Creativity will out

 
It’s an oldie but a goodie. When Google went in search of talented programmers a few years back, it did so by placing large equations on unbranded white billboards.
 
The answer to these equations, indecipherable to the layperson, led to a website with another equation. The answer to that equation led to a message announcing that the successful programmer had earned a job at Google.
 
The relevance of this story, recounted by Rodrigo Castaneda (RIM), is the reaction it elicited from the 13 industry leaders assembled.
 
That reaction? A broad smile and a nod; simple human acknowledgement for a pleasingly simple and perfectly realised idea.
 
And that’s what creativity is all about.
 
At its best, it is pure, effective, intuitive and delightful. It is not forced or overworked.
 
There is also a basic and necessary innocence to creativity that we should strive to protect.
 
Imagination CEO Douglas Broadley calls it “feeling the rain in your face”. His European Creative Director Julian Baker says it’s all about “ambition and optimism”, recalling a time when his father woke him up in the middle of the night to watch the moon landings.
 
Whatever you call it, the best creativity should stir an overwhelmingly positive response. And we should fight for its emergence in our future, whatever the challenges.
 
This means nurturing talented young people so that their enthusiasm is allowed to shine through even in the darkest times. “We run the risk of losing an entire generation to the economy,” says Baker.
 
The challenges to creativity are many, as our session revealed. They include:
 
Technology:
Can it keep up? “Just barely,” says Castaneda. “We don’t yet have flying cars yet, but if you watch the Jetsons, we were meant to”.
 
Regulation:
Possibly the biggest “enemy” of creativity. “We actually could have flying cars,” says Tim Routsis, CEO of Cosworth. “But we don’t because regulation gets in the way; regulations which are designed to preserve the status quo.”
 
This obstacle is by no means restricted to the automotive sector, it hits all industries, including the media, as the BBC’s Mark Coyle explains, referring to the challenges of international rights restrictions around sporting events like the London Olympics. But, he adds, tight regulation of the corporation itself, forces it to focus, which is a positive.
 
Marketing:
“We all have loads of ideas. The bigger challenge is driving them through,” says ASICS marketing director Michael Price. “Is Apple the most innovative company? I don’t know, but it is incredibly successful at getting innovative products to market”.
 
The additional point here is that products and ideas which flow against the tide or disrupt the accepted norm are often the hardest to make happen.
 
Stale seniority:
Some companies need their employment cycle to rejuvenate to be able to step into the unknown. “When people get to a certain level of seniority, they almost have to die out for their doctrines to pass and for the next wave of innovation to come along,” says Orlando Wood (Brainjuicer).
 
Fear of the “known”:
Similarly, Richard Cope (Mintel) stresses the importance of people stepping outside of their comfort zone to realise their creative aspirations. “Stop thinking about geography. Stop thinking about sectors. There is a lot to be said for randomness.”
 
Honest appraisal:
This is not something to fear, but rather is an important step for any creative idea to go through; a review process, which is absolutely honest and frank and looks out for weaknesses as well as strengths. Every inventor of an idea will be fiercely protective of it – it often takes someone totally removed from it to test whether it really works or not.
 
So where does all of this leave us? With the sense that the best creativity can overcome all of this.
 
The biggest area of agreement from all participants at a lively session is that we must fight for innovation and ideas in all of our businesses and in our lives.
 
Even in the uncertain modern world we live in, we can’t be afraid to be brave and to try things out. “Try, fail, try again, fail better” (sic Samuel Beckett). Or as Routsis so eloquently says, "take the opportunity from the timid".
 
In some ways, the arrival of Virgin Galactic, after the demise of Concorde, sums this up. Sending normal people into space will stretch us again. Those first flights, according to Baker, will be a "seminal moment for the world".
 
That's how it should be with creativity in all industries. It should propel us forward. And we should fight for that.
 
 
The round-table comprised:
1.    Julian Baker, European Creative Director, Imagination
2.    Douglas Broadley, CEO, Imagination
3.    Rodrigo Castaneda, Senior Director, Design Systems RIM
4.    Richard Cope, Principal Trends Analyst, Mintel
5.    Mark Coyle, Editor 2012 Online, BBC
6.    Joe Clift, Brand & Customer Marketing Director, Lloyds TSB Banking Group
7.    Lucy George, PR Director, Imagination (chair)
8.    Mark Hewitt, Director, Imagination
9.    Pamela Perl, Creative Pioneers, IPA
10.  Michael Price, European Marketing Director, ASICS
11.  Tim Routsis, CEO, Cosworth
12.  Paul Simonet, Imagination
13.  Orlando Wood, Managing Director, Brainjuicer