Influx Insights Tag Feed: creativity

influx interview- scott belsky- behance

Influx Insights — 2008-02-26T21:32:35Z

Behance is a company that serves the needs of the growing network of independent creative professionals. It does everything from helping them find jobs, foster collaboration, generate new ways to think and delivers an engaging environment to view portfolios and creative samples.

I spent some time with Scott Belsky, the founder of Behance, to learn a little more.

1. What inspired you to make the leap from Wall Street to the creative world?

My work on Wall Street involved organizational and leadership development. I specialized in helping new, rapidly growing teams deal with the challenges that come along with growth. At night, I would try to leverage some of these skills for my friends in more creative and entrepreneurial roles. I found that, more than anyone else, creative leaders and teams struggle to push ideas forward. I became very interested in the leadership and organizational struggles of the creative world. I also believe that life is interesting because of the creative achievements around us. The music, art, design, and new businesses that start as ideas and ACTUALLY happen are the source of society's advancement.

2. Briefly describe what Behance is all about?

Behance is relentlessly focused on developing knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen. We believe that creative leaders and team are never short of ideas, but often lack the organizational skills, leadership capability, networks, and platform to push ideas forward.

Our model is very simple: Over the past two years, we have interviewed hundreds of especially productive creative teams. In each interview, we ask "how do you make ideas happen?" We zoom in on methods and tips for productivity, networking, leadership, and strategy.

Behance is NOT about idea generation or stimulating innovation. Rather, we are focused on boosting productivity and access to opportunity in the creative world.

Here are a few examples of how our products and services accomplish our mission:

Behance Network

The Behance Network was developed as a platform for efficient dissemination of creative work. If a member posts a new project that is "appreciated" by the community, then it is likely that tens of thousands of people will see the work. We've had nearly a million visitors in the past month or so, and many of the visitors come from top agencies, galleries, and other companies seeking creative talent. Members use the network as a tool for self-marketing, exchanging feedback with peers, staying accountable to goals, and building professional networks.

Action Method

There is a great, self-proclaimed shortage of productivity in the creative world. We have noticed that "office-centric" or lingo-intensive systems for productivity, including GTD, are not easily adopted among creatives. Rather, we discovered that creatives need a simple, design-centric system method for creative project management. We developed the Action Method in response to the best practices we observed. The Action Method has spawned an entire product line that is sold around the US and the Museum of Modern Art stores, including the critically acclaimed "Action Book."

Behance Magazine

As we conduct interviews, we write up articles and also generate new "tips" for creative professionals. We have gathered them together in an online magazine.

Advisory Services

Our team is starting to do a lot of consulting work for creative teams within large companies. Surprisingly, creative teams suffer from many of the same inefficiencies as a designer or artist. We think that every creative company, agency, and project needs to consider a path to what we call "productive creativity."

3. How do you see the Behance growing and developing in the future?

Our team hopes to continue developing products and services that address the needs of creative professionals. We are starting to develop some interesting web-based applications in response to suggestions we have received. We are also developing a whole pipeline of knowledge, mostly "tips," that will help boost productivity in the creative workspace. The Behance Network is also an ongoing project that we believe is only in the "first inning." Ultimately, we will feel successful if more ideas actually happen as a result of our work.

4. What are some of the biggest trends you see out there in the world of creative professionals?

There are two trends we talk about quite often:

(1) More than ever before, we are seeing "creative" as a trait actively sought by recruiters across industries. We're also seeing the more self-described "creative" folks on teams getting promoted on the basis of their creative contributions. Of course, once creative people are empowered within a company/team, there is a great need for increased leadership capability and productivity.

(2) Creative professionals are feeling more empowered to represent themselves professionally, rather than depend on being found by a headhunter or working full-time for an agency. The "freelancer" is starting to act more like a business than an individual. We see the amount of work and opportunities that Behance Network members are getting.

5. What will it take for America to compete in the battle for creative talent?

It is really interesting to consider America's "competitive advantages" over the past decades. Remember that big American companies like GE and Hewlett Packard used to compete on "efficiency." GE's development of Six Sigma and HP's advances in plant efficiency were big selling points.

However, now GE has changed their tag line to "imagination at work" and HP is all about innovation. The change in brand is evidence of the fact that efficiency is now accomplished through off-shoring and is no longer a competitive advantage.

Our team believes that innovation is the grounds for competition going forward. We also believe that innovation is the result of PRODUCTIVE creativity. As companies hire more creative professionals to fuel innovation, they will recognize the need to design teams and workflow to achieve Productive Creativity.

To stay competitive, we think American business needs to bridge the gap between creative and other departments. There must be an emphasis on the components of "Productive Creativity," and we're hoping that Behance plays a critical role in this trend.

6. Where do you find your inspiration?

Most or our team's inspirations come from our own frustrations as creative professionals. We're in a unique business where the greatest "breakthroughs" are a response to the greatest frustrations we observe in our work and when we consult for others.

Posted by Ed Cotton

nokia thinks the future of media is circular

Influx Insights — 2008-01-10T17:29:51Z

Nokia and the Future Laboratory, have just completed a research study that explored attitudes and developments in the use of technology and media.

They talked to 9,000 consumers in 17 countries. The breakthough finding and brave prediction is the emergence of what Nokia is calling "Circular Media"

"From our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call 'Circular'. The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media.

We think it will work something like this; someone shares video footage they shot on their mobile device from a night out with a friend, that friend takes that footage and adds an MP3 file - the soundtrack of the evening - then passes it to another friend. That friend edits the footage by adding some photographs and passes it on to another friend and so on. The content keeps circulating between friends, who may or may not be geographically close, and becomes part of the group's entertainment."

Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia

It's an interesting theory, the idea that consumers will add and to, interact and participate with media makes complete sense, but the constant addition and participation by members of a friendship group is hard to believe, as is the shelf-life of each piece of content.

This could get easily become boring in a short period of time.

Nokia's report also appears to miss the blending and blurring of user-generated and conventional media; users taking established media content and adding their own spin to that content.

Posted by Ed Cotton

designing an agency for black swans

Influx Insights — 2007-12-21T16:19:25Z

As the advertising industry falls more and more in love with black boxes, terabytes of data and predictive models, it could be missing out on the one thing it needs to encourage, the random.

One of the non-fiction books of the year is Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swan, which examines the significance of rare and unexpected events and the lack of human understanding about these areas.

As human beings we are always looking to explain things and develop theories to explain the unexplainable.

The more we develop plans and process to create outcomes, its less likely that these will generate something breakthrough.

Taleb believes that tinkering and doing is the way to create and make something interesting, this isn’t about following a predictable and prescribed pathway that’s based on past events.

“Let us go one step further. It is high time to recognize that we humans are far better at doing than understanding, and better at tinkering than inventing. But we don't know it. We truly live under the illusion of order believing that planning and forecasting are possible. We are scared of the random, yet we live from its fruits. We are so scared of the random that we create disciplines that try to make sense of the past--but we ultimately fail to understand it, just as we fail to see the future.”

Forbes- May 23rd- 2007

While it’s undeniable that tracking and accountability are essential elements of responsibility for the agency: client relationships, there’s significant danger in believing that past results can predict future success.

In the end, it’s all about allowing and encouraging accidents to happen.

Maybe Account Planners should change their title to Accident Makers.

Agencies should look at how they can create environments and situations that allow these accidents to happen.

This could involve a radical look at how creativity is developed and the environment its developed in- our office space, etc.

We need to be more comfortable about embracing chaos.

Most significant of all, is that in a world where breaking through is getting tougher by the minute, agencies must teach their clients how to embrace “the accident”, instead of falling back on tried and tested formulas.

For many, this will involve throwing away the rules, this will be hard to do, but it’s likely that those who don’t embrace and encourage unexpected accidents, won’t achieve the success both they and their brands desire.

Here’s an interview Charlie Rose did with Nicholas Taleb in August of this year.

Posted by Ed Cotton

15+ things i now know thanks to the ad age/creativity idea conference

Influx Insights — 2007-11-16T14:33:48Z

Here are 15 things that I know, now that I didn’t at 9am yesterday, thanks to Jonah, Scott and Teressa's Ad Age/Creativity Idea conference.

1.    No one has every liked a single one of Russell Simmons' ideas.
2.    David Jones is putting digital at the center of everything Euro RSCG does and think that agencies core skill is short form storytelling, a talent that will always been in demand.
3.    IDEO believe that advertising suffers because it’s become so pervasive (just like pollution) and that tonally, it no longer expresses optimism and instead has a cynical and negative view of the world. However, if you encourage people to participate, they will step forward and positively surprise you.
4.    BBDO engages in Collaborativity and hosts workshops to make this happen with clients, not the agency, coming up with ideas. They’ve already done 20 workshops at GE alone
5.    David Droga wants to help his clients achieve momentum, become the new home shopping king with Honeyshed (40 people in LA and lots of help from Smuggler) and wants to educate New York kids using their cellphones.
6.    Barry Diller may or may not be interested in AOL, believes that mobile is the future and that his recent Ask campaign, “the alogorithm” was a “total bust”.
7.    Blendtec – the YouTube kings, have achieved over 70 million views of their films and are now making money from ad revenue on Revver, developing ads for other clients and of course, the five-fold increase in sales was nice too. Also, every company needs to be using RSS feeds- so your customers can get news about you.
8.    VBS- are the kings of cool. They just are and their global, gonzo news journalism is truly one of a kind as witnessed by their soon to be released documentary- Heavy Metal in Baghdad. They are the MTV for the generation that no longer watches MTV.
9.    The CEO of Seventh Generation sits on the board of Greenpeace and consults with Lee Scott of Wal-Mart and after years of not like the Bentonville giant as now come around. He believes his products aren’t sustainable and are only less good. He believes companies will soon be judged by their ethical performance and businesses will not be allowed to get away with stuff for much longer.
10.    Facebook innovates by empowering its employees to do what the hell they want.
11.    Robert Stephens of the Geek Squad told us the importance of a culture, that his employees connect on X-Box Live and how uses Kung-Fu movies as a recruitment tool
12.    The Most Interesting Man in the World campaign is for Dos Equis and made by Euro RSCG, but only has 60,000 views compared to the Blendtec’s 70 million
13.    “CGM is not an idea” David Jones
14.    Facebook believe that there’s nothing better than a trusted referral and that offering that up to advertisers is huge.
15.    A picture sharing game called ESP is one of the most addictive games ever, but more than that, it can be used to accurately predict cultural trends and has the potential to morph into the world’s biggest dating site.

Posted by Ed Cotton

capturing the creativity of the crowd

Influx Insights — 2007-08-25T01:21:41Z

Posted by Ed Cotton

aaaa's planning conference- day one- sir ken robinson

Influx Insights — 2007-08-07T02:14:55Z

The first day at the AAAAs Account Planning conference in San Diego started with a bang, straight out of the gate, Sir Ken Robinson set the stage with an inspiring address about the human resource crisis and suggested building and nurturing creative cultures as the only way out.

Sir Ken suggested, as many others have done before, that we are entering a period of perpetual change, where creativity and innovation are the only solutions to gain competitive advantage.

He also noted some other problems:

1. Our perception of creativity and intelligence

There is little recognition that the two are linked. You can’t be creative and intelligent and visa versa. In fact, it seems that planning thrives on this perceptual division.

2. Our narrow definition of creativity.

It’s not just art, design and communication. There can be creative approaches to process- he cited Wal-Mart or adding a culture around coffee like Starbucks has done.

3. The creative ghetto

Putting the responsibility for all things creative in the hands of one department negates the creative capacity of the whole organization.

4. Our education system

A system that beats creativity out of kids.

Sir Ken noted that being creative requires people to DO something- people have to make something, they can’t just think about it. So the secret is to help people find their outlets- the best medium for their expression.

Creativity, like intelligence comes in different flavors.

He challenged the audience to consider the questions:

How are you intelligent?

How are you creative?

Sir Ken’s secrets for creative success were all about having teams of people who were multi-disciplinary and had the power to take ideas upwards. He also mentioned the importance of creative workspaces as they are both reflections of the corporate culture and play a vital role in stimulate employees imagination. Companies need to strive to create the ideal conditions where creativity can blossom.

Finally, he challenged everyone too aim high and succeed because too often we aim low and succeed.

Posted by Ed Cotton

creativity as a spectator sport

Influx Insights — 2007-07-25T15:32:17Z

A few years ago, the creative career path was characterized by a rigorous process that defined the creative journey; years spent at art school and toiling in a low paying job that could only be gained through access to the right people. Although its become something of a clich�, but the internet has leveled the playing field and spread creative talent far and wide with many of the protagonists being discovered through the well honed process of meritocracy that now rules the web.

What’s interesting is that the same people now want to take the battle onto a different stage, they aren’t content with the satisfaction of YouTube hits of winning Threadless designs, instead they seek the adulation of the crowd. No matter how many YouTube hits you get or t-shirts you sell, you might never here the ripple of applause that comes from your peers recognizing you.

The new movement is all about creativity as a spectator sport; events designed for creatives to battle each other and for legitimate winners to emerge from the process. It’s living proof that you can’t be anonymous and those real life peer connections are all important.

There are probably dozens of examples of these new contests, but I have a couple for starters.

Cut and Paste is a digital design tournament with DJs spinning sounds and graphic designer battles. It started in NYC in 2005 and this year it will host 17 different tournaments around the world.

Sketch 120 a live architectural sketch competition set up by the Architectual League of NYC. This event will take place this Saturday, July 28th at the Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn.

For photographers and other artists, there’s the Slideluckpotshow, an event that’s been running since 2004. It’s not a contest and more of a get together with food, five minute slide shows and conversation.

This is a manifestation of the desire for “real” in a world where you have thousands of virtual friends that you may have never met, there’s nothing can replace the potency of real human interaction and competition.

If anyone is doing anything like this with advertising or has plans to do so, please let Influx know. The live spectacle of teams wrestling real time over a tricky Tide brief would be something to behold.

Posted by Ed Cotton

the power of surprise

Influx Insights — 2007-07-18T03:59:30Z

Doing something genuinely different and surprising, is more important than ever in a cluttered world.

Often, because it’s so hard to get, achieving a surprise creates its own problem; the tempting trap of a formula; the belief that recent success can be repeated if similar patterns are followed.

In advertising, success creates a dilemma; stick too rigidly to the formula and risk ending up looking too similar to your past success.

Sony’s UK Bravia spots are a perfect example; the first was incredible and the second one was merely great.

In a world where more and more content is being consumed on the web, often based on recommendation, users demand surprise.

Who said this was an easy business?

Certainly not Bill Bernbach.

“However much we would like advertising to be a science-because life would be simpler that way-the fact is that it is not. It is a subtle, ever-changing art, defying formularization, flowering on freshness and withering on imitation; where what was effective one day, for that very reason, will not be effective the next, because it has lost the maximum impact of originality.”

Posted by Ed Cotton

branding education

Influx Insights — 2007-07-15T23:16:41Z

Educational establishments sometimes find it difficult to bring creativity to their marketing and branding efforts.

Given the increasing desire for everyone to learn a little creativity, I thought it was worth taking a look at the exploits of The Crucible, an institution designed just to do that.

Located in Oakland, The Crucible is a 30,000 sq ft plus space where you can learn how to make stuff, specifically-, welding, blacksmithing, foundry & mold making, glass, jewelry, neon & light, kinetics, machine shop, stone, woodworking, paper works, fire performance and ceramics.

Founded in 1999, for the past seven years its organized a Fire Arts Festival as a fund-raiser. Thousands of people pay $45 a head, some even more, to experience first hand the thrill of fire sculptures and performance.

It’s a great way to raise money, but it’s also a brand experience. You get to see, touch, smell and even taste The Crucible brand first hand.

It’s living, breathing, creative, interesting, edgy and exciting.

How would you create a Cruciblelike experience for your educational institution?

What would Harvard's look like?

What would Cal-Berkeley do?

What about MIT?

VCU-Adcenter?

Here are some shorts from the last day of the Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival.

Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

Posted by Ed Cotton

photos from maker faire- 2007

Influx Insights — 2007-05-20T05:15:55Z

clients dont want great ideas

Influx Insights — 2007-05-14T14:43:15Z

Business Week recently conducted a survey amongst senior executives on the topic of innovation. One of the questions struck Influx as being especially interesting; the obstacles to return on investment for innovation.

The barriers aren’t exactly what you expect them to be, for example, clients don’t seem to have a problem generating the ideas, it’s the implementation that’s the issue.

Clients need help in areas beyond the creative generation of the ideas themselves.

Specifically, clients want help in the following areas...

-    Becoming more comfortable with risk
-    Streamlining the internal co-ordination process
-    Identifying the right opportunities
-    Bringing relevant consumer insights to the table

It appears clients want strategy and process, more than creativity a notion that runs counter to the thinking at most communication agencies.

adding layers to videos

Influx Insights — 2007-06-14T18:14:53Z

Mojiti is a new site that provides all kinds of possibilities for consumers to play with existing content and maybe even for brands to annotate and add to their communication materials.It's user-created pop-up video and shows the oppoortunities that exist to add layers and depth by adding additional content elements.

got milk 2.0

Influx Insights — 2007-06-14T18:12:16Z

The California Milk Processing Board’s (CMPB) Got Milk campaign is one of the most enduring and best-loved ad campaigns in history, not the Milk Moustache campaign, but the television work of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners

The mid 1990s campaign with “Planning God”, Jon Steel’s fingerprints all over it, despite being over ten years old, is still loved by planners and creative teams worldwide.

The powerful insight that certain foods are just born to be with milk and consuming these foods without it is perilous, was brilliant and dramatized in some style by great television advertising.

At the time, it was regarded as AN example of how planning can impact creativity, but over the years has emerged as THE example.

It looks like the campaign has been relegated to the vaults of history as the CMPB comes to terms with a new Internet age.

Goodby gave us a taste of the future with last year’s Cow Abduction campaign, but the latest work, produced in collaboration with North Kingdom , is something else all together.

It merges the worlds of television advertising, animation and gaming into a cohesive concept that’s stunningly executed.

There’s an amazing level of detail and the attention that’s gone into the work.

Get the Glass may become a “marker” for the future of the creative internet experience, in the same way that Goodby’s Jon Steel inspired television, now looks like it was the closing chapter of last century’s television age.

For years, the Internet was always playing second fiddle for production dollars to television, but that looks set to change. The level of complexity required in creating an engaging Internet experience demands significant investment, especially as the bar is being raised with video broadband everywhere on the internet and HD in the living room.

The internet’s communication future is no longer about analog “TV on the web”, but instead it needs to embrace multi-disciplinary experiences that exploit the creative potential of internet technologies to their fullest.

target continues to be innovative with media

Influx Insights — 2007-03-31T16:10:04Z

Target is incredibly consitent in everything it does and especially in its innovative use of media.

Here's the latest example from the BART subway in San Francisco.

Via SFist