental Rights
Before you finalize the “adoption,” make sure you know your rights. Should the idea be patented, under copyright or trademark? Make sure no one else already has these rights while you’re at it.

I climbed up the stairs and found her in the laundry room.  She began to pull out pieces of paper and show them to me.  “My Moleskine?”

My wife hesitantly responded, “Yeah.”

I had left the notebook in a pair of jeans. Inside the notebook were months of notes.  Ideas, reminders, details and contacts.  Now it looked like scraps from an office wastebasket.

Amazingly, the notes were still intact.  The pages had all become loose leaf, but they didn’t shred (as business cards do, much to my wife’s chagrin).  The ink was slightly smeared in places, but everything is still readable.

So, in this case, rumors of my Moleskine’s demise were greatly exaggerated.

I doubt most notebooks would have escaped the laundry as anything more than pulp in the lint screen.

Sidenote:  This is the second Moleskine tragedy for me in as many weeks.  The previous week, I left my other Moleskine at a school auditorium in Oklahoma City.  Still haven’t tracked it down.  So, if you’re in the OKC area, be on the lookout for a small pocket notebook.  It is black and 3.5″ x 5.5″ in size.  It has slightly curly corners and a rough complexion.  It is full of great ideas and responds by the name of Ledger.

“There are no such things as bad ideas.”

Whoever invented that statement has never watched an infomercial.

There are plenty of bad ideas. The essence of this statement is that bad ideas can lead to good ones. Unfortunately, we either disregard someone’s bad idea altogether or we embrace it, because we’re stupid and don’t realize how bad it is.

Caterpillars can be wrapped in cocoons and made into butterflies. Here are 5 tips for responding to bad ideas:

1. Look past the book cover.
Ask for clarification of the idea. You may discover the idea is better than you thought. Most ideas are initially presented quickly, leaving out much information. The initial pitch is like a book cover. It’s a quick title and subtitle attempting to persuade you to open the book and see what’s inside. As we know, you can’t always judge a book by it’s cover.

2. Try a horse of a different color.
Don’t pitch out the idea completely. Maybe you still use a horse, just change the color. Ask if there’s a way to tweak the idea to overcome objections you may have. Example: “This seems cost prohibitive. Is there a way to do this without incurring so many expenses?”

3. Store nuts for winter.
Maybe I should say, “Store nutty ideas.” Preserve the ideas, even temporarily. If you’re in a meeting, write it on a white board. If the idea was emailed to you, save the email for later. Get away from it for a bit, then come back to it. You may see it in a whole new light.

4. Ask for more bullets.
If you criticize someone’s initial idea(s), you’re taking the gun out of their hands with bullets left in the chamber. Even if their first idea is idiotic, don’t respond hastily. State something like this: “That’s an interesting idea and I want to talk about it more. Before we do that, did you have any other ideas to discuss?” This can’t always be your response or it will be a formula easily recognized as, “That’s pretty lame, but let me patronize you before I tell you so.”

5. Identify Bad Guys vs. Daredevils
Maybe you don’t like the idea because it’s risky. Perhaps the idea is truly good, but carries risk that’s uncomfortable for you. If so, then ask yourself if the idea should be made “safe”… or if you should embrace the risk. You may be surprised by the answer.

There are plenty of bad ideas out there, but these five tips may help you find the beautiful monarch lying dormant inside the worm.