The virtues of going both ways

Manti Te’o and Charles Woodson have nothing in common.

Actually, they both had spectacular college football careers, for two of the most storied football programs (and finest universities) in the world.  So there’s that.

But Charles Woodson won a Heisman Trophy.

And Manti Te’o hasn’t.

Yet.

And I say, give it to him.

The catch is, he only plays on defense. 

It might help his case if he could run back a kick or two or line up as a receiver and catch a couple of passes for touchdowns.

Offensive players get all the glory in football because they score all the points.  When it comes time to vote for the Heisman, the most glorified award in college football, it’s extremely rare that a defensive player wins.

Well, OK, it pretty much never happens.  Charles Woodson (University of Michigan, 1997) did it, but he’s all alone.  Out of 76 Heisman winners, he was the only primarily defensive player to ever win the award. 

But he wasn’t only a defensive player.  He also ran back punts and played receiver, and scored key touchdowns from those positions.

They call it playing on both sides of the ball.

It’s extremely infrequent in today’s era of sports specialization.  It does happen at some smaller schools and in high school, where the most skilled athletes are sometimes asked to play on both sides of the ball.

Putting aside fear of injury for a second, why wouldn’t you have more people going both ways?  Theoretically, wouldn’t you want your best athletes out there all the time?  Don’t you think they could access different aspects of their physical abilities to make plays all over the field, in all different situations?

I use the same theory when it comes to using creative thinking to solve challenges.  Regardless of the type of challenge—be it strategic or executional—wouldn’t you want to put your best people on it, and put both sides of their brains on it?

You do have two sides, you know.  You may not access one as much as the other, but they’re both there ready and raring to go.

Don’t let people convince you that you’re good at only one way of thinking. You may have been told you’re more inclined to be an organizational, controlling, logical left brainer.  Or an imaginative, artistic, emotional right brainer.

I say you’re both.

Or you could be.

When it comes to working through a challenge, think all around it.  Expand your mind.  Go places you didn’t think possible or worthy.  Read inspiring (and easy) books like A Technique for Producing Ideas.  Or intellectually provocative white papers on big data.  Go to an art museum.  Read the New York Times.  Or Cosmo.  Or People. 

Play Halo.  Play the Piano.  Play Sudoku.  Go somewhere else, physically or mentally.

Be like Charles Woodson.  Make your brain go both ways.  See what glory comes to  you. 

And Manti Te’o, you’d have my vote right now if I had one.  But it sure would be easier if you could catch one little pass for a touchdown…

Can a monologue can stop a bullet?

Depends on how you look at the world.

You can take the cynical stance and point out how ineffective Tony was, fancy feet aside, in preventing the Jets and Sharks from rumbling.  Riff and Bernardo are living proof. Well, not living, really, but you get the point.

Or, you could side with Hallie Gordon, who’s partnering with great organizations like Facing History And Ourselves and Steppenwolf Theatre, mounting an uphill battle to use the arts to help stop the killings of young Chicagoans.  It’s called “Now is the Time,” and it sends artists into gang-plagued Chicago public schools to at least try to start stemming the violence. 

You can say it’s a preposterous goal filled with ignorant ambition, given the extremely deep-rooted challenges facing many of the people involved in the cycles of violence.  As Chris Jones wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “…isn't some artistic response to this crisis going to be marginal at best…?”

Or, you could believe in the kind of effect that Now is the Time hopes to bring to troubled neighborhoods in need of radical change. While accomplishing that isn’t as easy as bringing in actors or dancers, it’s a different way of thinking.   And changing actions starts with changing thinking.

If nothing else, as Chris Jones also points out, anytime kids are involved in artistic pursuits, they’re off the streets and out of danger.  So for those few minutes, you could say the arts is actively fighting gangs and crimes.

You never know how someone could be affected by one monologue or one plie’ or one aria.  It could stop one bullet. 

It’s worth a try.  

Michael Jordan, Gene Kranz, and harnessing the power of optimism to create success

Last year at Chicago Ideas Week, I hosted a panel titled “Is this economy killing creativity or inspiring it?”  Five panelists discussed the challenges of staying fiercely creative in a less-than-encouraging economic climate.  They all agreed on one thing:

When life gives you lemons, creative people make limoncello.

It’s important to know that these weren’t all super-creative, off-the-charts right brainers.  Along with the owner of an amazing home and garden store (Sprout Home), a clothes designer, and an online entrpreneur, we also had the President of a superhot Chicago ad agency (commonground) and a senior marketing manager for a large packaged goods brand.

I was inspired by their optimism and conviction to take on the challenge of overcoming obstacles, regardless of the climate.  It reminded me of one of my favorite Michael Jordan quotes:

“If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

I flashed back to that panel when I read an article in yesterday’s Sunday Chicago Tribune about young adults who have graduated college and instead of facing the promise of a great future as in previous generations, are facing enormous obstacles. 

It spoke of “…a historic recalibration among expectations of every generation of Americans” and  continued, “As Europeans are being gripped by dream-crushing austerity, hopes are also being downsized here in ways not seen since the Great Depression…”

Wow.

Wowzer wow wow.  A historic recalibration?  Dream-crushing austerity?

How would that make you feel if you were sending a child to college in the Fall?  Knowing you’re about to spend thousands and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare her for…shredded dreams and crushing austerity?

Well, that would be me, and since I’ve written a post about why I believe college is still worth every penny, I can think of no better person than Apollo 13’s Mission Control Director Gene Kranz to answer the question.  One of the most memorable moments in film.

I think Mr. Kranz would agree with our panelists, and with Michael Jordan, and with anyone in this country and in this world who would argue that there’s always a creative answer for any situation, challenge, or hardship. It starts with enthusiasm and belief.  And above all, a fervent, almost blindless optimism.

And when you get around that wall, a nice cold of limoncello will be waiting on the other side.

Think Galactically

Over the years, Richard Branson has been a poster boy for off-the-charts right brain thinking. His stunts are legendary, including his trip down 5th Avenue in a tank—and a cannon shot at the Coke sign--to announce Virgin Cola’s arrival in the US. With Steve Jobs’ passing he may be one of the most prominent visionary creative thinkers left standing.

And he sure does offer fun things to do and buy. The latest, launching from the (publicly funded!) first commercial spaceport, is a ticket for one of the first space flights on Virgin Galactic, if you have $200,000 burning a hole in your pocket. I’m tempted to pony up just for the experience, damn the cash flow reorganization required. Astronauts smacked golf balls off the moon 30 years ago. I'd like to try knocking one into the cup with a 9 iron from 100 feet out.

Not to mention, pioneering opportunities don't come around every day.

We can all learn a lot from a crazy right brain thinker like Sir Richard. He sets the creative thinking bar insanely high and challenges us to think not just big, but galactically.

Occupy something more positive

I'm mad as hell and I could see myself Occupying something other than my desk chair or that one really good seat at Starbucks with the good view, away from the door but close enough to people-watch.

And I understand the way anger builds up, and I get why thousands of people have joined the Occupy movement.

But I would suggest one thing:

Occupy something a little more positive.

Last week at TEDxMidwest, I heard Bill Strickland talk. Fairly quiet, somewhat unassuming, intensely passionate guy. Read about him, see if you can help his cause, but more than anything else, be inspired by his story and the stories he's helped thousands of other people successfully tell. Then see if you might feel like Occupying something more positive.

Who needs socks when you can have cupcakes?

Human instinct is to want stuff, whether it’s stuff you should have or not. We can only hold back for so long. It’s why diets don’t last and professional baseball players who go to jail get to come back to professional baseball. People like to eat yummy treats and general managers like to win games. So red velvet cupcakes and $5 milion pitchers with 5.00 ERA’s re-enter the equation.

This was further confirmed in last Friday’s NYT article that lays out the thinking behind people who are back to buying fun stuff at a faster clip than the necessary stuff. As the founder of Junior’s Cheesecake in Brooklyn so articulately summed it up, “People want to get back to living — it’s become a more adjusted normal.” Water always finds it’s own level, and humans find theirs.

My only fear is that the level they like isn’t one they can afford. My wish for them: Think creatively. When the stuff you want is unhealthy, unaffordable, or just doesn’t seem like a good idea, think about what could replace it, or what you could do instead; maybe find a different place to shop or eat, put on a pair of pants that you always ignored, or try combining two foods in one dish that might normally make you gag. Rumor has it that’s how Grant Achatz got his start.

You can’t always get what you crave. But if you think creatively some time, you’ll find, you’ll get what you need...

Speaking of which, have you checked out the schedule at Chicago Ideas Week? You might find an event on Tues 10/11 that's especially interesting.

A great example of how NOT to use creative thinking to get to a great idea.

I love/hate this picture.

No wonder our esteemed leaders are gridlocked. Everyone has ideas on how to unlock them. Here’s a first step: Eliminate 85% of the people in the room; rock paper scissors, Simon Says, whatever works. Get fewer voices in the conversation.

The key to a great ideation is to get the right people in the room. Dear Washington: Try this.

Chicago Ideas Week is only 10 days away. Pls check out a very cool discussion on where creativity fits in to this new economy.

Good writing is good. Being different is better.

What’s better than when someone creates a piece of communication that respects the target’s intelligence? Well, Free Pie Wednesdays at Baker’s Square, for one. But gratis Coconut Cream aside, I love websites and tv shows and tweets that don’t treat people like herds of lowest common denominators. Explains why I love Aaron Sorkin, he of The American President, West Wing, Sports Night, and The Social Network. And being a writer, I love his work because the dialogue is spectacular. Rapid fire, biting, human.

That said, I still like watching shows like Wipeout, which succeed for the same reason Larry Moe and Curly are in the comedy Hall of Fame. Sometimes you just don’t need words.

This is not true, though, if you believe London MarketingWeek’s article about long copy ads making a comeback. On the surface, it’s a win for writers who like to flex their linguistic muscles. But as the article makes clear, it’s more about zigging when others are not zigging. With the years-long dearth of long copy ads, the agency was trying something different, going an unfamiliar way to engage consumers.

While an interesting trend, this is not about the number of words, or even about what they say, although Aaron Sorkin might diagree. This, as is often the case when you want to create breakthrough ideas, is just about thinking differently.

Shameless reminder: Don't miss Chicago Ideas Week and Twist's timely and intriguing panel discussion.

Chicago Ideas Week is coming

Something magical always happens when diverse creative thinkers come together.

Ancient Maya, the Algonquin Roundtable, the Big Lebowski conventions, the NFL owners meetings…well, the NFL may disprove the theory a bit, but maybe you need to make sure you’re assembling the right people.

Next October 10-16, the right people will indeed be gathering together right here in our backyard, to create an ecosystem of innovation, exploration, and intellectual recreation. Chicago Ideas Week consists of dozens of intriguing events and over 100 speakers spread out across the city. Amazing creative thinkers representing art, architecture, culinary arts, sports, and much much more (no NFL owners allowed).

Check it out, make a plan, be inspired.

Just because you didn’t get a Genius Grant doesn’t mean you’re not a genius

22 people were awarded MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grants", the no-strings-attached, half a million buck fellowships to spend however they want. The winners were doing all kinds of mediocre things like leading children’s choirs, fighting for elder rights, figuring out how to prevent sports concussions, yadda yadda yadda.

What would I do if I got a MacArthur Genius grant?

Pay Alfonso Soriano for four innings.
Buy a five second ad on the Super Bowl.
Fill my cart all the way to the top at Whole Foods.
Give ipads to all of the needy children in the New Trier school system.
Extend our Cooking Light subscription for 41,667 years
Buy a massive amount of gnocchi and anitpasti from Piccolo Sogno and several ridiculously expensive Barolos and slowly consume it all over a two to three week period

So I guess it would pretty much be wasted on me.

But seriously, if I received a large amount of for-good money...? I would use it to convince every person in the world that they have many creative bones in their body, even if they say they have none. I would design incredibly thought provoking and compelling mechanisms and buy the necessary materials to build them on a massive scale. And we would work (and play) together until they were regularly using the creative side of their brains to figure stuff out and solve tough challenges. And I would then hope to get many many thank-you notes.

What would you do?

Renegade inspiration

Bracelets made out of old bicycle tires. “WTFWJD” bumper stickers. Musical hair. Old books with the middle carved out, the way you’d sneak a gun into a jail, but with the shape of an iphone carved into it to create a clever storage and carrying device for your iPhone.

These were few of the many wonderfully innovative items being displayed and sold at the Renegade Craft Fair on Division Street over the weekend. Renegade is based in Chicago and is also held "in urban epicenters of creative indie-entrepreneurship."

In Chicago, the entire fair is only a few blocks long but the vast amount of creative thinking they cram into several dozen small booths would put most other fairs to shame.

The items for sale go from playful to profane, beautifully crafted to simple but ingenious. And many just plain fun and smile-inducing, like the bookmarks made out of old book spines.

Beyond the items, the way they’re displayed and the way the booths are set-up are also given thought and made to feel different and a little special. Not your standard art-fair-in-a-mall exhibition.

If you’re even the slightest bit interested in being inspired, put it on your calendar now for next September. See how people are conjuring up fantastic things from old skateboards, books, bicycle parts. Putting the right sides of their brains to work and having a pretty gosh darn good time.

And if you want to feed your physical curiosity, try the brown rice sliders from Mana food bar. Tasty!

Smell the book (or not)

Close your eyes and imagine you’re holding a book in your hands. What does it feel like? Smell like? Does it have years of dog-ears, coffee stains, worn edges? Now open it up. Are there annotations in the margins? Notes inside the front and back covers with phone numbers and lunch dates ?

If so, you’re crazy.

Books don’t look or feel anything like that, and they certainly don’t smell. That is, until someone creates a scratch n sniff app.

Well, ok, that might be a few years off, and I suppose some crazy antique book dealer in an alley in Evanston will make sure there will always be those things with pages that you turn and smell kind of dusty.

But as you well know, the digital book revolution is in full swing, and the latest reminder comes from Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, the guys who brought us JibJab. They have a new line of children’s books sold only on the ipad that allow you to customize a book and make yourself the star of the story.

This is what Gregg Spiridelli says about their new product:

"We see a huge opportunity to disrupt children's publishing and reinvent storytelling with new devices."

I love that. As much as I love the tactile experience of turning pages, I also love what the bros are doing. It’s smart and creative and makes reading more appealing for kids. It’s medicine inside a cupcake.

And if you’re wondering what the effect of tablet computers are on how kids are learning to read, according to USA Today, 47 of the top 50 iTunes book apps are kids’ titles.

Put that in your book and mark it.

Now that’s what I call a pacifier

This month’s winner in the “I thought of that years ago but dang it, someone actually did it!” category is the Adult Beverage Company. Let’s see if I can explain this without getting too complicated:

Chocolate milk + vodka = Yum!

Still with me?

Yup, another wonderfully simple idea hitting the big time, growing in leaps and bounds, getting widespread press for a cute little idea. Let’s hear it for the two mixologist-moms who cooked it up in their kitchens after livening up their kids chocolate milk after the little ones went to bed.

Further proof that the best ideas are sometimes right in front of your face and almost always super simple. Executing them? Now that there’s the hard part.

The first step is the biggest. After that, just keep your feet moving and soon you’ll be running.

And I have heard that chocolate milk is a good recovery source when you sweat…

Today’s great ideas are tomorrow’s wrinkles

When I read about an intriguing new idea it makes the corners of my mouth turn up and my eyes scrunch just a bit in a happy little salute. This happened the other day when I read a New York Times article on some of the New Year’s Eve tie-ins on Times Square.

Lip soother and kiss enhancer Nivea is a natural sponsor, giving out thousands of samples in preparation of thousands of midnight kisses.

Document company Cintas’ clever Good Riddance Day on December 28 gives people the opportunity to shred documents they want to forget about from the previous year. A woman from Tennessee won a trip to New York to be the first to shred: she’ll say Good Riddance to her medical bills from a life threatening operation in 209 that she paid off in 2010.

Smart, compelling, fun, relevant.

The only thing better than hearing about great ideas is watching them come to life in the very best possible way. Which makes me think of Waterford Crystal’s sponsorship of the ball that drops every year. No logo on it, people; they’ve just done a great job of popularizing the connection over the years. Now it fees like no other crystal is worthy of the Time Square ball.

A brilliant tie-in that’s incredibly well known with minimal promotional efforts. We should all be so lucky.

Riddle Me This

What’s a five letter word for “incites?”

I don’t know, because I’m not a crossword puzzler, but give me a little time. Trying to figure it out could help me land on a great answer to my next big conundrum.

Courtesy of Northwestern University (Go Cats) via The New York Times comes compelling findings concerning the power of puzzles to help people solve other challenges. Good news for those of us in the business of convincing people to trust their creative instincts and use them to solve problems in unconventional ways.

For all of you out there thinking about how to solve your current vexing challenge—I’m talking to you, marketers, cosmetologists, cosmonauts, animal husbandry professors, pizza twirlers and highway surveyors—yes, all of you, anyone in the business of coming up with ideas: take heed. This is a shot across your bow if you don’t believe in the power of using creative solutions to get to new creative solutions. Getting your brain into the ready state to show it’s stuff. Drawing order from chaos.

The next time you march into conceptual war, arm yourself with some unconventional yet highly effective tools of the trade: A good knock-knock joke, or a tough Sudoku. Get your synapses into a positive mood. According to these wily Wildcats, it’ll lead to better problem solving.

Boy, am I dumb. Seriously.

Incredibly stupid blogger alert: I never realized that red velvet cupcakes were really chocolate cupcakes with red food coloring. I thought they were somehow made from a magic recipe that made them taste velvety. I didn’t even get chocolate so much. I just got red. Now I'm just red in the face.

My daughter ruined everything for me tonight when she told me they’re just chocolate cupcakes with red food coloring. It reminded me of the time in high school when the girl I was dating told me that C-O-L-O-N-E-L was pronounced “Kernel,” not “Kollonel.”

Rumors abound about the origin of red velvet, including a Neiman-Marcus Cookie-like story. But to me it just seems like one day there was just vanilla and chocolate, and the next day there were these mysterious, indulgent, red saliva-inducing velvet cupcakes everywhere. And they were awesome.

So where did they come from? There are theories, including stories that go back almost 100 years, which of course makes me feel even dumber (although I suppose they’ve been pronouncing “colonel” correctly for a lot longer).

I bet the person who invented them wishes she got credit for it. Such a great, simple idea. The best kind. Take something that exists already, ask “What If?” and make it 10,000 times better.

Is this what Keith Richards was drinking all that time?

Sometime a few years ago, Ponce de Leon and Xaviera Hollander came to the owners of Pom Wonderful in the same dream.

The result was a body of advertising materials from POW Wonderful that has been at times extremely effective and at other times almost illegal.

First they tried to convince you that you would pretty much never ever drop dead if you drank POM, in simple, clean, eye-catching ads..

Now they’re letting you know that POM Wonderful just may be an aphrodisiac. Striking print images and TV commercials too, with Malcolm McDowell doing the VO (he’s awesome).

Pretty average ads, some not even that clear in their message. But the FTC, as expected, has taken notice. So it must be working, right?

Makes me want POW wonderful for two reasons.

I want to have a lot of sex and live forever, sure.

But in case that isn’t really completely true, I admire them for putting a message out there that makes them stand apart and get noticed.

A lesson from D-Day: Great Ideas can change the world

"In wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

This from one of the most quotable men of the 20th century, Winston Churchill, describing the massive disinformation and deception plan concocted by the Allies prior to the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

The multi-spoked idea was to stuff the Nazi information pipeline with enough facts, figures and plans to convince the Nazis that a much larger operation was coming, spread out over a greater swath of territory, and they wouldn’t be able to properly defend the real invasion points.

The deception was so elaborate that it must have taken months to develop, as well as the cooperation of hundreds of minds across thousands of miles. It included the creation of completely fictitious military divisions, like “FUSAG,” the First US Army Group, which did not actually exist. But the Germans believed it did, due to fake radio traffic and the use of double agents.

It also included parachuting dummies behind enemy lines and dropping strips of aluminum foil cut to a length that corresponded to German radar waves to create phantom fleets of bombs and troops.

Imagine the precise coordination of the cognitively disparate people necessary to make it successful. If one person betrayed the deception—and there were incidents that came close, resulting in quarantines and demotions—the whole plan might have been blown, and we could be watching Hogan’s Heroes episodes today that end very differently.

65 years later, we’re free to have Memorial Day picnics to remember the heroes and watch amazing stories of D-Day on TV. Military terms are everywhere, even in the world of corporate America, where, ironically enough, we use “war rooms” to figure out how we’re going to capture market share.

The sessions that the Allied leaders conducted in the original War Rooms were filled with amazingly creative thinkers and tremendous creative problem solving. Talk about an impactful ideation. Shows you what truly inspired collaboration can do.

When Stinking is good

Often, the very best thing you can do is chuck everything you ever learned out the window. Take your B school professor’s proclamations, those focus groups that seemed to make sense at the time, the very best ideation sessions, and throw them all away. Run hard the other way. Don’t look back.

Go with your gut and take it to the bank. Or the poorhouse.

The wisdom of telling Conventional Wisdom to take a hike isn’t brand new. It doesn’t always work but it surely is ballsy, and right or wrong, it’s proof that conviction still lives. And if it’s so ballsy that it’s brazenly outrageous, you can spin it positively.

One of my favorite stories is about Red Bull. It was originally a Thai energy drink called Krating Daeng, which in English, of course, means Red Bull. Even though people gave no chance of success to an energy drink with the stupidly ridiculous name of Red Bull, founder Dietrich Mateschitz, with nothing other than his gut informing him, stuck by the name. Red Bull’s done pretty well in the wing-giving business.

So now Domino’s re-launches their reformulated pizza by proclaiming that for years they’ve had really bad pizza. TV commercials show focus group footage of people being extremely critical of Domino’s taste, from the cardboard crust to the ketchupy sauce, and then they surprise those same critics by delivering the new pizzas, which, surprise!, taste awesome!

Whether or not clever editing helped play a role in the transformation of these pizza experts, the story is told well and believably. The spots work and the idea works, most likely because Domino’s really was terrible all those years (unlike the old Coke, which has always been pretty good) and they really have made it better. And they’ve received a boatload of favorable press, including a story on NPR.

So the next time someone tells you negative advertising doesn’t work, or you should never utter even one micro-mini-negative peep about your product, consider the one thing that’s even more powerful than contradicting Conventional Wisdom:

The truth.

Brilliant!!!!

There’s nothing in the world like the pubs, the Borough and Portobello markets are chock full of the most amazing and wonderful food, clothing, and chatchkes, and the classic English sights like Parliament Square and Big Ben are iconic and justifiably famous. But you can have Westminster and Buckingham; this is the single greatest thing about London.

It’s the very best way to get around town. Cheap, easy, and safe, with a heavy emphasis on Easy. The color coded tracks are a topographical (vs geographical) map, so while the distances aren’t exact, they’re intuitive, and clear to brains that don’t know the ins and outs of the city. Compare this wonder of creative thinking to an earlier version of the Tube map to see how much easier the current one is to navigate.

Other than perhaps Paris, I bet there’s nowhere you’ll see an equal amount of tourists and natives using public transportation, and I’d like to thank all the locals who tolerated me bumping into them from behind last week while I read my guidebook. Thanks for sharing your transit system and your beer. Lovely.