Allsorts Habit Creation: Make creativity a habit.

PINdemonium

2012-01-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

Remember the simple days when a pin was something we used to hold up a trouser or skirt hem? When a safety pin was the simplest and most useful thing in your drawer?

These days a PIN is altogether different. It's the key to accessing just about everything in our lives.

But we can't use just one PIN for everything or someone will surely crack our accounts, our secrets and ultimately our lives. Clearly we need a "safety PIN" of a different sort.

But how do you make up a sequence of numbers, letters and symbols that's difficult for others yet easy for you? With about 30 PINs to remember, it's impossible.

So I confess. The reason this blog hasn't been updated for a while is because I forgot the PIN.

If you have a system for devising PINs or remembering them... please let me know!

Otherwise I'll continue to suffer PINdemonium.

mmmm

2011-09-09T03:42:00.000-07:00

mmmm isn't a twin pack of m & m's. Nor is it describing something tasty to eat. It stands for the Message and and the Medium Must Match.

It means that whatever you're presenting (Message), you need a presentation method (Medium) that matches it.

For example, you're presenting an exciting new opportunity for your client. then your presentation must also be exciting. Exciting expressions, exciting slides and exciting results.

If you're presenting a idea for a mobile phone that is known to be slim then find a way to make the presentation itself reflect the idea of slim. Perhaps re-format the slides, crop pictures and play on the word slim. Also talk about not needing a fat budget to make this slim phone succeed.

If your presentation is about the wonderful food of India, then bring real food an real spices to the presentation. Allow people to enjoy the taste and sensations while you talk about it.

It's called mmmm. The Message and Medium Must Match.

And it's a marvelous method for making the message more memorable.

Now say that after a few drinks!

Have a stupid moment

2011-08-26T03:37:00.000-07:00

This wonderfully evocative advice comes straight to us from Danny Higgins, when he was a regional creative director at ad agency Leo Burnett in Asia.

He was describing how the administrative process of moving work through the agency and with the client absolutely needs to be interrupted by… stupid moments.

These are thinking times.

The times when the Creative Switch is flicked irrevocably to ON. The times when madness is encouraged. When restrictions and boundaries are put aside or leaped over.

When Illegal, Immoral and Impossible ideas are generated for clients who'd have collective heart attacks if they were ever shown to them.

Go on, be sensible. Find a safe place and have a stupid moment soon.

Just say no to no

2011-03-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

Have a no-no day. See what happens! (Let us know by all means.)

And don't forget to watch out for the no inside your head.

Nothing comes from no.

Self-censorship is the most brutally effective restriction of all.

Try something new

2011-03-08T05:01:00.000-08:00

Sit in a different chair, or at a different desk.

Work with a different partner.

Or in a different company.

Or a different country.

Remember the difference between a rut and a grave is only a matter of inches.

Get some coaching

2011-03-06T23:15:00.000-08:00

Why not?

You can be shown how to be more creative. If creative thinking is a skill then it can be learned.

Don't mistake a coach as having to be better than you, he simply needs to be a coach.

After all, who do you think is better at soccer - Manchester United players or their coach?
(Arsenal fans may not agree.)

This is our blog so we'll shamelessly plug the coaching value of the Allsorts workshops found at www.allsorts.com.au.

SUPERsize your creativity

2011-03-06T23:07:00.000-08:00

Was Ray Kroc, the man who invented McDonald's Restaurants, creative? You bet he was. It was so much part of his blood that he had the following to say about it:

"Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday."

Mr Kroc is not putting creativity down, we should note. He's saying that he's doing it all the time anyway. Of course he is, or was.

You are too.

Unless you're a robot. Unless you're a robot. Unless you're a robot. Unless you're a robot. Unless you're a robot. Unless you're a robot...

by Wayne Lotherington.

Question Everything

2011-02-26T23:42:00.000-08:00

Just watching Discovery Channel. Love the way they say, "Question Everything".

I agree.

But what's interesting is that they don't tell you why.

So anyone who takes their advice, should be asking, "Why question everything?"

Come on Discovery... tell us!

The default answer

2011-02-19T00:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Feb 18th) someone said to me "Where has the year gone?!"

It's a common enough phrase. But noting that we're only one and a half months into 2011, I'd hardly have considered it's gone. But then, that's the problem with common phrases - they're so common we use them without thinking, in a kind of lazy way. And sometimes they're simply inappropriate.

Like when someone asks how you are and you automatically answer, "I'm fine. And you?" Well, often you are fine. But did you ever catch yourself saying it when you weren't?

Common answers to common questions. They're all too common.

They're like the default answers.

Perhaps they're of little consequence in daily conversation, but all too often the default answer or solution emerges when we face a significant problem. We just default to the usual, common or tried way instead of thinking things through and coming up with an appropriate answer for the situation.

Next time you find yourself about to use the default answer, catch yourself in time and think! Make a conscious decision to find a better one.

And remember... the default answer is de-fault of the lazy thinker.

Cooking up innovation

2011-01-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

There are so many cooking shows on TV these days. From celebrity chefs cooking to celebrity chefs judging, there's one common theme to great cooking that emerges time and time again. No matter the show or the channel, the experts constantly stress the need for fresh ingredients.

Give a great chef a kitchen full of fresh produce and he or she will create culinary magic. Provide only a stale piece of bread, some moldy cheese and some week-old fish, and the only magic will be that anyone survives after eating the resulting dish.

Innovation is about creating something new that has value. Like a fine meal. So where do you go shopping for the ingredients for your next innovation? Try the Supermarket of Creativity. Here you go with your infinitely large shopping trolley to fill it with ingredients that you will combine later to make your dishes.

Generate as many ingredients, or ideas, as you can. Watch when you get stuck in one aisle of this imaginary emporium and your ideas become rather similar. The only evaluation to this exercise is quantity. The more ideas, the greater the variety, the more opportunities you will have to combine them in interesting ways later.

by master chef, Simon Kornberg

In a word

2011-01-10T01:32:00.000-08:00

When I fly long distances I like to try the special meal orders. It's partly due to curiosity, partly due to knowing that I'll get served earlier (why am I always hungry shortly after take-off?) and partly due to the still wholly unproven concept that these special order meals will be more carefully cooked than the mass meals. In case there is any lingering doubt here, I'm referring to life in the back of the bus.

On a recent holiday flight to London I picked the Hindu Meal for lunch. I've never had a disappointing curry on board or, come to think of it, anywhere. My kids go to an Indian school where the vegetarian snacks are a constant temptation when I pick the boys up. I figured a vegetarian meal would be at least a token antidote to the sheer quantities of turkey that would soon follow at an English Christmas.

When my aromatic meal was placed before my mouth watered in anticipation. I'm not one for delaying gratification so I headed straight into the pale green (in a nice way) main dish - which looked to be mild and spinach-filled. My first forkful pulled up a steaming mountain of deliciousness containing, huh?, chicken! Aren't Hindus vegetarian, I asked rhetorically. Getting no answer that way I tried asking my boys. It seems that not only are some Hindus meat eaters but that the majority of Hindus do not practice vegetarianism.

Silly me. Or rather, ignorant me.

I'd made the Hindu meal = vegetarian assumption and narrowly escaped making a fool of myself (again) by complaining to the flight crew. Well, I still complained because all three of our TV's were on the blink - thanks Emirates!

We make many assumptions in our work lives. Although we start of most of our workshops by defining terms like subject terms like creativity and strategic thinking, this is not a recommended method for everyday life.

"Before we start the meeting everyone, what do we mean by meeting?" And so on. We have to, well, assume that some assumptions are correct.

Here's one I dispute. I was talking to an academic about the university's upcoming Master degree program in Innovation. I asked the professor if Creativity would be appearing on the curriculum for the students and he replied "No, well, I think we can take their creativity for granted".

Having taught Creativity for Business for two years on the same university's MBA program, I think I was well able to argue that we certainly can't take anyone's creativity for granted. The ability to generate more ideas, more easily must logically lead to more options from which the innovation can be produced.

Being the open-minded fellow that he is, he saw my view point and the danger of his assumption, and we're now looking at integrating sections of our creativity workshops into the academic structure of his Masters program.

by Simon Kornberg

Quantity does equal quality

2010-12-22T08:43:00.000-08:00

People often think that quantity for its own sake is not a good thing. Or that the more you have of something, the less value it has.

That may be so in the world of Logic. The world of Idea Generation is different

When looking for ideas, challenging your team to come up with a huge number of ideas is a good thing. And when I say huge, I mean a number that looks daunting.

The more ideas you are committed to generating, the more you are going to stretch.

You are more likely to look in unexpected places. You will happily welcome “weird” ideas. And you are less likely to censor yourself or others.

So, go for the quantity and you will have quality.

Get ideas and work on them - the three I's

2010-12-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

No matter what type of idea generation method you use, you can employ the three I's technique to push your connections further.

But what then? You'll have lots of ideas but, by definition, some of them will be Illegal, Immoral or Impossible. That's when you can go into phase two and work on them to make them legal or possible.

A company in Japan was looking for ideas to promote its high-end home theater system. One of the younger members of the team came up with the idea of giving away a sports car for a weekend with every unit sold. Her colleagues laughed out at this financially ridiculous idea but resisted the temptation to reject it. Instead they wrote it up on a flip chart and continued to generate ideas. Later when they were going through all of the ideas they had generated, this particular idea prompted someone to suggest that they could give away a sports car for a weekend to those who bought the home theatre system.

And that's what they did.

A financially impossible idea led to a perfectly sensible idea.

Next time you're generating ideas, try the three I's.

Be sure that you have plenty of Illegal, Immoral and Impossible ideas amongst the ideas.

You'll find it is relaxing and fun and you are sure to take your creative thinking to a new level.

by Wayne Lotherington

Creativity loves rules

2010-12-07T22:58:00.000-08:00

Creativity is a collision between discipline and chaos.

Without discipline, creativity is like a machine gun on automatic, firing wildly in all directions.

It's entertaining to watch but not very productive in hitting the target.

In our creativity workshops, (more about them on our website) we see wonderful chaotic, crazy, energetic, loud, rollicking, irreverent idea generation analysed by tight deadlines and short briefs, plus a reasonably strict adherence to a no nudity rule.

Put the creative pedal to the metal

2010-12-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

Creativity is about accelerating things.

A creative advertisement is one that communicates more effectively, more quickly and more memorably than an ordinary one.

Creative tools speed up the creativity process.

A creative presentation keeps people awake and informed. We teach " Tell it, Jell it, Sell it".

It's another thing to understand that we might need another word for creative. Oh dear.

Productive does it. But it's dull. Have a better word?

Shhh!

2010-12-07T22:46:00.000-08:00

It is possible to work in silence, to be creative in silence. But not in a group.

There's no doubt that when we start group exercises on idea generation, it's the noisiest group that as the most (and therefore the best) ideas.

You can see their enthusiasm with their ears.

by Wayne Lotherington

Problems are fun

2010-11-30T19:05:00.000-08:00

I went sailing with a friend and, as we cast ourselves away from the snug security of the mooring, we found that the engine absolutely no difference to our progress. Something was wrong with the propellor. Or maybe it had fallen off (it does happen).

Undaunted we hoisted flappy sails and tried to steer a course away from the giant container ship bearing down the channel. To say the steering was vague is to be kind to the steering. Clearly we survived these small ordeals or I wouldn't be hear to tell the story.

So here's the thing - when I recounted this story to friends the overwhelming reaction was one of horror that a nice day on the water had been ruined. I was taken aback! We had a great day and, to me, these mechanical mishaps made everything more interesting.

If we view problems as, well, problems, how can a productive work day be a happy one? Try the word "challenge" if you prefer. Life IS a series of challenges to be solved, not avoided. Creativity is simply a way of making the process more fun by giving us more possible solutions.

by Simon Kornberg

Look good - come up with ideas

2010-11-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

"Show me a guy who is afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time." Who said that? Lou Brock. Who's Lou Brock? We don't know but he sounds clever.

How does this apply to creativity?

If you're afraid to look bad you'll keep your mouth shut or your pen motionless and censor your ideas.

We know that's not a good idea, don't we?

Of course, the happy truth is, and we see this in every idea generation workshop that we run (More on our workshops here.) that no one ever looks bad when they come up with ideas.

They look great!

by Wayne Lotherington

Look out of the window - Daydream.

2010-11-27T16:35:00.000-08:00

When was the last time you saw the shapes of animals and faces and Pamela Anderson in the clouds? (Hey, you see whatever you like, they're your clouds.)

Do you use your imagination to think about what could be in a positive sense or have you hijacked this immense and positive skill into the activity of worry?

Dan Zadra, the motivational writer says, "Worry is a misuse of imagination." Human imagination was designed for better things.

Dreaming is the design-stage of creating the future.

Go on schedule a day dream - put it into your work diary.

Tuesday: 2:03pm - 2:07pm - Daydream

by Wayne Lotherington

Impossible is nothing

2010-11-26T21:27:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, Adidas ran a campaign with the tag line “Impossible is nothing”.

I am not sure if they knew how right they were.

Most things associated with modern life, like air travel, or the internet, or mobile phones were at some point in time, considered impossible.

However, some people always refused to accept this. Instead of impossible, they preferred to think that these things were “not yet possible” and spent their energy figuring out ways to make them possible. And when they figured it out, great life-changing innovations came into being.

So next time you have an impossible idea, don’t lose it. Make it possible!

By Vivek Kuchibhotla

You are what you eat.

2010-11-24T23:13:00.000-08:00

The phrase 'You are what you eat' is not meant to be taken literally. If it were, I would be beer and pizza. It means you are what you consume ; you are what you indulge in; you become what you want to focus on.

If I take this common phrase and connect it with something else I know about creativity.

You are what you EAT. Where -

E = Environment
A = Attitude
T = Tools or techniques

In other words, your ability to be creative is dependent on these three words.

Not too many of us get up in the morning and and say to ourselves, "I think I'll be creative today." Instead we go to work, face our problems that require solutions. But we can make a choice on how creatively we approach those situations. And somethings, more than others, prompt us toward more creative solutions.

by Wayne Lotherington

Creativity is hard but connections are easy

2010-11-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

The word Creativity can be scary. It conjures up images of special talents and of being able to do something that mere mortals cannot. And since most people don’t have a clear idea of how to be creative, they conclude that they are not. They stay away from the world of creativity.

Here is a way to make it much easier to be creative; replace the word Creativity with Connections.

Anyone can make connections. Most people can make lots of lots of connections and every time they do so, they are actually coming up with a new idea.

And if they come up with lots of ideas, they must be creative, right?

So remember, whenever you have to be Creative, be “Connective”.

by Vivek Kuchibhotla

Learn to switch mental gears.

2010-11-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

Being serious is good…just not all the time.

Being funny is great…just not all the time.

Thinking logically is wonderful…just not all the time.

There is a moment for everything and we need to be able to go back and forth, as required.

So, if you consider yourself a logical person that is good. It does not mean that you cannot or should not also be a creative person.

You can be anything you want.

Just switch gears.

by Vivek Kuchibhotla

Ideas may not be good...until they are good.

2010-11-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

Remember a time, not so long ago, when tattoos were for sailors, convicts and bikers?

So, can you please explain to me why tattoos are now used by fashionable young ladies, often on their lower backs or in other more private areas of the body?

Or, remember a time when far from being fashionable, it was not considered appropriate to display your underwear?

There are many examples of ideas that were not considered to be any good until all of a sudden they became good.

If you have an idea that is not considered to be very good, don’t get disheartened and throw it away. Write it down. Store it.

Things change.

by Vivek Kuchibhotla

Write every idea down.

2010-10-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

When you're coming up with ideas, no matter the subject, don't discuss the ideas until you've written them down.

If you pause to consider whether the idea is worth writing down, you're now in the evaluation stage.

That comes later.

Worse still, if you're evaluating, you're self-censoring.

Write everything down before it gets lost.

by Simon Kornberg

Make a fool of yourself.

2010-10-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

I was in a client’s boardroom the other day and his team we were looking for a way to improve their business.

A few ideas were suggested and then there was a pause.

The marketing manager said with a little smile:

"This might sounds silly... but how about if..." and his idea was brilliant, producing much chatter, some laughter and clear progress.

Most education systems probably frown on laughter as a criterion of the value of an idea. Yet, so often in the workshops I run, when I get people to run through the 80 or so ideas they've produced in 17 minutes with one of Allsorts' tools, they find how hard it is to impress the audience.

Their passion for a thought means nothing. It's when there's laughter that people buy in and then fire off idea-improvers in return.

Laughter comes when something surprises.

Encourage laughter in your brainstorming and in your presentations.

If you're ideas aren't surprising, why would they be worth investing in?

by Simon Kornberg

.solution default the Avoid

2010-10-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've got used to seeing old people walking backwards up and down the only steep hill we have where I live. Perhaps rightly, I've assumed that this works different muscles and puts less strain on the knees.

Recently I've noticed people walking backwards even on the flat.

I happened to mention this to a psychologist and she said that the physical benefits may well be as I've explained but that it's also very good for forcing the brain out of its normal, habitual pathways. And that is why it's a recommended activity for old people.

What a great idea. And, to me, yet another new way forcing the brain to think differently.

When you think differently, you're bound to come up with different ideas, moving away from the dreaded default solution - you know that idea that isn't really an idea at all, it's habit.

It's the answer you always give. It's the answer that already works or, at least, used to work.

Now I'm not suggesting you walk into your next client presentation backwards (it would certainly create an impact, especially if you could link the behavior with something in your pitch. And it would definitely lift a few eyeballs away from the Blackberrys).

Actually, I'm not suggesting anything.

Creativity is about connecting two things you know and coming up with something different.

You know about your world and now you know about walking backwards.

Can you use this technique to come up with ideas about advertising, fundraising, presentations, profit, communication..... anything!?

.go you Off

by Simon Kornberg

Odd Shaped balls.

2010-10-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

Eons ago a British schoolboy called William Webb Ellis picked up the soccer ball he and his hearty pals we're playing with, and ran with it in his arms to the goal.

Instead of being credited with cheating and spoiling a perfectly good game of of soccer, he's credited with inventing the game of rugby.

It's called rugby because the school he was attending was called Rugby (and still is). Lucky he wasn't at Tinkerbell Preparatory or the game may never have taken off in the way it did.

Young William viewed the rules of soccer as being temporary and thereby invented something wonderfully new, muddy and smelling of beer.

What are the structures you and your teams are working within today that you could now view as temporary?

Pick up that metaphorical muddy balls and run like the clappers!

by Simon Kornberg

Kill Negativity.

2010-10-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the Creativity Killers?

These are the people who say to your ideas:

"No, that won't work." or
"We did that last year." or
"That's too expensive!" or perhaps worst of all
"Don't be silly!"

Creativity Killers are death not only to the idea you just suggested but also, potentially, the creativity of the entire idea generation session and all its participants.

Make an agreement that idea generation is idea generation, pure and simple.

Do the evaluation later.

WARNING!
Often the Creativity Killer is the boss because she thinks it's their job to show prudence, judgement, critical expertise, good fiscal sense and so on. She is going to need to be educated that these are excellent roles after the idea generation session is over, not during it.

by Simon Kornberg

Say YES! to every idea.

2010-10-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

When you're brainstorming ideas, say yes to all of them.

When you say yes to yourself, you commit the idea to paper. If you say no before writing it down, no one will ever be able to spot the hidden value that may lurk within.

When you say yes to a colleague's idea, you keep the creativity flow going.
Yes doesn't mean "That's a fantastic idea!" - it simply means:

"I acknowledge your contribution"
"I am open to evaluating that later"
"Thank you for playing and now it's my turn"
"I'm awake - keep 'em coming"

Fill white boards, blackboards and pages with ideas easily and quickly by leaving all evaluation for later.

Just say 'Yes!'

Yes?

by Simon Kornberg

Curiosity, Imagination and Persistence: Barney's Story

2010-10-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

From time to time, people get anxious when we show them how to generate ideas 'randomly'. Sometimes, we go further and get people to generate the ideas BEFORE even showing them the brief.

How random is that?!

Of course, it's really just like going to the market to buy food before you've decided what's on the menu - you create the dishes by combining your ingredients.

Here's and edited story (by Professor Gregory Pesko) about the 'accidental' invention of Cisplatin, along these lines. It shows how simply generating solutions can yield its own results. For me, and for millions of other cancer survivors, the tale has greater meaning, and I'm glad to be alive because of it to recount the tale.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barnett Rosenberg wasn't trying to cure cancer. He wasn't working on cancer. He wasn't working on any disease-related problem. He wasn't even working with human cells. All he was trying to do was to test a hypothesis about what would happen when dividing bacteria were placed in a strong electric field. Yet he may have saved the lives of more cancer patients than most of the cancer researchers in the world put together.

Our story begins one day in 1964 in his laboratory at Michigan State University. That day Barnett Rosenberg (Barney, to his friends) put a suspension of Escherichia coli cells between two platinum electrodes to see what would happen. He had no more practical goal than to satisfy his own curiosity about a hypothesis he had formulated. He was a microbiologist, and the behavior of bacteria was his research interest. He knew that when a bacterial cell divides the cell's DNA has to become organized, and he hypothesized that a strong electric field might interfere with the arrangement of the highly charged, precisely oriented chromosome. So he put a continuous culture of E. coli cells in buffered medium between two platinum electrodes and turned on the current.

What he saw surprised him.

Cell division was inhibited, but in addition the bacteria, which are normally shaped like small rods, grew into long filaments, up to 300 times their normal length. Now our story actually has several morals, but a very important one is that in science there is no such thing as useless information. Barney Rosenberg happened to know that E. coli cells became filamentous under certain other conditions, including exposure to certain anti-tumor drugs. It didn't take long for him to establish that it wasn't the electric field itself that was producing the filamentous behavior. A chemical substance in the solution was responsible, but the effect required that group VIIIb metal electrodes be used to generate the electric field - no other electrodes would do - suggesting that the substance was being generated electrochemically from components in the media plus the platinum metal.

Many scientific journals today seem to function largely as press release vehicles, but Barney's 1965 Nature paper (205:698-699), in which he describes these studies, is an experimentalist's delight. Not only does he give enough information to enable anyone to repeat the work - the minimum standard of a scientific publication but one that is seldom met any more - he tells the story of the reasoning process he followed. After further studies he was able to isolate the active substance: he had accidentally synthesized Peyrone's salt: cis-dichlorodiammine-platinum(II), also known as cisplatin. A square planar platinum compound with two chlorines and two ammines coordinated to the metal ion, cisplatin was first described in the 1800s but had never been tested as an antibacterial or anti-tumor agent before; after all, everyone knew that transition metal complexes were poisonous. That had been the conventional wisdom for over a hundred years.

But remember, Barney knew that some anti-tumor agents produced the same effects on bacterial cells that cisplatin seemed to, so in 1968 he made what he later called the "purely intuitive jump" to test this complex for anticancer activity in a mouse tumor model system. He needed help to carry out these tests because he had never done anything of the kind before. He got that help from Virginia Mansour, and on April 26 1969 they published in Nature (222:385-386) the astonishing result that cisplatin completely inhibited the development of the solid Sarcoma-180 tumor in mice.

Now, a lot of stories start out like that.

If a hundred years of cancer research has taught us anything, it is that if you must get cancer, you want to be a mouse, because we can cure cancer in mice. Curing it in people is immensely harder, and most promising therapies fail at exactly the transition from mouse to man. So it took Barney some time to find clinicians who believed in his work enough to try cisplatin in human patients. But within two years, Harris and others had carried out preliminary clinical trials showing anticancer activity in several patients; and by 1973 it was clear from work by Wallace, Wiltshaw and Carr that cisplatin had a particularly high degree of activity against testicular and ovarian cancers, diseases considered terminal and unresponsive to the best prior therapies. Kidney toxicity hampered the deployment of the drug for a time, but Hayes and associates eventually found that the simple trick of hydrating the patient to wash the toxic material out of the kidneys markedly diminished this side effect.

Our story concludes in the Christmas season of 2001, thirty years after the first human trials of Barney's discovery.

Cisplatin has become the best-selling cancer drug in the world.

It is a complete cure for testicular cancer if the disease is detected early enough. It is one of the most effective drugs against melanoma and non-small-cell lung carcinoma, and in combination therapy it also shows considerable promise against ovarian cancers.

Well, I promised you a happy ending.

Now for the other moral. I have nothing against big, targeted or discovery-driven science programs per se (although I do object, strongly, to such programs being oversold to a trusting, anxious public). These endeavors have produced much useful information and keep many scientists off the unemployment rolls - both laudable achievements. And I can understand the political pressures that drive the US National Institutes of Health and its orthologs in other countries to nudge biological research towards working more with human cells, and with human proteins, and on human diseases. But I don't see how a 'War on Cancer' or targeted biomedical research, in any academic institution or pharmaceutical laboratory, ever gets you to cisplatin.

This is not a compound that would ever be found in any combinatorial library or collection of natural products. There isn't a single atom of carbon in it. No medicinal chemist would ever have thought of it. No targeted research program would have investigated it. No discovery-driven program of chemical genomics would have included it.

Cisplatin came from outside the box - in fact, so far outside that the box wasn't even visible; it came from a place no one would, at that time, have dreamt of looking in for an anticancer drug.

We can, and should, focus teams of well-trained researchers on specific goals such as unraveling the mechanisms of tumorgenesis. We can, and should, try to coordinate and plan our disease-fighting efforts so that our resources are spent efficiently.

But we must never forget that Barney Rosenberg, with his bacterial cells and electrodes, and his curiosity, imagination and persistence, may have saved the lives of more people than most of the cancer researchers in the world put together.

So, the next time some Scrooge bah-humbugs basic research, or asks you what investigator-initiated, hypothesis-driven science is good for, tell them Barney's story.

by Simon Kornberg

Value ideas, not ROI.

2010-10-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

Why is everyone so obsessed with the Return on Investment, or ROI?

Imagine Edison worked for a multinational corporation and came up with an idea for a lightbulb.

Imagine the reactions to his idea.

Can you prove to me it works?

How big is the market for this product?

What’s the ROI?

If it’s going to keep you and team busy for a while, I need to know the Opportunity Cost.

Let's say he got past all that and set out to invent the lightbulb.

How would the organization have reacted after he had spent nearly two years trying to create a viable lightbulb?

Lucky for us, Edison had his own business and was able to make his own decisions without thinking about the ROI.

Of course we don’t want to waste time and money, but not everything should be measured in ROI.

How do you measure an idea that helps people feel more connected with each other?

“Yes, we guarantee a 6% ROI on our connectedness idea.” Huh?

How do you measure the ROI on an idea to pay men and women equally?

How about the ROI on Occupational Health and Safety?

Sometimes ROI is difficult to measure. Other times it’s just plain irrelevant.

Before you insist on knowing the ROI on every idea that comes your way, ask whether it is relevant and measurable. If it’s not, don’t dismiss the idea.

Think of the social, moral and emotional value of the idea.

Either that, or work in the dark.

by Wayne Lotherington

Number 5: significant and creative.

2010-10-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

I live in a 5-level house with 55 stairs.

5 of us live here, if you count the 2 cats.

For some reason, we have 5 computers. No, the cats don’t use them, although one of them likes to sleep on the keyboard. (Come to think of it, I once knew a copywriter like that. Maybe he was a copy-cat.)

We have 5 air conditioners, 5 pieces of original art, 5 phones. And on it goes.

I can’t escape the five-ness of it all.

The number 5 has a creative significance too:

When you build your creative toolkit, have at least five creative thinking tools to use as and when required.
When getting ideas, never stop unless you have at least five ideas to choose from.
When you want to generate ideas in a team, have five team members.
When making a creative presentation, never make any more than five key points.

Hey, that’s only 4.

So here’s one more…

When you want to develop a little network of like-minded people to encourage each other and bounce ideas off, making it a network of five.

5 is your number.

And it has a big advantage over everyone’s favourite number 7: It’s quicker to count to!

Imagine living in a seven level house with 77 stairs and 7...

by Wayne Lotherington

Develop a 'magnetic' personality.

2010-10-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

Have you seen those fridge magnets for National Geographic Channel?

For once, some fridge magnets with meaning – unless prompt pizza delivery is your idea of intellectual bliss.

The NGC magnets live under the main thought of Live Curious. Now that’s good advice for people who want to expand their brain, their ideas and understand what’s right in front of them.

I have three of these NGC magnets on my fridge.

Askaholic, says one. Good approach.

Want to know something… ASK!

Remember being told it’s rude to ask questions? Well, asking personal questions of others might sometimes be rude, but asking your boss why we do things this way, or don’t do it that way, isn’t rude. It’s intelligent. Asking your client to explain more about his/her business isn’t rude. It’s professional.

Become an Askaholic.

Another magnet says Question Everything.

So that’s what turns you into an Askoholic. But it goes further. Question the status quo, question your assumptions, question your own ideas, especially question any FIRST idea you get. Because first ideas are rarely the best.

And the third says, Ignorance is Boring. Gotta agree with that!

The world is full of wonderful things to see and do. Places to go, people to meet, ideas to share, food to enjoy, cultures to experience. Hey, TV’s great, but it’s no substitute for getting out and seeing, doing, learning and experiencing for yourself.

Remember Ignorance is Boring, Question Everything and become an Askaholic.

You’ll probably also develop a magnetic personality.

by Wayne Lotherington

Welcome to our blog!

2010-09-30T01:17:00.000-07:00

This is a new Blog about Creativity. The authors are members of a Creativity consulting and training company called Allsorts.

Visit us @ Allsorts Official Website

With offices in Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas, Allsorts is helping people all over the world to improve their creative thinking, whether for new products, services, processes, presentations, ads, direct marketing – even dealing with people in more creative and effective ways.

Follow us as we report from all over the world on what grabs our attention, how to apply better thinking to problems big or small and occasionally something that challenges you to question how and why you do things.

We’re your new muse. Allsortsmuse!