CANCELLATION OF CREATIVITY OZ 2011

The idea of running a creativity conference for the first time in Australia was born a few years ago. The original idea was to run the conference in early February 2010, but thanks to the economic downturn around the World, the decision was made to postpone to 2011. During the course of the past year or so, a number of things have changed quite dramatically, and in particular changing markets and changing priorities have combined to cause a re-think of what might be possible.

We have decided to focus much of our time and attention away from the corporate world, in areas of real need, in particular the educational needs of children living in third-world countries. From the inspiration of Frank Smith in Toronto, through my involvement in Rotary International, and together with some friends and colleagues we have established a registered 'not-for-profit' organisation called ABCD: Art Building Children's Dreams (Australia) Inc.

This means, unfortunately, that we need to abandon one dream in the hope of achieving another. Following that decision a few weeks ago, Bill, Jennifer and I have thought long and hard about how we could find a way to enable the conference to go ahead. But in much the same way, Bill and Jennifer have spent a lot of time re-evaluating priorities and to pursue the conference idea would not be in line with the strategy they need to follow for the next year or two.

We are aware that many people have had the prospective dates in 2011 penciled in the diaries for months and months! So our sincere, collective apologies go out to all those wonderful people who were so generous in their offers of help and in their willingness to participate.

Brainstorming tips

The brainstorm is often perceived as the Holy Grail for answering all questions that arise in business. But did you know there are right and wrong ways to brainstorm? An unfocused brainstorming session can be nothing but a waste of time but conducted properly, brainstorming can have huge benefits. Here are some tips for a productive brainstorming session.

1. Separate your thinking. Creative thinking and critical thinking use different parts of the brain. Don't put your brain under more pressure than it needs by constantly switching from the right brain centre of creativity and imagination to the stricter left-brain centre of critical and analytical thinking. Do the creative thinking in one sitting, take a break, and then choose the best options. Make lists - then make choices.
2. Suspend judgement. Following on from point 1, if it's so important to separate creative and critical thinking, it follows that while you are brainstorming for ideas that the critic is kept in the background. So suspend judgement on ideas - no criticism at all. When people criticise ideas they block the flow. Imagine the situation where an idea is put forward and immediately someone tells you why it won't work. Not only does that put a negative blanket on proceedings, it also subdues people into not wanting to put their ideas forward for fear of criticism. It's also important to avoid telling people how wonderful their idea was. Doing so inevitably leads to more similar ideas coming forward and therefore can stifle creativity. It can also suppress ideas from others. They may have had a great idea and were just about to put it forward when another idea is heaped with praise. They then reason that their idea was probably not in the same league so don't put it forward. Lost ideas are a tragedy! This introduces the third form of critic - self-judgement. Individuals in brainstorming sessions often see others as being better able to come up with ideas so don't put their own forward for fear of ridicule.
3. Build on ideas. Some great ideas often come along when a 'theme' of ideas gathers momentum. Somebody may mention 'direction signs' as an idea. Then the theme continues around signs, such as warning signs, warning labels, sticky labels, coloured labels, coloured packaging, flavoured packaging, etc... And so it goes. As soon as the theme runs dry move on to something else.
4. Seek out the 'wild ideas'. Some of the greatest solutions ever have come about as a result of the crazy, wild ideas that have surfaced in brainstorming sessions. A colleague was working with a glassware company. Glasses were wrapped in newspaper, inserted in a card sleeve and packed into a box. The problem was that people on the packing bench would frequently stop to read the articles in the newspaper! Productivity was on the way down. In the brainstorming session designed to find a solution, the wild idea came from an exasperated participant who suggested that they should "Poke their eyes out!" Maybe not the best idea as it stands!? But what is the underlying principle? What's 'up'? The 'up' here is, "how can we stop them from seeing". A few options were considered before someone suggested employing people who might be vision impaired. And that is exactly what the company did. And they gained more than they anticipated. Not only did the new recruits not stop to read the paper, their improved tactile ability reduced breakages and the company received some very positive PR as a result of employing people who were finding it difficult to get work.
5. Go for quantity. The more ideas you have the more likely you are to find a good one! Really strive for as many ideas as possible, and remember not to judge along the way. Limit your brainstorming sessions to just four minutes. Yes - four minutes only. Your brain is just like a muscle. If you went to the gym you would typically lift a certain weight perhaps 12 times. You couldn't keep lifting it up and down for an hour. In exactly the same way, your brain can't keep brainstorming for an hour either.
6. Be clear what you are brainstorming about. In particular, don't just brainstorm on possible solutions. Before you get to solutions it's best to brainstorm first on 'what's the issue?' then follow up with 'what's the ideal future?' - and then finally on to solutions. Through this entire process, make sure you keep the thinking separate; creative then critical, make lists then make choices.

If you follow these principles the quality of your brainstorming sessions is just bound to improve. You will come up with a lot more ideas and have more to choose from. And you'll save a lot of time into the bargain.

Economic Downturn - is the left to blame?

Having read the headline you may be expecting a party political broadside fired at the Labour Party! Sorry to disappoint you – we’re talking brains, not political affiliation.

The left side of the brain is responsible for objective analysis and rational thought, is focused on facts, figures, and the bottom line. It likes to be seen as leader of the pack, the most important part of the brain and the only ‘proper’ way of seeing the World. Left-brain thinkers are achievers, aspire to greatness and enjoy the trimmings of success; the prestige car, flying at the ‘pointy-end’ of the plane, large house and lots of money. Personal success is highly important. They are generally impatient and once they have made up their mind about the ‘right way’ nothing will stop them.

Left-brain thinkers are vastly over-represented in senior management positions, in all forms of parliament and in particular on the front bench of every parliament in the World. We are also clearly focused on creating more left brainers, because virtually every education system in the World has a clear priority to teach left brain subjects in a left-brain style of teaching; maths, science, engineering and IT come to mind.

But it’s not all negative; we definitely need left-brain thinkers. Without them, tasks rarely get finished, we don’t focus on the outcomes and everywhere is untidy! Left-brain thinkers are great at dotting the eyes and crossing the tees, balancing the books and making mechanical things work properly.

So why all the negative comment about the left-brain thinkers?

The real problem is that because we have such a HUGE imbalance of left brain thinkers as heads of government, industry, commerce and education, all the odds are stacked against finding new and better ways of working and doing business. Left-brain thinkers keep on doing the same old thing and following the same old processes. They have a firm view of what’s right and what’s wrong.

They would say that it is totally wrong to have a 2-year-old child in the Senate, even for a few moments! (Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young had her two-year-old daughter sent out of the house at vote time by the Senate President John Hogg)

So what would be the difference if we had more right brained people in the lead? Well, children in the workplace would not be a problem for a start. Many of the more progressive (left brainers – please Google progressive…) organisations have crèches for children of pre-school age open all the time people are at work.

Organisations like Apple and Google have amazing workplaces, with highly paid staff enjoying free snacks any time they feel peckish, taking their pets to work, having snooker tables and games to play at any time they need to switch off, and easy chairs dotted around the place for relaxing, dreaming and thinking. (Pause for left brainers to go tut tut tut…)

But please, stop ‘tutting’ just for a minute and look at something from your side of the brain, the balance sheet and profit and loss account! Organisations that are employing such ‘ridiculous’ work practices are actually performing better than conventional organisations in most cases!

So let’s put the record straight… Left brainers? We need you! We desperately need you for your objective and organised and analytical and critical thinking skills. But we also need you to fully recognise that you can’t do it all on your own! In fact if you try to, we’ll get further into the mire and more and more workplaces will close, and more and more children will be educated to be just like you – and that’s not going to help in the future!

So what can the right brain offer you? We have better social skills, we are more empathetic, we are better at negotiating and we have well-paid and enthusiastic people working in an enjoyable environment. It might be messy and casual, but it sure is fun too!

We can find hundreds and hundreds of ideas around any of the issues faced by any business, government and education establishment in existence today – but of course we never get invited in by the lefties. And on our own we wouldn’t be able to implement much – so we would need the lefties help to do that. We acknowledge you are better in that area than we are.

If we put our collective minds to it we could put an end to poverty, recover the climate change fiasco and find a way to stop 30,000 children dying in Africa from preventable diseases every day. We could reduce crime, domestic violence, depression and mental illness. Youth suicide could drop dramatically, and we could find a way of reducing the drug trade.

However (do I hear another tut…?) there is a price to pay, and it’s going to be the left-brain people who pay the most. You’re going to have to take a pay cut. You’ll have to reduce your insatiable demand for things that don’t matter, like fine cars, expense accounts, pointy-end flying, and multi-million dollar payouts when you stuff up the organisation and make hundreds lose their jobs.

And here’s a wild idea to get you thinking! Next time you fly somewhere on business, swap the business class seat for a trip in economy. That will give you some real opportunities. For a start you can meet some different people and find out how they think, and secondly, you could donate the price difference to a charity of your choice and make a real difference to people’s lives. You might even SAVE a life!

So there are plenty of potential solutions around to all the World’s problems, including of course the issue of the economic downturn in Australia. But we can only do it together. On our own, right brainers can’t get things done. On your own, left brainers can’t see creative solutions. You got us into the mess; it will take both of us to get us out.

Together we can discover the ideas, make them workable, and make it happen. So how about a partnership?

Have fun, whichever brain you live in...!

Ken

Creativity Oz - Postponed till 2011

Hi folks

Every now and then we find decisions that are really, really hard to make - especially when the heart is saying one thing and the head saying another.

Over the past two weeks we've spent a lot of time talking to clients, potential sponsors, and other organisations about Creativity Oz and the state of the World right now. The bottom line is that whilst everyone I've spoken to thinks the idea of Creativity Oz is just wonderful, the number of people able to commit any support in the form of sponsorship or even attendance is remarkably low.

So we've decided to postpone Creativity Oz for one year.

There are a number of factors involved...

• As I've mentioned above, unless the economy changes radically for the better we will be hard pushed to find the numbers. Many of the people we have spoken to are pretty 'deep' inside the finance sector and whilst there is a level of upbeat about some of the published news, the inside story is just the opposite.
• There are quite a few people who have promised to come from overseas. Our reckoning is that up to half of the participants are likely to fly in. This has a number of responsibilities attached - our responsibilities I feel. I really want to avoid people buying best-value non-refundable airfares for an event that might need to be cancelled after they buy the tickets. A bit negative I hear you say... But alongside the financial issues there is the swine flu issue which it seems is largely unknown. And although mild at the moment, mutation is considered by many experts to be on the cards, and it might be this which has a bigger effect on attendance than travel issues and the economy. It's largely unknown I agree. We have been told it's even possible that we could find international events, and even large national gatherings, banned if a wider and more virulent strain of flu is encountered.
• Because this is a 'first' for Australia, a fizzer would be the worst possible outcome! We must make sure the first event goes with a bang, that we get all those wonderful international presenters that we are relying on so much, and that we get the widest appropriate exposure to the event - and that it is reported as success.

So - I think it has to be 2011. I would rather postpone early than wait and see. Obviously I'm aware that we could end up in Feb. 2010 and everything is sunshine and light - no flu, economic recovery, growth rates up and more people in work, with budgets ready to be spent on our kind of stuff! That would be annoying I guess, but won't damage anyone else. The risk of going ahead now, and events taking place that would seriously inconvenience people and cost them money, is a much bigger risk and I don't feel comfortable in doing that.

As all of you have given such sensational support to the idea and have helped in so many ways I wanted to let you know first before we sent out an email to everyone else. In the next e-News we send out from the Thinking Network I will acknowledge that support fully.

In particular I would like to thank Brendan for putting in hours and hours of work on the Creativity Oz website - it really is shaping up to be a treasure. I would also like to thanks Brendan's friend Ben - who incidentally I still haven't met! Ben - the logo you designed is just outstanding! Thanks so much for the time and effort you put into this. And Sally - thanks for agreeing to run with the PR for the event, we couldn't possibly have found anyone better suited to this task.

To everyone else - if you're looking for a web guru, a sensational graphic designer and a PR person who can walk on water - these are the people to go to. Please support them if you have an opportunity. Just ask me for their email address.

All the best

Ken

Pay what you think it's worth!

MEDIA RELEASE, 25th MAY 2009

THE 'PAY WHAT YOU THINK IT'S WORTH' MODEL GOES B2B

In a ground-breaking step Melbourne-based business improvement and Productive Thinking consultancy, The Thinking Network, has offered 'pay what you think it's worth' terms to selected customers.

The concept has existed for some time in the restaurant business with Melbourne eatery, Lentil As Anything, operating in this manner since 2000, and a number of other restaurants in Australia and elsewhere following suit in recent times, in response to the global financial crisis.  Hairdressers and other consumer product and service providers have also begun adopting the model but The Thinking Network is pioneering the concept in the business-to-business arena.

The Thinking Network will undertake a Productive Thinking program for a fee determined by the client once the activity has been undertaken.

"The idea is based around picking and agreeing upon a key issue of concern to the business right now.

Then the client will choose a small group of people to work on the issue and allow them time from their normal duties to do so.  We agree on a rough timeframe, then get to work.  We take the group through the Productive Thinking process, from identifying the 'real' issue to having a well qualified solution ready for implementation.  The solutions will typically include a proposed action plan and a picture of likely benefits and costs.

The decision to implement any or all of the solutions is up to the organisation and it's at this point that they'll be asked to decide what they think the solution is - or might be - worth to the organisation.  Then they decide what to pay us," tells The Thinking Network CEO, Ken Wall.

Whilst the offer is very much a pilot program at this stage, with no more than six clients being offered the opportunity to take part, Ken will consider rolling it out in a more permanent and openly available manner pending the results of the pilot.

"We are demonstrating our faith in the Productive Thinking model and the facilitation skills of our consultants," says Ken, "And our clients are being given the opportunity to solve a thorny issue in a time in which there are many of them!"

Future jobs - what job would YOU like?

It has often been said that in a few years time a whole pile of jobs will exist that don’t exist today.  The only thing that changes is the number.  So I thought it might be worth looking at what jobs exist today that weren’t around a few years ago. 

It seems that a lot of them have to do with changing technology.  We didn’t have an iPhone maintenance guy 2 years ago.  There was nobody around to fix ‘twitter’.  We didn’t need employment agencies for out-of-work financial analysts! 

As I was looking through the list I wondered, which of those ‘new’ jobs would I like to have a go at. 

Then it hit me – I would love to be the guy that sets up the telephone numbers.  No – not the numbers you dial to get Aunty Betty on the phone and wish her happy birthday.  I want to be the guy that sets up that whole list of numbers that you have to press AFTER you have made the phone call! 

You know the story.  You have to start with the phrase, “Please listen carefully to the whole menu as numbers may have changed since your last call”.  Press 1 for sales, press 2 for service, press 3 for technical support, press 4 for complaints, press 5 to speak to a customer service operative and press 8 to hear the menu again.  If it were me I’d use bigger numbers and have longer lists, however… 

Then you get to choose from the ‘secondary menu’ – I know that’s what it’s called cos I looked it up!  The secondary menu is where the ‘choose a number’ technician could really go to town. 

Imagine you’ve just pressed 2 for service; the options are now endless...!  If your enquiry is about the model 347CDR-34 press 1, if your product was purchased after April 2008 press 2, if you know the extension number of the person you wish to speak to press 3 followed by the 7 digit extension number followed by the hash key, if you are phoning from Australia press 6, if your call is being routed through the Torsion Phase Eliminator, press 7, if you wish to return to the main menu press 9 otherwise stay on the line.  If you like the music press 4, if you would like to order the CD press 5 provided that you have your credit card number entered into the pre-selection audiophile receptor channel. 

Then we have the tertiary number choice menu – but you get the picture by now… 

The extra clever part of the system actually would involve a system of customer service operatives.  We would have to call them that because we wouldn’t be able to find any humans.

 I decided to program the system so that on a random keypunch the customers would find themselves speaking to the CSO (Acronyms are important here – we really need to create some more). 

Regardless of progress, the CSO would be supplied with a series of simple key phrases like “I need your help”, or “This item doesn’t work properly” or even “I’m really getting desperate…”  Whenever the CSO hears these words from the customer they are instructed to pass the customer on to another CSO, who is equally incapable of solving the problem, but who may succeed in getting the customer to hang up. 

Then comes the cruncher – I love this bit!  After I’ve set it up so that the customer has to go through AT LEAST the three levels and can only do so successfully by going back twice, (that’s a minimum of 14 keystrokes, 3 CSOs and no progress towards a solution) I would program the system so that every number the customer hits on the fourth time around the system will automatically take them back to level 1 – that’s it, the main menu!  Brilliant! I could have the silly customers going round and round in circles for hours!

 I resolved to learn how to do the programming and look for a job as a ‘choose a number’ technician, only I would turn out to be the maverick, wreaking havoc and confusion on the customer and causing an endless stream of customer complaints. 

It was then that the bottom fell out of my World.  I rang my bank, only to discover that they had already got the system in place.  The maverick role had been taken…

 

Positive News Only Day - Did it work?

Yesterday 10 May was Mother's Day in many parts of the World. That was certainly the case here in Oz! It was also the first 'Positive News Only Day' on twitter.  The original idea came from Kneale Mann (Twitter address #knealemann).  Many people started promoting the idea over the past week or so.  If you are a twitter user take a look at #gnod.  You'll see thousands of posts and it's pretty well impossible to work out how many people heard about the idea.

Was it worth it?  Well, I'm thinking that if just ONE person was able to give some good news it may have made a difference to them.  And if just ONE person was on the receiving end then that's pretty good too.  A lot of effort just to make one person happy?  Not if you're the one...!

But my guess is that it might have made a lot more people just a little but happier.  Let's hope so! And just because it's 11 May now doesn't mean we all have to get grumpy again!  Good news is, well... Good news!