1. How To Create
An Inspirational
& Sustainable Idea
.
March 30th, 2012

3. // Who am I?
Gordon Brown, yeah that’s right!

4. // GORDON BROWN
Over twenty five years educational and business experience in sales and
marketing
This included fourteen years with Bass Brewers finishing as
Director of Brands for the Tennents portfolio
In 2000, as a board director, Gordon was part of the successful floatation
of e-comsport Group plc - a sports technology company
Education includes an Honours Degree,
Post-Graduate Diploma in Management Studies and an MBA
Gordon is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketers, Member of
the Marketing Society and a Chartered Marketer

5. // GORDON BROWN
• Circuit Break: (formed 2001)
• Marketing consultancy
• Branding advice
• Marketing coaching and training
• Consumer insight advice
• Marketing/Brand/Activity planning
• Brain Juice: (formed 2005)
• Unlocking creative thinking
• Creativity course
• Workshops/Brainstorm facilitation
• Novels: (first published 2009)
• Crime thriller writer

6. // HOW DID WE DISCOVER BRAIN JUICE?

7. WHO DO WE WORK WITH?

8. So what is creativity?

9. // Some thoughts:
• Idea = Doing something you currently do better
(or worse) or doing something that is completely new
• Innovation = Brilliant Ideas – Passionately Executed

10. // Another definition:
Need + Idea + Implementation = Creative Process

11. The Three Stages of the Creative Process
DEFINITION An unhealthy
obsession
GENERATION
IMPLEMENTATION

12. // Definition
Which is the easier question to answer:
• What is 7 multiplied by 6?
or
• What is answer to the life, the universe and everything

13. // Generation
The tools and techniques to create new ideas
Kick Start
Eccentric Thoughts
Yo – Yo
Similar People

14. Business world Creative world

15. // Implementation
How many people have been to a brainstorm – generated a
lot of ideas and then, nothing has happened as a result?
Wheat from Chaff
Personal Action + Structure

16. The Three Stages of the Creative Process
DEFINITION
GENERATION
IMPLEMENTATION

17. // But why is creativity
important to the
organisation…?

18. // Why is creativity important…?
CHANGE

19. // Change?
Computers?
• 1946 = 5,000 operations a second
• 2001 = 2 Million operations a second
• 2014 = 20,000 Trillion operations a second (It would
take 120 billion people with 120 billion calculators 50
years to do this in a day.)
Online sales – UK
• £60 billion spend by UK shoppers online. (2010)

20. // Change?
How long to 50 Million users?
• Radio = 38 years
• TV = 17 years
• PC’s = 16 years
• Internet = 4 years
• iPad = 2 Years?

21. So is creativity all about
the ‘ONE’ big idea?

23. +
Scale
of
Idea
- Time

24. // Analysing via Thinking
Urban Myth – but what does it tell us?
Analysing –
• NASA– 2 Years– $20 Million = Space Pen
Thinking –
• USSR – 0 Days – 0 Cost = Pencil!

25. // Quotes
// I think there is a world market for maybe five
computers
Thomas J Watson, 1943, Chairman IBM
// Who the hell wants to hear actors talk
Harry M Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

26. // 640k ought to be enough for anyone
Bill Gates, 1981
// “We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way
out.”
Decca Records rejecting the Beatles, 1962
// Whatever happens the US navy is not going to
get caught napping
Frank Knox, US Secretary of Navy, Dec 4th 1941 (Pearl Harbour attacked on Dec 7th)

27. Innovate or
stagnate

28. // What are the barriers
to creativity?

29. // Barriers
• Destructive criticism

30. // Destructive criticism
• ‘that idea is rotten’
• ‘we’ve tried that before’
• ‘we don’t have the time’
• ‘be serious’
• ‘let’s sleep on that one’
• ‘have you been sleeping?’
• ‘my boss will never buy that one’
• ‘get real’

31. // Barriers
• Destructive criticism
• Need for conformity

32. // Need for Conformity
// There ain’t no rules around here! we’re trying
to accomplish something!
Thomas A. Edison (1847 – 1931)
// There are three rules for writing the novel.
Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965)

33. // Barriers
• Destructive criticism
• Need for conformity
• Time

34. Business world Creative world

35. // Barriers
• Destructive criticism
• Need for conformity
• Time
• Physical Environment

36. // Barriers
• Destructive criticism
• Need for conformity
• Time
• Physical Environment
• Bravery

37. // Three types of people:
• Those who make things happen
• Those who watch things happen
• Those who wonder what happened!

38. THE BIGGEST BARRIER

39. SHOUT OUT THE COLOUR OF THE LETTERS

40. BLUE

41. GREEN

42. WHITE

43. ORANGE

44. BLACK

46. Some exercise to demonstrate the point

47. ON YOUR OWN

48. // QUESTION 1
A WOMAN LIVES IN TEXAS IN THE U.S.A. OVER THE
COURSE OF A COUPLE OF DAYS SHE DRIVES TO
NEW YORK AND THEN HOME TO TEXAS. ALL THE
WHILE SHE ONLY EVER USES A SOUTHBOUND
CARRIAGEWAY. EXPLAIN?
She started her journey north of New York

49. // QUESTION 2
A BLIND MAN DRIVES UP TO A HOUSE, GETS OUT OF
THE CAR AND GOES UP TO THE DOOR WITH A PACKAGE.
THE HOMEOWNER TAKES THE PACKAGE AND GIVES THE BLIND
MAN A CHEQUE. THE BLIND MAN THEN DRIVES AWAY. WHAT WAS
IN THE PACKAGE?
Blinds

50. // QUESTION 3
Using each symbol below exactly once each, form the
name of an eight letter mammal.
ehat
dule
Elepha
Eledhaut Eledhaut nt

51. // QUESTION 4
What are the next two numbers in this sequence?
36,91,21,51,82,12,42
3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,2
3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,3
3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30,33,36

52. // QUESTION 5
Add three more unbroken
matches so that a cube is formed = 8 = 23

53. // Barriers to creativity
You are out in the city centre and you see a dark blue
Ford Mondeo pull up beside you. In the car
is a man with a business suit on and a briefcase
on the passenger seat. The back seat is filled
with filing boxes and paper. He is talking into his mobile
phone.
Describe the person in the car. What does he do? Who is
he? What kind of life does he have?

54. What if you are wrong
what else could he be?

55. // Why do you think the
way you do?

56. // There are a number of barriers
but the biggest is your brain…
Work
EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE
AND A PLACE FOR EVERTHING
Play
Rest

57. The river

58. // THE RIVER

59. THE KEY TO GETTING
OUT OF THE RIVER…

60. Stimulation

61. // Cracking creativity
Kick Start
Eccentric Thoughts
Yo – Yo
Similar People

62. // THE RIVER

63. // THE RIVER

64. // Cracking creativity – quick tips
Take a break.
In a digital world notepads are still good.
Look for stimulation.
Meet away from the office.
Steal with glee.
If really stuck re express the problem.
It’s ok to have fun while looking for a new idea.

65. // Summary
Three Steps
• DEFINITION
• GENERATION
• IMPLEMENTATION
Barrier to Creativity
Solution K
E
Y
S

67. Business Management
Ian MacKenzie
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recent C4 Online Briefing.
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68. QUESTIONS