creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties

The moment you choose to act upon an idea you take a risk. Risk of not being heard, not understood, not seen as “marketable.” You risk being told no, not now, not for us or not ever. The question is then, is it worth it? At different points in my life I have heard all of the above but my answer to the question is the same. It’s worth it.

Sometimes an idea has what it takes to make it and sometimes it doesn’t. I learn something new every time  which is why it’s worth it.

Companies allocating marketing dollars away from traditional marketing to social media has been happening for some time now. That’s not a big surprise. However, the beverage giant Pepsi Co., just announced that they are pulling out of advertising during the Super Bowl.  Instead they will focus on a $20 million social media advertising campaign. ABC News reports “that the company will launch the Pepsi Refresh Project on January 13, where online users can submit ideas to help ‘refresh their communities to make a better world.”  This is a very bold move into the social marketing arena that I have not seen from any other company this size.  Maybe Pepsi believes it can get a better response for those dollars by using social media.  I wouldn’t disagree.  So what does it cost to advertise during the Superbowl anyway?  According to Wikipedia:

“Prices for advertising space can typically cost millions of dollars; 30 seconds of advertising time during the 2010 telecast is expected to cost US $3.01 million.  This excludes production costs and fees for actors, equipment, ad agencies, directors, crew and other personnel. In 2009, NBC sold out all the advertising spots for record revenue US $206,000,000.”

According to the Examiner:

“Advertisers view social media as important because online they can seek out people who have an affinity for the brand and engage them in a meaningful discourse that lasts longer than 30 seconds. Many times these people pass along information to their friends. Online tools give marketers the ability to track the ‘pass alongs.”

Thoughts?

I read a great post today from Seth Godin.  Read full post here.

But what about you and your organization? As you get bigger and older, are you busy ensuring that a bad thing won’t happen that might upset your day, or are you aggressively investing in having a remarkable thing happen that will delight or move a customer?

Here’s a rule that’s so inevitable that it’s almost a law: As an organization grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring. With more to lose and more people to lose it, meetings and policies become more about avoiding risk than providing joy.

Solution?  Focus on being remarkable at something.

In his article “In Pursuit of Elegance,” Guy Kawasaki present 12 tips to pursuing elegance.  Here are a couple that really stood out to me.  Read the entire article here.

1. Question: Why is elegance so important?
   Answer: Elegance cuts through the noise, captures our attention, and engages us. The point of elegance is to achieve the maximum impact with the minimum input. It’s a thoughtful, artful subtractive process focused on doing more and better with less. That’s especially important during this economic crisis when everyone is trying to move forward while consuming fewer resources.
2. Question: Why do companies with unlimited money continue to put out such crap?
   Answer: I’m not sure anyone has unlimited money at the moment, but even those less worse off than others probably suffer from a dire lack of two things: discipline and discrimination. The enemies of elegance are (1) adding and (2) acting. The notion of subtraction goes against how we’re hardwired which is to push, collect, hoard, store, and consume. We’re natural-born adders which is partly why elegance is so elusive. Whether we’re talking about a product, a performance, a market, or an organization, our addiction to addition results in inconsistency, overload, or waste—and sometimes all three.And here in the US we have a cowboy instinct, where the bias is for action. In other words, Don’t make me think, let me just do. Doing SOMETHING is deemed better than doing nothing. But that’s not always true. I spent some time with National Geographic adventure journalist Boyd Matson. He taught me how to stand still when the hippos charge. If you act, and run, you’re dead. Stand still, do nothing, they stop charging. But that is fiendishly difficult because it’s so unnatural and counterintuitive. But that’s what happens in business.
3. Question: What’s the first step a CEO should take to get her company on the right track?
   Answer: When Fortune named Apple “America’s Most Admired Company” as well as “Most Admired for Innovation,” honors owing largely to the success of the iPhone, Steve Jobs revealed that a “stop-doing” strategy figured centrally into Apple’s approach. What he said was: “We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.”That’s the mindset.And step one? Create a solid stop-doing list. Sounds simple, but few do it. Guru Jim Collins says you absolutely must have a “stop-doing” list to accompany your to-do list. As a practical matter, he advises developing a strong discipline around first giving careful thought to prioritizing goals and objectives, and then eliminating the bottom 20 percent of the list. If as CEO you do that, and demand that everyone do that, including designers and engineers with respect to the stuff they’re building, your ugly crap quotient goes way down.

Thoughts?

This video was such a great video about the director of marketing at the Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto using twitter. Enjoy.

Two filmmakers from Germany used a projector and a video camera to bring the topic of homelessness, a problem often ignored, to the top of people’s minds.

Often people don’t grasp how important an issue or an idea might be the first, second or even the 3rd time you tell them. Sometimes all we need to do is find creative ways to tell stories that can provoke change.