innovation playground Idris Mootee

Making Great Products That People Love Is Simple. It All Comes Down to three Things: A Simple User Experience, Design Around The Socialability Of A Product And The Uncovering Of Memories And Pleasure Associated With A Product.

Product designers are becoming marketers. Introducing the Baby Blackberry by Leapfrog. It's time that kids of high flying executives need their own Blackberry.  The good news is that while your kid can type messages on the Baby Blackberry, it's not actually hooked up to anything.  If I were the designer, I would have the thing to play Dad’s or Mom’s voices every time they press a keypad.  Dad can remotely play a bedtime stories remotely while on a business trip. That would be cool.

Making great products that people love is pretty simple. It all comes down to three things: A simple user experience, design the product around its socialability of uncovering memories and pleasure of a product. Designers are often putting too much energy doing task analysis on the basic features, and missed the three most important elements of product design.

What a product designer needs to create things that people desire. Things that jump out from the sea of sameness and justify a premium price? Can design change the elasticity of products and shape the demand curve? If yes, then what’s the use of conducting quantitative research when consumers are not inspired by possibilities?  You can ask 500 moms if they want to buy a video game console (and the answers is no) versus if they want to have a Wii. The problem with market research is the misapplication, that way it often produces misleading data. Worst than not having any at all.

What makes product desirable? What makes them desirable to an extent that people are attached to it (like the Blackberry, iPod or Birkin)? What is the basis of those emotional bonding? Are they based on the brand or the product or a combination of both? They would go to the extreme of repair it or even keeping it while also buying an updated version, it affects multiple ownerships.

To extend the psychological life span of products could be instrumental to reduce the demand for scarce resources and many sustainable challenges. Up to now, the role of the product and its design in stimulating the degree of attachment experienced toward this object remains quite obscure. As the product is under the designer's direct control, understanding these issues is valuable for designers. Industrial designs have a strong technical rationality and that sometimes limiting them to be reflective.

Donald Schön’s book The Reflective Practitioner (1983) discusses the crisis for professional practice. This crisis relates mainly to the fact that professions such as architecture, and design but also medicine and psychology are strongly dominated by technical rationality and its positivist epistemology of practice. The problem is that PE cannot solve the dilemma of “rigor versus relevance” professionals are confronted with. This is because PE is based on analytical, empirical and logical propositions of truth within an objective world. However, professional knowledge involves experiences, feelings and subjective evaluations, which are non-existent for PE.

The "fuzzy front end" is usually what matters and makes the most difference.  This early stage of product development are often given the wrong start when too much emphasis on the cost and volume trade-off. Not enough thinking around hot to turn any products into a personal tool.  A tool to get work done or too to tell other who you are. A forklift, a cell phone or a toaster, you should not start with how to produce the most number of units for the lowest price while getting them into the hands of the most people.  This should come from the sales people, not the product design team. What people value most is the way that they interact with a product and what meanings it carry and this goes beyond price. The visual form, the way that they handle it, and how it makes them feel and think are all part of the design strategy. At the end, product design is simple. It is all about three things:

- Understand the core feature that a user wants and then relentlessly reduce complexity and unnecessarily elements until you get to a simple user experience.
- Map out the product's socialability - its affiliation with social groups and any product or its category and how it is connected to different social groups or product group.
- Look hard to find memories that are related to the product and pleasure that are directly and indirectly associated by using the product. Hire an anthropologist to help.

Service Design Is Simple. It's All About Three Things: Creating Compelling User Benefits, Optimizing Based On The Separability Of The Service And Making Educated Trade-offs Between Human And Technology.

Service design is an innovative and emerging discipline. I am not referring it to the older definition in the manufacturing and hospitality industries.  Today, almost every business is a service business. How service companies bring innovation to life depends first on their definition. Pure services cover a wide range and heterogeneous field ranging from low volume retailing to highly interactive digital interfaces. High volume, also technologically enabled activities like telecommunications, utilities, banking and insurance.

An example would be ING, trying to define what a virtual bank would look like was not a simple task for ING DIRECT.  How do you get wary consumers who expect vaults and teller cages to trust a virtual bank?  The key is to design for the mind and senses. Today’s businesses need to consider their emotional relationship with their customers as a key component of their value proposition. Designing a compelling customer experience enables this relationship. ING DIRECT sells a unique (and super simple) range of product sand engages the customer in a unique way, creating the opportunity for a trust engagement as well as, ultimately, customer acquisition. There were so many customer barriers to overcome and address.

Another example is LG. They make and sell appliances. Now you can drag your dirty laundry over to the hip Canal St Martin neighborhood to wash it at the LG WashBar. The concept is unique: buy a drink at the bar and get free access to the upstairs “apartment” where you can do your laundry—washing powder comes free too!—browse books from the library, watch movies, and check your e-mails at the two free wireless hotspots. It’s a great place to hang out. The feel is cosy minimalist design meeting a high-tech appliance aesthetic. There’s even a dance floor downstairs for DJ nights. Fresh clothes and Saturday night dance...sound good to me. The plan is to open up 15 across France.

So how does service innovation happen? It begins with gathering insights including goals and paths, prototyping the working experience and evidencing, next is service blueprinting. It all comes down to three things: Creating compelling user benefits, optimize based on the separability of the service nature and making sensible automation/human trade-offs.

Develop Compelling User Benefits. Understand what type of benefit/value a service innovation can provide. Is this innovation an important core benefit or a new way of delivering an existing benefit? Examples:  Cirque du Soleil (new core benefit), Netflix mail order DVD rental (new benefit), Blockbuster's self-destruct DVD in 48 hours (new benefit), Ford's latest use of radar-based active safety technology linked to satellite (new benefit).

Optimize based the separability of the service.  Is this innovation for a service that is produced and consumed simultaneously? Examples: Telemedicine (create separable services), Blackberry (mostly inseparable services), Enterprise Car Rental (create inseparable services) or iTunes (create inseparable services).

Model the service economics and making trade-offs. Customers are expensive. Dealing with them cost money. Putting them through a speech recognition application to offload calls save money but lower the quality of the experience. Each year, call centers implement new technologies that can take over the functions previously handled by people. Why then are customers so unhappy, if we expect call centers to implement technology that will make customers happy and provide them faster service? Simple, because technology does not equal quality customer service. 

Take Nintendo Wii as an example, GlucoBoy, a game compatible with the Game Boy Advance or DS Lite, was launched in Australia on World Diabetes Day. The Glucoboy makes monitoring and achieving blood sugar goals fun. Whenever a user performs a glucose test, points are awarded which allows the user to unlock games. More points are awarded if the user’s blood sugar falls within the specified goals. The points may be spent in the game or the GRIP online community. Users post their scores to the GRIP community to see who has the best scores in a town, country, and world. Nintendo has plenty of opportunities to create new benefits (and revenue) through service designs.

The Nintendo idea was created by Paul Wessel who noticed that his 9-year-old son would constantly lose his glucose monitor but not his gameboy. Mr. Wessel states “That moment Five years ago design was about the creation of beautiful and usable objects. Human has a similar project using service design when they pioneer the use of games for health industry. The idea is to create ways for people of all ages to improve their health and well being through the use of video game technology. Expect to see more service design innovation when healthcare and gaming crossover.

Today, it is additionally and increasingly thought to be a valid approach to problems related to, well, anything - be it global warming, poor transportation or social issues. What differentiates the designers’ way to solve societal problems from that of other professionals’? The essence of design still lies in the quest for aesthetic, functional as well as sensorial experiences that appeal to and help societies. To design is to make the problem-solving a matter of the heart as much as rationality. While engineers can make banks efficient, designers can make customers happy. Efficiency and happiness are not mutually exclusive. Unfortunately many businesses today act as if they are. They will be surprised who service designers can change that.

Business Trasformation Is Simple. It All Comes Down To Three Things: Maximize Purpose, Creating a Bifocal Vision and Managing Change.

Transformation is a least understood word particularly in business and strategy. Business transformation originated as a corporate management initiative with a goal to align people, process and technology initiatives at a company-wide level more closely with its new business strategy.  Innovation cannot happen without any transformation. In fact, Business Transformation is pretty simple (OK they are never easy but it is about people, but most transformation programs miss this three things), it is about three things: Maximize Purpose, Creating a Bi-focal Vision and Managing Change.

Leadership is about influencing behavior. Influencing people to change customary ways of behaving is a great leadership challenge. Leadership theories emphasize the role of the leader as an agent or initiator of change. A number of attempts have been made to understand organizational change. Often, these attempts have sought a rational model with predictive value, or, at the least, some explicative value.

The idea that business transformation is achieved through efforts from alignment of people, process and technology towards a strategic end-state is missing the bigger things - people and purpose.  Business transformation is closely linked to strategic innovation as any radical innovation is needed to be supported by transformation and change. Business transformation can be achieved through new technology, business models and management practices. But that’s only the mechanics. People overlook the most important element of any transformation – people. What is often missing is the art of capturing the imagination of employees of all levels with demonstrated capability and commitment to change. Business transformation is about:

Maximize Purpose. Change the game? That’s 20th century thinking at its finest - and narrowest. The 21st century is about changing the world. What does “yes we can” really mean? Obama’s goal wasn’t simply to win an election, get votes, or revitalize the economy. It was larger than that and more urgent: to change the world. Bigness of purpose is what separates 20th century and 21st century organizations: yesterday, we built huge corporations to do tiny, incremental things - tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things. In fact, the smart ones are those who understand the power of co-creating purposes. And to do that, organizations must strive to change the world radically for the better - and always believe that yes, you can. They must maximize, stretch, and utterly explode their sense of purpose. Without purpose, there is no transformation.

Maintain A Bifocal View. Seeing the horizons and simultaneously watching their footsteps. This paradox bedeviled IBM’s Gerstner when he said, “The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.” A vision is useless unless there is a plan to make it happen and the plan needs to anchor some credible assumptions of the business and its changing dynamics. Don’t just force a vision, or leave it on the wall, manage it and continuous to energize it.

Making Change Safe. Change brings many unknowns and scary for many, people take risks only when they feel safe and supported. Leaders and followers, senior or junior management, all need something to grab onto before they will let go of the old. Otherwise there is an empty hole Nothing is as upsetting to your people as change. Nothing has greater potential to cause failures, loss of production, or falling quality. Yet nothing is as important to the survival of your organization as change. History is full of examples of organizations that failed to change and that are now extinct. The secret to successfully managing change, from the perspective of the employees, is definition and understanding. Management needs to understand their organization’s specific fears. What are the people concerned about? How strongly do they feel about it? Do they perceive it as a good or a bad thing? In any transformation initiatives, give people ownerships and a clear definition of the results they are accountable for. Then, the new way becomes the safe way.
Offsite Photos: Choconanc

Advertising Is Simple. It All Comes Down To Three Things: Sex, Hope and Baby. It Is Not The "What", But The "How".

Let’s be happy is the global theme of the year. At least most of the ads will be  trying to do that. It is starting with the Coca Cola launching a new marketing campaign with tagline "Open Happiness." Both Coke and Pepsi at the same time are launching big new campaigns and big marketing blitzes behind their flagship colas, we are seeing a Cola war in the making. Not a bad thing for this economy.

Coke launched its new campaign with television advertising during broadcasts of "American Idol" on Fox.” And will continue for a few weeks. One of the new TVC for the US depicts people using their digital devices (computers, phones, etc.) and turning into their alter-ego online avatars. When one man--who has not turned into his avatar--reaches for a Coke at the same time as a scary-looking beast, the beast turns into a pretty woman and a real-life connection is made.

One of the new commercials will feature a music track that will be released as a commercial music single. The music is billed as a collaboration between recording artists from Gnarls Barkley, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco and Gym Class Heroes.

Pepsi had a presence at Obama's inauguration on Tuesday, with headlines featuring "Yes you can" and a redesigned logo similar to the image Obama used during his presidential campaign. As part of the campaign, the company created a Web site through which people could upload a video message to Obama.

A lot of other companies will also be refocusing on their core and try to protect any erosion or at least secure their share of the pie if the larger pie is shrinking.  I think we can see a lot of brands using variations of the Obama platform and market themselves the same way they market a presidential candidate.

Let’s think about the “Hope” industry? How big is that? Fashion, cosmetics, personal care, self improvement, health and diet and many many others have all been selling “Hope” for years and most hardly deliver anything.  When it comes to marketing, it always comes down to three things that always sell: Sex, Hope and Baby. Ask an anthropologist; they will tell you that they are all related.

Smart marketers consider not only the attention-getting power of an advertisement or commercial, but also what kind of emotional response it provokes in viewers. Studies found that sex does catch people's attention in advertisements, but usually without much brand recognition. Women have been the primary focus in sexual advertising in the past and present, but men are starting to be used more often as the sex object in advertisements. Not sure the ethical side is worth any discussions. As the morals and ethics of society change and differs, what is considered appropriate and acceptable by societies and cultures also varies. The Tom Ford campaign (above) is tasteful and high fashion, but it is a border line between that and porn. Remember those Calvin Klein and Abercrombie and Fitch ads? The breast cancer campaign is brilliantly executed so sex is that to get you attention, but it is also beautiful and relevant to the cause. 

So the answer is not the “what” but he ‘how’? After all, humans are innately hard wired to respond to titillating imagery and the possibility of sex. It's just in our DNA. So it's natural for marketers to use this attraction and for people to respond. But, it can be a lame cop-out used by marketers who lack imagination to create more compelling work that will sustain itself beyond the initial titillation. It is all about style. The same can be said about using “hope”, in that case it is about how authentic you are and the credible is your promise. And whether it is relevant to your brand and positioning.

Brand Obama, Apple and Coca Cola, What Do They Really Have In Common?

This is a special day in history. Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and the America's first African-American president today, it is a big day. The last 16 months, we learned that Obama had not only vision for America, but possessed the commitment, intellect, strength, character and political brilliance to rise to the top leadership. He is wonderful lift of the human spirit against seemingly insurmountable odds – an inspiration for young people all over the world. Obama's popularity and inspiration will impact the next generation significantly. 

The world is eager to see a great leader in action. Many hope that Obama will address the global climate crisis, by furthering the efforts already made to unite America and the world in working towards being more environmentally conscious and sustainability. His speech was just so inspiring even outside of America people around the world are very much looking forward to this change, especially in the "climate change" position on the past the Bush Administration ignored, a very short sighted and narrow visioned administration. 

What does the young people think of the Obama's brand? Here’s a roundtable of 8 teenagers sitting around in my house. This is not a focus group but just friends of my teenager sons. Let’s hear what these young people have to say about the future – technology, politics and culture after watching Obama’s inauguration speech. 

How important are your cell phone and other communication devices to you? Overwhelmingly, the cell phone is most important (equally as the iPod) , mostly to stay connected to friends and family; taking snap shots; and to a lesser degree for music listening. They’re also really, really fond of texting and is becoming their core communication tool. Email is considered slow and wonder how email in its current form will survive the next generation. Blackberry has a lot of work to do to secure this future. When asked about SMS ad, it is a no no. One said he prefers his parent to contact him through SMS even when he is around at home working in his room. Another person confesses technology in general makes life more stressful, because there is not place to hide. It is the paradox of technology. 

What’s your attitude towards advertising? Everyone seems to be able to talk about specific funny ads, but overwhelmingly, no one would believe any thing they hear, watch or read. They admit that they often learn about these new products through ads, but the source of information is through forums and communities. They are quick to form an opinion and 2 out of the 6 considered themselves opinion leaders in their social groups. Some believe that after clothing, a cellphone tells the most about their social status, they disagree. No one in the group cares much about the brand of the phone, as long as it has some basic features. It is not a status tool as many have thought. They think that all big advertising money spent by the handset brands is a total waste of money. Wonder what Nokia, Sony Erickson and Motorola has to say.They should start thinking of new way to engage these young people.

Let’s talk about the brands that you love? Everybody picks a different one: Apple, Urban Outfitters, Obama, Xbox, Coke, In-N-Out Burger and Addidas. They talked about how much these companies are willing to listen to uses and respond to their needs. Surprisingly no one likes the Apple ads, although everyone loves the brand. Wonder how much the advertising actually contributed to Apple's  brand equity if any at all. I think the stores are doing more than the ads.

Do you think the world will be change for the better after today? 

“I think Obama is going to bring a much-needed change to the world. His ideas will make people more open-minded, and he will inspire them to get more involved.” 

“With a new US president comes a time for hope and possibilities. Here’s what they say they hope to see happen during Obama’s first term as president of the United States."

“My hope for him is that he will be able to fix the recession and end the messy war in the Middle East quick.” “I hope he cleans up the giant mess and put the focus back into education and out planet.”

“I would like to see actual changes happen, he is inspiring us and many people at our age. You don’t find too many inspiring figures around us today.” 

“I hope that he can sort out the economic crisis and help with global warming. I hope that as president, Obama will make the right choices in fixing the current state of our economy.” 

Obama is probably the most popular brand built in the shortest period of time (shorter than Google). Obama, Apple, Coke and very much same of a kind. They share a lot of attributes the say way the president is presenting himself. They're meant to look transparent, empowered, hopeful, accessible and democratic to a certain degree. Non-intimidating and trustworthy. At its heart, authenticity is about practicing what you preach; knowing about who you are and what you do best. When a brand's rhetoric gets out of sync with customers' actual experiences, the brand's integrity and future persuasiveness suffers.  It is something which is hard to manufacture even with lots of advertising and packaging craft. Being able to project an identity that people are willing to credit with being authentic is a very hard thing to do. But Obama, Apple, Coke are all doing a great job.

The Coming Heathcare Innovation - Doctors Need To Go Virtual .... And Social.

Healthcare is now one of few big immediate problems the new administration needs to deal with of course the economy will be the top of the list. Healthcare and online is a match made in heaven as people of all ages are seeking resources that are accurate, safe and anonymous from the Internet; expect to see of innovation and disruptions the next 24 months. Doctors not nly need to become virtual...but also social.

When we see Wal-Mart targets generic drugs users by charging a one low uniform price ($10 for a 90-day supply; walk-in clinics in shopping malls are slowing popping up, electronic prescribing improves quality using error-reducing software; telephone-based practices as such TelaDoc, provides telephone consultations to 2 million customers; and medical tourism provides treatment in Four Seasons settings overseas when patients can save up to 50% abd being treated like they are in a five start resort, we know change is coming.

Lot of interesting start-ups including this one called Carol whose vision is to be the shopping mall of medical procedures. The service, which for now is only available in the Minneapolis-St. Paul and Seattle, basically lets you compare prices for “care packages” ranging from alcohol-addiction treatment and CT scans to hernia treatment and dental. This is one great innovation. Medical pricing has never been efficient not transparent, as more, and as people being pushed into “consumer-directed” plans that saddle them with financial responsibility for their own care, being able to compare prices is a good idea, if only they can make it eBayish it will be better. There are a lot of challenges to get enough providers to participate. They believe after their own research analysis that 70% medical treatment are “plannable and shoppable.” 

Innovative ideas that bring better quality, more transparency, efficiency, greater convenience, lower prices and peer-to-peer support services will help solve many of the health care problems that we have, public policy and money should encourage, not discourage, these efforts.

Public policy can play a key role. Hawaii passed a law in 06 that set the stage for last week launch of $10 (flat fee) for a 10-minute online visit with a doctor. The state is the first to offer online physician visits statewide. Residents can chat with a doctor over a standard Web browser (IE 7 or Firefox 2) or carry out their visit over the telephone. Those with a webcam can also use that to share video with the doctor. The service will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Members of Hawaii's largest insurer, HSMA (which operates the state's Blue Cross and Blue Shield) pay $10 for the 10-minute consultation, while non-members pay $45.

For now, the company expects doctors to mainly use the service to fill their spare time, though he said that he can imagine a day where a new medical school graduate might choose to set up an online-only practice. Or someday your call will be redirected to overseas or conferencing in your holistic medicine practitioner in India together with your traditional doctor for an extra $2. Given that there is such a big shortage of primary care physicians, this could be one way of optimizing their capacities. It is a very smart idea.

Pharma Researchers Are Finding Innovative Ways To Help Apple Survive Without Jobs.

There are a lot of talks about Apple’s future and how Apple can survive without Jobs. Jobs is probably the most hands on CEO in the world (for companies of this size) and I’ve heard many stories from his direct reports how he makes all final decisions even on very small things. I mean small things such as the placement of logo and small design touches.

For every Apple design project, Jobs will hold meetings of 3 hours every week or two with core members of the product team and he critiques the work in progress and also suggests adding or cutting features. No questions he takes pride in bringing his touch.  That brings the questions what would happen to Apple without Job’s magic touch?

Will Apple slowly become more institutional than entrepreneurial? Not saying it is a good thing or bad thing. Remember when Sculley was Apple’s CEO for10 years, during which it became one of the biggest PC makers in the world and saw its revenues increase ten-fold –from $1 billion annual revenues to $10 billion.  After that the winds changed.

Job’s obsessiveness, vision and passion for innovation and elegance design have been turned into distinct processes (I’ve seen people there doing things the Job’s way without knowing it) that will ensure Apple delivers a steady pipeline of hit products for a while – with or without him. There are enough innovations going on to last 3-4 years even if Jobs is not around. So short term, Apple will be doing OK. Steve Jobs’ spirit has been institutionalized over the years and it can power the company for a while.

Longer term it is a different story, it is not as simple as trying to guess what Steve Jobs will do when making a difficult decision. Jobs is more than a smart, lucky, rich successful businessman. Jobs is more than a visionary designer, he is not reallu a believer that “wisdom of crowds" is better than "experts" or “open innovation”.  Data can come from the mass, but the innovative concept is defined and refined by the experts. It is the intelligent collaboration of both. He understands the complex realities of the industries and yet willing to find ways to disrupt it. We can't go out and ask people on the street or in focus groups “what the next big thing?”  There's a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, 'If I'd have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me "A faster horse." '

Jobs can find passionate people like him to work for him. Jobs talks to the need for passion in addition to smarts, "They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself." There needs to be love. I don’t think we can find another CEO that has more “love” than Jobs.  There is not a lot of love in the corporate world. True love is hard to find.

Job once said "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life." This day will come, may be in 10 or 20 or 30 years we hope. What can Apple do to prepare itself? Here’s a plan.

A study of entrepreneurs has found that the best chance of producing entrepreneurs of the calibre of Steve Jobs or Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin could lie in a bottle of pills. Research conducted by Cambridge University scientists has concluded that one way of fostering the kind of "riskier decision-making" needed to start a new venture could be through pharmaceuticals. Phara companies love this…another medical solution to our problem.

The scientists found that many of the cognitive processes that are peculiar to the entrepreneur - as opposed to manager - are regulated by the neurotransmitter, dopamine. This brain chemical, which plays a big part in conditions such as schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease, is known to respond to drugs. The findings raise the question of whether one could enhance entrepreneurship pharmacologically.

As part of the study - funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council - the scientists had entrepreneurs and managers complete a computerized neurocognitive assessment measuring various aspects of their decision-making abilities.  Let’s accelerate the development and make sure every Apple executive will be taking the “Job’s Pills” or for brand marketing reason the "iPill." Expect to see them at an Apple store near you.

What's Your Retutn On "Celebrity" When You Have Your Brand Endorsed By A Celebrity?

Using celebrity to endorse brands can work both ways. It is till difficult to put a ROI on it. You can argue if you have a really good idea that brings out the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of a product or brand in a humorous and relevant way, why do you need to pay a celebrity? Having said that, a great idea and a power celebrity endorsement can create killer impact. There are ads that conveniently use celebrity to endorse but failing to integrate the celebrity personality with the brand personality. Or simply use it to hide behind the lack of truly creative ideas. 

Many marketers are shying away from big names and dumping celebrity endorsements altogether. Their concern is the brand is overshadowed by the likes of high-profile celebs. Regis' sidekick Kelly Ripa appeared in a variety of TV commercials for products including Tide laundry detergent and Electrolux appliances. What does Kelly Ripa know about a dishwasher or an washing machine? Do you believe her when she says it's a better appliance? Would she endorse Whirlpool or GE if they paid her more? I'd suggest the answer is yes. This is just one example of celebrities endorsing products for big dollars when their endorsement really means nothing as to the quality, features or durability of the product or the perceptual attributes of the brand.

As a brand coach for many top marketers around the world I often have to explain that there are many elements around the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumer buying behavior and marketing. Marketers pay tons of money to celebrity endorsement hoping that they  will bring magic to brand they endorse and make them more appealing and successful. But all celebrity glitter is not gold. Celebrity sources may enhance attitude change for a number of reasons. They may attract more instant attention to the ads than would non-celebrities or in many cases, they may be viewed as more credible than non-celebrities. Consumers may identify with or desire to emulate the celebrity. Finally, consumer may associate known characteristics of the celebrity with attributes of the product that coincide with their own needs or desire.

The effectiveness of using a celebrity to endorse a firm's product can be greatly improved by matching the image of the celebrity with the personality of the product and the actual or desired serf concept of the target market.  There are no questions celebrity endorsement influence consumer buying behavior and effectively build brand awareness, but marketer has to take care of all the aspect that whether the brought personality and image of celebrity matches or not, whether celebrity endorsement has deep penetration among the masses or not, whether he is considered as credible source or not etc.

Case in point, Woody Allen was suing American Apparel for using his image in one of their outdoor poster campaign. Woody Allen was asking $10 million, for using his image, without permission in one of its outdoor campaigns last year. The campaign features a photo of Allen, dressed as a Jewish rabbi in his 1977 award winning film Annie Hall, beside Hebrew script that translates as "The Holy Rebbe." 

I was a big Allen’s fan in the 70’s and I’ve watch Manhattan probably 20 times. It was long time ago. Allen's problem is not there's a promotional image of himself out there, but rather than the said image isn't promoting him in a way that he totally controls. That's kind of fair. His lawyer cited that Allen does not endorse products or services in the US. Second, you take a company that has made its name with 1970s porn-style ads (but nicely executed) that feature either moist looking hipsters or their rather sleazy looking bearded brethren. I do like their anti-glamor photographic style, sort of edgy sex-sells play, a more real version of Calvin Klein ads.

This oddly brings us back to Allen’s story with his adopted daughter of his ex-wife, Mia Farrow, we all know what happened. Here’s the funny part, in response to a query from The Jewish Daily Forward, American Apparel spokesperson defined Allen as the brand's "spiritual leader." And if you think about it, it's kind of dead on. American Apparel understand their brand and its essence. From a branding perspective, the two share many common brand attributes, I can think of quite a few.

Designers May Not Be The Ones That Can Save Industries. But Designers Are Capable Of Transforming Cities Beyond The Industrial Age.

If you think business is competitive, think about cities. Every city is struggling to find innovative ways to heighten their creative energy and transform their cities to a post industrial age era. One of them is Seoul, it has an ambitious plan to transform into the “Soul of Asia, a city of design and culture”, reflecting the total change in mindset from a dour, industrial age city. The Koreans are hard working  and have come a long way surviving the Asian financial crisis and emerging itself into an economic force. They are not known for creativity.  The plan is to change its urban fabric with cutting-edge designer buildings and lots of parks, and become a city where “the arts flow like water and wind”.

There is serious money talk of enhancing “cultural capital” – whole industries (and jobs) in fashion, designing, architecture, multi-media, etc – in striving to be become a “global city brand” on par with Paris, New York and London. It is ambitious no doubt. In other words, design is serious business, as South Korea’s companies have learned – an example, in enabling Samsung to overtake America’s Motorola to become the world’s second-largest cell phone maker (after Finland’s Nokia) in 2007.

What does it take to transform a city? Let’s talk “Culturenomics”. It starts with creating an urban environment where people want to come and live with their businesses and raise families. Creative industries and lifestyle are what drive national competitiveness.

According to South Korean officials, “Major companies have chief design officers sitting next to their CEOs. We already have 30,000 design students graduating every year. We have to make the best use of these human resources. Our goal is to have people say that if you want to see the latest design trend, you should go to Seoul. That will be a valuable asset for economic growth.Culture is the key factor that can promote the attractiveness of a country or city. Products we export with a touch of culture will be sold at a more expensive price.” They definitely get it.
 Seoul is not without competition. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo are all trying to be the regional design hub, and all of them have some first mover advantages. Many of Seoul’s (or Hong Kong or Shanghai) visions are mostly top-down planned real estate redevelopment, but underlying all of it’s the people or mix of people that drives the creative “Culturenomics”. Top-down is needed, but not enough. It is a co-creation process that involves industries and developers. The creative coalition will need to look at each city and its history, the present situation and possible futures to mobilize people who are too often marginalized and whose importance is diminished in a city whose economic development is too often focused on smokestack chasing and giving away tax freezes.

There’s need to be an understanding of so-called creative class, to identify the essential parts of a creative ecosystem and the investments needed for them. We need to identify the cultural and heritage facilities needed, new ways to build community participation and ideas to attract new creative industries into identified precincts.  From facilities for artists, writers and performers … but also ways of attracting filmmakers, designers, architects, multimedia and creative technology companies, and all those who create ideas and content. These arts and related creative industries drive new economies. And they also help create an attractive and sophisticated city in which to live, work and invest. Every city needs a plan and this will shape the competitiveness of cities in the next 20 years. Designer can help transform them. I wonder whether Toronto, Chicago, Bangalore, Boston,  Montreal, Shanghai, Zurich and Dublin has a plan in place?

India's Best Business Innovation Idea Is A 120-Year Old Social Enterprise.

It is probably fair to say that at least half of the Fortune 500s today are operating on an obsolete business model. Technology disruption and business model innovation have shortened the life of many once great firms. The financial crises simply accelerate the pace of destruction. There’s a lot of myth about business model transformation let alone the definition of a business model.

A successful business model creates a heuristic dominant logic that connects technological potential, unique capabilities, knowledge bases with the realization of economic value and create an additional bottom-line (social or environmental).  We want to see innovation that not only reduces cost, but also create new jobs. What good is any innovation when no one has money to buy whatever low price the product can be sold for. Expect to see more social  enterprises that create new jobs.

This is the worst time to be a CEO or senior executive as the rules are changing fast and experiences may not very useful.  Most of what we’ve learned in MBA schools may not applicable.  Innovation and entrepreneurship are what is needed, unfortunately those are not the skills that are being developed commonly in larger organizations.

Peter Drucker (economist and management scholar) was a big believer in entrepreneurship, innovation and capital formation. He favored companies that took big risks and spent lots of capital on R&D. He hated companies that had nothing better to do than buying back their stock. Executives forgot that they are not banks and their jobs is to find innovative opportunities to invest and to create new shareholder value.

Drucker once said. “ Goverment is only good at three things: Inflation, taxation and making war!” He once bluntly told a US president, “Government is obese, muscle-bound and senile.” Yet he wasn’t against government, per se. He wanted a strong, healthy, vigorous government. To accomplish this goal, he recommended privatization of many state services.

His idea of “social institution” is very interesting. He felt that the private sector - major corporations and nonprofit institutions - was the only “free, non-revolutionary way” to a stable, prosperous society. Business and private charities provided a superior alternative to socialism and big government. When he first suggested the private sector as the ideal “social institution” after World War II, He was considered a renegade.

On the subject of social enterprises, what do you think MBAs can learn from the dabbawalas? (it means a box person, people in Mumbai who is employed to collect freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the home and deliver them to the workplace). I wish there are service like that in America. Most of our modern B-school education is about analytic models, technology and optimization, the dabbawalas, by contrast, focus more on “human and social ingenuity”.

Large corporations have invited the dabbawalas to explain their model to managers to inspire them. The dabbawalas, who all receive the same pay, are also seen as paragons of “bottom up” social entrepreneurship. C.K. Prahalad says they show how a home-grown business can help lift workers at the “bottom of the pyramid” out of poverty. They also contradict the stereotype of developing-world laborers as low-wage economic victims.

The Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association is a streamlined 120-year-old organization with 4,500 semi-literate members providing a quality door-to-door service to a large and loyal customer base. It is probably one of the best ran organization in India with sophisticated logistics management.  It works like this.

After the customer leaves for work, his/her lunch is packed into a tiffin provided by the dabbawala. A color-coded notation on the handle identifies its owner and destination. Once the dabbawala has picked up the tiffin, he moves fast using a combination of bicycles, trains and his two feet. In the dabbawalas' elegant logistics system, using 25 kms of public transport, 10 km of footwork and involving multiple transfer points, mistakes rarely happen.

The interesting thing is, according to industry info, one mistake for every eight million deliveries is pretty standard. So how do they achieve virtual six-sigma quality with zero documentation? For one, the system limits the routing and sorting to a few central points. Secondly, a simple color code determines not only packet routing but packet prioritizing as lunches transfer from train to bicycle to foot. Forget UPS, think dabbawala. More important, it is a social enterprise and provides plenty of employment. That’s a real innovation. Not only fulfilling customer unmet needs, it actually creates jobs.

One dabbawala earns around Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000, every dabbawala contributes Rs15 per month to the association. The amount is utilized for the community's upliftment, loans and marriage halls at concessional rates. All problems are usually resolved by association officials whose ruling is binding. No union, no marketing, no Six Sigma,no HR, just lots of collaboration.

Bailouts Can Get Innovative. Banks, Autos...What's Next? How About Adult Entertainment?

2009 will be a year of free money for industries. As banks, cities and the auto industry apply to the federal government for a bailout, expect to see more industries joining the queue for government bailouts. We see public schools are trying to get some of this government money.

Miami-Dade Schools chief Alberto Carvalho called on the federal government to consider a bailout for the nation's public schools. The question for him is at time when we're continuing the bailout of key industries; at what point do we have a bailout of public education? Carvalho said the state tax shortfall could mean an additional $65 million reduction in spending for the Miami-Dade school system, the nation's fourth largest. The district has already cut $289 million from its $5.5 billion budget and was expecting another $36 million cut.

Currently Florida already ranks in the bottom quarter in terms of spending per student nationally (US Census). This cut will definitely push Florida schools to the limit. So what determines which industries to receive bailouts and which not?  I guess the difference is if the Florida school system goes down the drain, it will make no difference to the US economy the next 12 months. If we have AIG or Citicorp fail, then we have a systemic failure in our financial systems. Everybody goes down. So school system goes down, we’ll be ok???

Take another example. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis is asking Congress for $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry. I am not kidding.  The industry is relatively small, fragmented, and unaccustomed to outside investment, the U.S. porn industry is some­what buffered from today's credit crunch, but it is not without problems. Video sales have been falling by 15% a year since 05, and online content doesn't deliver the returns it used to, now that Websites such as RedTube and Zivity basically offering free porn. Struggling companies need money for R&D, talent development and those that are thriving in a brutal market need funding for growth. Disruption is happening both upstream and downstream as the industry becoming democratized.

Their rationale is with all this economic misery and people losing their homes and life savings, sex is the farthest thing from their mind, so it's time for Congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America (ah demand generation). According to Francis: "Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation's most important businesses; we feel we deserve the same consideration."

Jaguar Land Rover (owned by India’s Tata Motors is also looking for government bailout.  The Sunday Times that it was seeking £1bn in state assistance. Every single auto company will follow suit?

Bailout is never a good idea. Whether it is for the Big Three or the Land Rover of the world. It will do nothing but reward bad management by corporate bureaucrats and incompetent union bosses that pushed for unrealistic contractual commitments. Most important, though, is that a bailout would be bad for the long-term health of the auto industry. It would discriminate against the 110,000+ Americans who have highly-coveted jobs building cars for Toyota, BMW and other auto companies that happen to be headquartered in other nations. They have demonstrated that it is possible to build cars in North America and make money.  They need to take the bullet and restructure for the long term.

Outdated business models, poorly designed products and incompetent management do not deserve further investments, doesn’t matter what industry, porn or auto should be treated the same.

What's The Next Innovation For The Revival Of Towns And Cities? Co-creation Of Experiential Destinations?

We don't hear a lot of the word ‘revival’ anymore these days, towns, cities, resorts and even local industries all needing it. High-technology revival for historic city is always good challenge for economists and planners to take on. Many geographical revival or innovation programs do not achieve the results that they wanted because of a reason.

The best way to design ‘revival’ programs is to use the disciplines of consumer/end-user innovation to inspire revival developments from the outset. By applying the discipline of consumer–driven innovation to create and experiential destination effect’, premium visitors, customers and/or residents can be attracted to spend time and money in the destination. Premium consumers, of course, attract premium operators who, in turn, exercise ‘upwards pressure’ on the developer to deliver premium space and a quality environment. The ‘all-round uplift’ ensures that better revival outcomes are achieved. A sustainably competitive destination is one where consumer thinking drives the planning: the brand deal is as important as the land deal. The same approach could apply to areas as opposed to the entirety of a town or city.

Contrary to popular belief, companies make location decisions based primarily, but not entirely, on economic factors. Earlier the first half of the 20th century, economists believed that firm location decisions were based on minimizing transportation costs and maximizing profits. Over time, they realized that the decision-making process involves more complex aims and a wider array of economic factors such as labor, agglomeration, and space. These economic factors still significantly influence firm location decisions, but have changed due to several shifts in industrial North America. Technological advances have decreased production costs in all sectors of industry. In factm the high-tech sector is less cost-sensitive than other industries, has different labor needs, and prefers to be near centers of higher learning. Cities have learned that more jobs are created from existent firms than new start-ups, and thus emphasize the retention of existing businesses rather than the attraction of new ones. The importance of experiential factors has thus increased; this is especially true for high-tech firms and generation Y.

Developer and designers should be thinking about how different sections of the town/city /resort could develop in such a way as to appeal to different audiences, and how that development could be encouraged. Essentially, there needs to be synergy between all elements of the experience and the customer base for that experience. The public realm, the size of units, the type of retail offer, the type of food and beverage offer, the type of brands, the events, social activities etc.

Developer and designers’ job is to create a new mythology combining the best of a local history with the promise of a new and social techno-centric but human future. They need to put their imagination to work, first to start with defining the persona, setting, and emotional and action dimensions of a town, resort or city. The result will be a complete “story vignette”, new lexicon, design standards and a clear description of what people would experience.  Developers should be pushing further, to another level of experience management — architectural vision, expressions in sensual.

I am kind of happy to see that design minimalists are shifting a little to the side of modern and a little art deco. One concept I like is Sou Fujimoto Architects’ design of the next generation house within a small but functional 13’ x 13’ x 13’ cube. I guess you can make it bigger. The house looks as if it was built from strategically placed Jenga blocks. he blocks are actually cedar logs laid deliberately to create spaces for sleeping, eating, seating and storage. Spaces were left to house modern angled glass as windows. I want one of this as Idea Couture offsite retreat.

'Design' Is Not The Answer To All Our Problems. 'Design Thinking' Should Not Be Turned Into Another Managment Fad.

Our new office is looking great after two months of work (photo above and second one below). Next year we will plan to build an outdoor extension so people can work outside with Wifi. We can never get enough of sun. Yesterday post was a very popular one so let’s continue on that topic. I am hoping to provide a more balanced perspective from Bruce Nussbaum's post pronouncing "innovation is dead".

I first started reading Le Corbusier ideas as a teenager and I was fascinated about his view of architecture although I have never received any formal architecture training (so was Corbusier), his ideas on how architecture should meet the demands of the machine age led him to develop, in collaboration with the artist Amédée Ozenfant, a new theory: Purism. Purist rules would lead the architect always to refine and simplify design, dispensing with ornamentation. Architecture would be as efficient as a factory assembly line. Soon, Le Corbusier was developing standardized housing 'types' like the 'Immeuble-villa' (made real with the Pavilion de l'Esprit Nouveau of 1925), and the Maison Citrohan (a play on words suggesting the building industry should adopt the methods of the mass production automobile industry), which he hoped would solve the chronic housing problems of industrialized countries. A man with mission to transform societies.

But despite his love of the machine aesthetic, Le Corbusier was determined that his architecture would reintroduce nature into people's lives. Victorian cities were chaotic and dark prisons for many of their inhabitants. Le Corbusier was convinced that a rationally planned city, using the standardized housing types he had developed, could offer a healthy, humane alternative. That's when 'design' becomes 'transformative'.

How often we hear big ideas like this from designers? Good design doesn’t have to be transformative. And not all innovation needs to be transformative either. Let’s not put that heavy burden on the shoulders of designers. For designers and human factors specialists, sometimes ‘small’ is the new ‘big’. The interest in exploring the design of assistive technology to support people with special needs is a great example. There is a lot of scope for assistance through items of technology from quite straightforward simple devices up to full-blown autonomous smart home installations.

Bruce thinks that ‘design’ is the answer to all our problems. To quote, “Design is the answer. I use the term ‘transformation’ to capture the immensity of the task ahead of us and to guide us in the magnitude of that task, but the actual tools, methodologies and, yes, philosophy of that mission is found within the space of design and design thinking.” That’s a little simplistic. It’s like someone saying ‘Technology is the answer” or ‘Re-engneering is the answer.”  I agreed (and I am a strong critique of business schools) that business schools are not doing enough to prepare students to deal with the future and managing uncertainties, design school are doing much a better job. But it doesn’t mean designs are going to solve the big problems of this world.

The design professional has been pumping out a lot buzz words such as user-centered design, eco-design, experimental design, design for the other 90%, socially responsible design, universal design, sustainable design, interrogative design, task-centered design, reflective design, transformative design etc etc.? Some are justified but most are not.  Design will play a key role to bring innovation but there are more beyond the fuzzy front end. We need to understand the full life cycle of innovation. It should not over-promised itself and being turned into another management fad.

I think 'Design-driven Innovation' is more accurate and appropriate than ‘Transformation’ although the results could be transformational. Design-driven Innovation become transformational when there are relentless pursuits of truth, beauty, balance and responsibility.

• Truth - the pursuit of truth is the societal function of design and technology. Technology and design is the application of science is the principal means used by society to disseminate the output of science and technology and together they enable people to pursue their ends more efficiently and affordably.
• Beauty – the pursuits of beauty beyond the conventional. Designers make possible for the mass the continuous pursuit of ideals, ends that can be approached indefinitely but never attained.
• Harmony – it is the pursuit of balance between the environments, users (emotive state) and the products. Humans seek both physical and psychological comfort.  You are looking at a person's sense of well-being and how it influences productivity, creativity, and engagement. It includes the elements that must coexist to create positive and productive places: cognitive effectiveness, social support, emotional functioning, and physical function.
• Responsibility – It involves the dissemination of ethical and moral principles whether it is social or environmental.

B-Week's Bruce Nussbaum Was Quick To Pronounce That "Innovation" Is Dead. In Fact, It Is Only Just The Beginning.

In last week's Business Week Bruce Nussbaum pronounced that "Innovation" is Dead. Herald The Birth of "Transformation". To quote, “Innovation died in 2008, killed off by overuse, misuse, narrowness, instrumentalism and failure to evolve. It was done in by CEOs, consultants, marketers, advertisers and business journalists who degraded and devalued the idea by conflating it with change, technology, design, globalization, trendiness, and anything “new.” It was done it by an obsession with measurement, metrics and math and a demand for predictability in an unpredictable world. The concept was also done in, strangely enough, by a male-dominated economic leadership that rejected the extraordinary progress in “uncertainty planning and strategy” being done at key schools of design that could have given new life to “innovation. To them, “design” is something their wives do with curtains, not a methodology or philosophy to deal with life in constant beta—life in 2009."

I can see his frustration but the same can be said about 'strategy' and 'change'. All good English words in the dictionary have been overused in business by companies and the media.  Bruce sees the relationship between ‘innovation’ with ‘transformation’ differently, in his words, “Most importantly, “innovation” cannot guide us into an uncertain and tumultuous future. It is too narrow to generate radical alternative options and build risk-taking frontier skills needed to remake and restructure our lives, our economies and our countries.” The truth is many people have been talking innovation in a narrow (and casual) fashion within design and technology, without the organizational, market and industries context.

‘Innovation’ and “Strategic Transformation” always go hand-in-hand, and it's naive to think that any radical innovation does not require transformation. The only but exception is in the start-ups, but never in the large organizational settings. Designers often complain about why their innovative world-changing ideas are not being adopted yet they lack the understanding of how organizations and financial market behave. Like individuals, organizations change continuously, reacting to developments in their markets and to the arrival and departure of key people. In a large company, these changes go slow and unnoticed. But sometimes a company must change more quickly than this gradual evolution allows; it needs a break with the past, an accelerated pace of change?a transformation. That's when it hits an industry breakpoint.

Any successful corporate transformations and their leaders? Lou Gerstner at IBM, Steve Jobs at Apple, John Reed at Citibank?become the stuff of business legend. Transformed companies have achieved unprecedented competitive power, a pride in everything they undertake, and outsized returns to shareholders. What CEOs or baords wouldn't want all of these things? But they don't come easy. Leaders need to grasp the full cognitive and emotional complexity of the transformation process and it can only be managed when the larger team have sufficient opportunities for reflective observation before and applied imagination.

No question the last decade we’ve seen a lot of disruptions that shorten the life of many organizations by half.  Many have responded to these disruptions in a tactical manner but never really transform themselves to deal with continuous change. We are witnessing the end of many management theories and making a large chunk of business school teaching irrelevant. Designers are quick to come to the rescue unfortunately the problem is too big for most of them alone although there are much to be learned from design thinking.

The interesting question is what type of firms will respond well to transformation? Here are some of the different academic concepts that have been use:

• Dispositional - the importance of individual personalities (Steve Jobs, Richard Branson);
• Situational - the importance of circumstances in encouraging entrepreneurship (Intel);
• Spin-offs - the potential of existing firms to beget new firms (EDS);
• Internal Change - the transformation of organizational structure in existing firms (ABB);
• Environmental Sources - diversity of resources on which firms depend (Technological change, political change, demographic shift); and
• Organizational Blueprints - the original basis of organizational design structure (P&G, GE) 

Never mind if you don't understand these academic craps, at the end it is all about applied imagination, strategic agility, courage and commitment. And if you are interested, here are different strategy (some are more practical than others) models to look at this:

• Porter’s five forces economic model - it implies that a firm’s market positioning is the key to success and the structure determines your profitability
• Contingency Theory -  it specifies that size, technology and environment be the determinants of efficient organizational structure;
• Resource Dependence Models - it stresses the ability of firms to reduce environmental uncertainty in explaining firm differences;
• Process Models - it highlights the important link between strategy and organizational structure and process;
• Dispositional Models - it focuses on the personal characteristics of the CEO;
• Transaction Cost Economics - it holds that efficiency is dependent on cost minimization;
• Organizational Ecology - it stresses the survival motive of firms as being a differentiating factor; and
• Institutional Theory - it proposes that normative (rather than efficiency-based) models drive organizations.

I am not going to explain each of them here and bore you to death, if you are interested in any of them let me know. If we look back 10 years from now, we would see that the period 1995 to 2015 would have been a period of transformation and disruptions.  And innovation is what drives these transformation as well as disruptions.  While the US anti-trust laws will make cross entity innovation sharing a legal barrier, the absence of, or improvement on such laws will open doors to non-discriminatory commercialization networks which will allow other smaller economies and firms to flourish. Governments with established market controls can use the best of their policies to build successful innovators rather than selling access to skilled labor at a globally discounted rate. 

As a global marketplace for creativity, the financial excesses of the few will not characterize the next 30 years.  Rather, true innovation will be drawn from consortia (business, designers, universities, non-profits, government and social ventures) efforts collaborating on solving these large-scale challenges.  Who will own clean water, clean energy, sustainable agriculture, and reliable and accessible health care?  The answer will not be found in any corporation's proprietary rush to own and control but in the establishment of co-creative, innovation networks where creative people link in the Innovation Commons to solve the most complex problems.  Interactions, ideas and trade will flow on these networks and economic value will be created based on massive interactions and collaboration.I guess you can call this transformation.

Understand The Yin And Yang Of The Truly Creative Mind

My first blog post last year was “Your New Year Resolution-Unlock Your Creative Mind”, so I decided to start this year with another post on the “creative” mind. There are lots of myths around what is the "creative class" and how they are often associated with jobs linked to design which is absolutely not the case. You can be very creative but never trained in any design discipline. My personal experience is that probably the percentage of design school gradates whom I consider creative is not much higher than other non-design graduates. Yeah unless you compare that to B-schools which I think 2 out of 10 versus 3 or 4 out of 10 in design school. And probably 1 out o 10 in accounting school, but that one is dangerous. I have met a lot of fashion designers, visual designers and creative directors that I hardly consider creative at all.

Creativity people are important assets of organizations and societies, the main reason is creativity people provides a good breeding ground for innovative ideas and entrepreneurship and they stimulate the encounter of people with different backgrounds and the combination of their knowledge. This mesh-up knowledge may then constitute an important source of innovation and the formation of new firms, which are important drivers of economic development. That’s why creativity goes hand-in-hand hand with start-ups. For economic growth, starts with attracting the creative people to a city.

Here are the few paradoxes (or yin and yang) of the “creative” mind:

• Creative people tend to be smart and naive at the same time. One way of expressing this dialectic is the opposite poles of wisdom and childishness. Think Mozart, it that ignorance and naive that often comes with creativity. Intuitively creative people know that they have a purpose, a destiny or they realize that they can choose or create one to drive them to reach greater heights of skill, ability, or talent. And they can be a little native sometimes. They need smart people that they trust and are close to them for constant reminder.
• Creative people have no problem comfortably combining fun with professionalism, or playfulness with discipline. They often make work fun and at are workaholic at time when it comes to applying their creative energy to solve a specific problem. Laughter and creativity truly go together. I personally believe that creativity can’t occur without a lot of humor believing that seriousness tends to squelch creativeness or creative thinking. Creative people tell the best jokes, don't we?
• Creative people can use their 'unconscious skills' and at the same time see all the “pieces” available in front of them. Dealing with both is part of their process to unlock one's inner genius by reawakening dormant parts of the brain. Creative people thrive on multiple ways of perceiving: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and sensing things. These different perspectives open up their minds to unlimited possibilities while bringing their imagination back to the present.

And the size and number of tattoos have no indication on the creativity of an individual. Here''s a quote from Theodore Adorno, “A successful work of art is not one which resolves contradictions in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure.”