rehumanize

I was invited this week to speak to a group of marketing executives at Kimpton Hotels about how to become a more creative thinker. If you're familiar with Kimpton, then you know the company is creative to its core.  Michael Depatie, Kimpton's CEO, exhorts employees to "celebrate the tries, even if they don't work."  Niki Leondakis, Kimpton's President, supports a culture of creativity by saying "if you're not willing to laugh at yourself and be silly, then we're probably not the company for you." Clearly I was not there to inspire Kimpton to be creative, but rather to provide a framework and useful tools to help teams create bigger ideas more frequently. To me, creativity is not a fluffy art, it is counter-intuitive problem solving.  The first step is to recognize and avoid the top three creativity killers:  (1) We accept assumptions and solve the wrong problem; (2) We know what we know and narrow the scope of our thinking to ideas that

Ian Schafer's article prompts an interesting idea. Normally we design websites to get people to visit the brand.  What if we changed the goal and instead designed a website programmed around socially shareable content? By "programming" Mr. Shaffer is suggesting that we keep the content fresh and interesting on a daily basis, similar to the continuous editorial decisions made at an entertainment news website or TV network. This would require that the website be led by an editor-in-chief charged with making daily content decisions about news/videos/tips that will increase the brand's chances of being shared within social networks.  Like the article suggests, the website would be run like a newsroom. Love ideas such as this that totally reframe a problem.