March 13, 2018No Comments

The Brainstorm Is Not Dead

There's a lot of buzz around brainstorming not being a thing anymore. This Forbes article is but one of many debunking the myth of brainstorming being great for coming up with ideas. But guess what? 70 years later, brainstorming is still around. And for one reason:

It has a very cool name.

Alex Osborn, the man who invented brainstorming, didn’t get everything right, but the name “brainstorm” was certainly a home run.

alex osborn

Alex Osborn, the father of Brainstorming, asking for ideas over the phone.

Since the late 40’s when Osborn – who happens to be the “O” in BBDO – gave brainstorming to the world, his creation has been scrutinized, debunked, evolved, changed and re-adapted. The brainstorming techniques used today by IDEO and other creative companies are so different from Osborn’s original process they should not be called brainstorms. Yet, they are, because no one wants to let go of that supercool name.

Would you rather tell your wife/husband when you get home that you took part in a “brainstorm", or in a group idea-generating session?

“Brainstorm" for me, any day of the week, please.

Many articles today that debunk brainstorming still take as reference Osborn’s model, which was flawed. There's plenty of science out there to prove it. Many better ways to come up with ideas are at our disposal. Heck, telling everyone just to have ideas on their own works better than Osborn's brainstorm. Yet, it was the starting point to all the knowledge we have today on idea-generating. Fact is, nowadays, "brainstorming" has come to mean "generating ideas" – either in group settings or individually. To which there are many different techniques – some of them have nothing to do with the original brainstorming from the 40s.

Osborn got a few things right, though, besides naming it “brainstorm”. Here are my 3 favorites: Read more

January 26, 2018No Comments

I’ll know it when I see it — how to deal with bad feedback

Now, it was make it or break it. We had been going back and forth with the client for days, and this was the last chance to get the layout approved the way we knew was better. Earlier that week, we had heard very specific feedback from the client – the kind that makes you angry as a creative, because it feels arbitrary and outside the client's expertise: "Move the product away from the headline so it doesn't overlap". What? Why???

Up to this point, all our discussions had happened over email. On the agency side, we thought this would be just something they'd let go, if we pushed back a little. "The creatives feel it works better as it is".

That wasn't enough, and I saw our ad being pushed further and further into the ordinary.

You see, clients and creatives have the same goals, but they look at things from different perspectives. The clients were doing what they thought was best for the job, but they didn't understand the consequences of making the changes they suggested. What sounds like a simple change for the untrained eye, is actually a major blow for a layout that was intentional in every detail. Taking the product away from the headline would undo the point of tension, which was carefully crafted to direct attention to the product feature – while flattening the layout and taking away most of its visual appeal.

So, as it was our last chance, I met the client face-to-face. I said exactly what I wrote in the previous paragraph, while showing them the layout we recommended, next to the one incorporating the requested change. I also took the time to explain the feeling we get from graphics that break expectations, and how that tension draws the eye. I took the time to explain how overlapping elements give a sense depth to the page that makes the product "pop out." All the things we know and feel as we design a layout, I put into words so they could understand.

"I just wish you guys would take us through your thinking, like you just did, more often. Now that you made us understand, we'll go with your recommendation". These are invaluable words, coming from a client.

Once I was able to communicate the reason behind our creative choices, we got on the same page. If I hadn't been able to translate to them why the product overlapping the headline mattered, we'd be left with a damaged relationship and a bad layout in major national publications. Read more

December 22, 2017No Comments

Get on the creativity train: mental models to keep you moving though the creative process

Every day I walk into the agency and I don't know what's going to happen. Am I going to crack that brief? Am I going to have the big idea I need to have before 2pm? By 11am I haven't. By 2pm I have ideas, but are they  good? Are they big enough? I don't know. I just don't know. This drives people crazy.

Creativity can be scary. If it's scary for professional creatives, it's specially so for everyone else. That's because we don't know what lies at the other end. It's a mystery. When you start creating, you don't what ideas we are going to have.

It can be scary, but it can also be exciting. Like riding the space mountain, you know? It's all about the mindset – and that's something you can control.

Creative people usually have a "mental model" that will help them go through the creative process without faltering. By imagining this uncertain process as familiar pictures, they are able to keep their wits about them when the pressures of not knowing what the final result will be pokes at their confidence.

A mental model is a belief we hold to help us get to the ideas we are looking for. And it's gotta be a belief – it's all about faith. Faith in the creative process and faith in your own creative abilities.

Pete Docter on the left, Ed Catmull on the right. John Lasseter and Alan Horn between them.

In the book Creativity Inc., which has become the bible for creative management, Ed Catmull describes the mental models of several Pixar directors and other creatives. George Lucas liked to imagine his company as a caravan of wagons heading west, into the exciting unknown. Andre Stanton, director a films like Wall-E and Finding Nemo, compares his creative leadership role to that of a captain on a ship, where he needs to set course and get moving even if he's not sure that's the right direction to go. Bob Peterson, a Pixar screenwriter who wrote UP and other Pixar films, compares his creative work to an archeological dig, where you slowly brush the dust away to reveal bits and pieces of a story that only later will be connected and make sense as a whole. Read more

November 20, 20171 Comment

On Creative Confidence, Clay Horses and Dragon Fruits

"I'm not the creative type"
or
"I'm just not a creative thinker"

Statements like that are not based on reality. Saying that is like saying you don't like broccoli before you try it. Or dragon fruit, for that matter: It's weird-looking, it doesn't resemble any other fruits you've tried before, and it seems to have been designed by a child.

So it must not be for you.

Even though it may taste like a mix between kiwi and happiness. But creativity, unlike that happy-looking fruit, is something we have all tasted. It's something we were born with.

Yes. We were born creative. That's the main argument in Sr. Ken Robinson's TED talk (the most popular TED talk ever – so it must be true, right? :)) and I hope this idea is more widely accepted 10 years later.

The sad part of the argument is that it implies our creativity is taken away from us as we grow up. We start to learn and to comply, and we started building a box around us. Now, learning from earlier generations and from each other is the crux of human evolution, but sometimes unexpected side effects happen. Here's an example: Read more

November 12, 2017No Comments

Free your mind to reach your creative potential

How free are you? Most importantly, how free can you become?

The other day I watched this little 6-minute documentary on Jim Carrey called I Need Color. Turns out Jim Carrey is a hell of a painter. Here's some of his work:

Now, that's not what he's famous for, at least not yet. But the small glimpse that documentary gave me into his process and his demeanor made me sure of one thing: he's free. Jim Carrey is a free man, maybe freer than any man I've ever looked into in my research on creativity. Free of body, we all are in this part of the world. But freedom of mind is rarer. Read more

June 11, 2015No Comments

A Shortcut To Ideas

One day I showed the image below to a couple of American colleagues. It shows a few "caboclos de lança", a carnival character very specific to a small region of north-eastern Brazil, where I'm from. They wear magnificent hand-embroidered cloaks, carry a white gillyflower between their lips and wear those amazing sparkling oversized wigs. Not to mention the massive spear they swing around.

The first comment I heard was about how much their shoes resembled Converses.

Maracatu Rural

When exposed to something alien, our first instinct is to try to find a connection to something we already know. That's our way of making sense of the world. We will (unconsciously) try to use previous experiences to better understand new ones.

This concept can help us understand both how ideas are formed and how communication can be optimized by leveraging this fact. Read more

March 11, 20154 Comments

Creative Advice for my Little Brother

My little brother (who’s now taller than me) is a talented computer programmer who comes from a family with no background in IT whatsoever. He’s been accepted as an intern at Facebook and he’s carving a promising career for himself without any borrowed influence, and that’s something to be admired. I obviously want him to make the best out of his opportunity, so below is the best creative advice I can give him.

Software development has emerged as one of the most creative fields of our era, so I hope he’ll find some use to the lessons I’ve leaned about creativity – and work life – from my career in advertising. So here it goes:

Dear brother,

1. Learn the rules so you know how to break them.

It’s an absolute pleasure to understand how something works. To master a programming language like you do, for instance, and understand how things work behind a user’s interface must be a pretty great feeling.

Once you master something, you understand its limitations. And only then you can try to overcome those limitations – by breaking the rules you mastered. This is the golden rule of creativity. New results will not be achieved by doing the same thing that has been done before.

The funny thing is that the same principle can be applied to different aspects of life – like your work environment, for instance. When you join a company (specially a big one), you always hear things like “oh, you’ll never be able to get into his calendar” or “The boss doesn’t really have time for us” or “don’t bother presenting new ideas, they never buy it”. Stuff like that and the sheer vibe of the office will make you feel like you should act in a certain way. Those are the rules – and once you know them, you can break them. Try and get that proactive idea in front of the boss, try to get into the calendar of people who may be able to help you, call their extension rather than sending an email. Chat them up by the water cooler. Do what others won’t dare and make sure you have your elevator pitch ready.

2. There’s no shame in ignorance. There’s shame in remaining ignorant.

The way I see it, the kind of person who can make the most damage in a collaborative work environment are those who pretend they know what they don’t. Those who never say “I don’t know”. It’s either an effort to look good in front of others or they are simply ashamed of not knowing something. The curious mind is not ashamed of ignorance; it exposes it so it can be extinguished. How can anyone teach you something if they think you already know it?

An internship is THE place to be curious, to ask questions, to learn. “What do you mean by that?”, “What does that acronym stand for?”, “How did you do that?”, “Can you show me how?” and other phrases like these should be part of your day-to-day. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”, but be ready to chase the answers. The more knowledge you have, the greater your creative potential.

3. Learn from everyone else’s mistakes, too

Learning from your own mistakes: that comes naturally. What’s even more useful – and certainly a tad harder – is to learn from everyone else’s mistakes. It’s harder to learn something you didn’t experience yourself, but it is in truth the only way to improve beyond your own limits.

We learn from someone else’s mistakes when we read a book, watch a movie, when we watch someone fail and succeed, etc. – and when we are given advice.

An advice is knowledge detached from experience – and that missing connection may lead us to disregard them. I do remember being on the receiving side of very valuable advice as a young man. I didn’t pay attention to those, just because I didn’t know I’d need it. Looking back, all I wish is I had the experience I have now when I was your age, so now it’s my turn to give out advice.

Pay extra attention to advice send your way by more experienced people – at work or otherwise (you should also ASK for advice. See #2). It may not make sense at first, but if you write it down and keep it in mind, it will eventually make sense. It just might be the answer to a problem you don’t have yet.

4. There’s always a different way of doing things

As a programmer, you're aware of this one. In programming, there’s always a more efficient way to make things work, there’s always a way to optimize code to make it faster, or use less processing power. You told me that yourself. This approach to problem solving can be applied in the real world as well.

Creativity comes into play when we actively look for solutions beyond the obvious. “What’s another way to do this?” is a question you should ask yourself not only when you’re writing code, but all the time. Doesn’t matter what problem you’re facing: be it carrying a big box up the stairs or talking to a girl you like – actively exploring options beyond the ones your mind automatically offers is the key to creativity.

5. Collaborate to grow

When I was a young creative in advertising, I wanted to do everything myself. I had a vision I wanted fulfilled exactly how I intended it and didn’t want anyone else involved to mess it up. When I would do that, my work would fall short of others' and I’d end up frustrated and exhausted. Collaboration is the key to create work that is greater than our own limited capabilities.

One of the most valuable lessons we can learn as creative professionals is that our objective is to make our work as good as it can possibly can be, not as good as we can make it on our own.

6. Watch "The Matrix"

I can't believe you've never seen this movie. Just so you know, “The Matrix” was an absolute turning point for computer programmers. Before “The Matrix” coders were nerds, after that they were heroes. “The Matrix” is one of the reasons why your profession is so hot right now. Know your history!

I hope this helps, bro. Good luck, and let me know how else I can help.

For everyone else reading this, leave a comment and let me know if you have any other advice for my brother.

December 8, 2014No Comments

The Comfort Zone of Conformity

The words "conform" and "comfort" are disturbingly similar. You can't even tell them apart at a quick glance. Psychologically, "conformity" has a strong link to "comfort zone" as well. Neither word goes well with "creativity".

The Asch experiment, one of the most famous and popular in psychology, is a big eye opener. It simply exposes our group-confirming nature in an undeniable way. Humans are very prone to agreeing with what everybody else thinks, to go with the flow, to drop their own opinion in favor of the others', to conform. That's known as the "Asch Paradigm".

It's worth having a look at the video below – and think that you're not any different from the people being tested. By the looks of the video, you can tell this knowledge has been around for a while, but still to this date too many people change their opinions for the wrong reasons.

Read more

October 29, 2014No Comments

Dishonesty: tap into your dark side to be more creative

"With great power comes great responsibility"

Voltaire or Uncle Ben (Spider-Man's uncle) - depending on your mood.

Dishonest people are very creative. Everyone can agree with that. We all know the examples: the con man coming up with lies to get money out of you, the crooked car salesman and his stories to get you to buy a lemon, fake letters from Nigeria and the sweet talk of the famed Brazilian "malandro" hiding his bad intentions.

Big examples in pop culture, like Kevin Spacey's character Keyser Söze in "The Usual Suspects" (1994) and Christian Bale's Irving in "American Hustle" (2014) drive home the same point – evil geniuses are very creative!

evil genius kevin spacey in The Usual Suspects

Kevin Spacey as an evil genius in the 1994 movie "The Usual Suspects"

But what if I flipped the order around and told you this:

Being dishonest can actually make you more creative.

Read more

October 11, 20142 Comments

The formula for creativity involves the element of surprise

Creativity and surprise are closely related. Surprise comes from seeing something unexpected or experiencing something you've never come across before. Here's the surprise: we can say the same things about creativity – anything truly creative will surprise you.

Creativity will always have an element of surprise.

Comedians can really attest to it. I rank stand-up comedians really high on the creativity scale – they know how to take seemingly mundane situations and offer an unexpected point of view that surprises us. That's the punchline. But comedy is only one of the many facets of surprise.

The element of surprise helping comic creativity

The element of surprise helping comic creativity in a cartoon by Vic Lee

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