THINKing » Creativity http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog My CreativeTeam Thinks About Creativity, Marketing, PR & Social Media Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:40:12 +0000 en hourly 1 Creativity 2012 – Week #6 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-6/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-6/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:20:36 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2837
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The Surprising Path To Innovation – The path to innovation is rarely a direct line, but that circuitous route is often necessary for true innovation.

Think Like A Child To Achieve More – Kids often have a clarity to their goal setting that adults can learn from.

Three CEOs Who Get Innovation –  A handful of CEOs aren’t solely focused on next quarters numbers. Meet three of them.

Six Questions That Lead To Innovation -  How do true innovators actually make the leap from status quo to full-on disruption? Asking questions.

How To Improve Your Creativity – It’s all about improv.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-6/feed/ 0 Creativity 2012 – Week #5 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-5/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-5/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:22:54 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2832
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 Klout & Pinterest: Time Wasters Or Creativity Tools? – Are these social media sites a total time and energy suck, or is there some redeeming value?

Three People Who Never Belong In A Brainstorm Room – Hold on there, Negative Nancy. You can’t come in.

Screen Typography Is Falling Behind – iPads and other tablets are calling for screen typography evolution. It is not happening.

I’ll Never Fall In Love (With Ideas) Again – Every good new idea means an old idea must die. Do you have the heart for that?

The Three Ingredients Of Innovation – Are you cooking with the right creativity sauce?

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-5/feed/ 2 Creativity 2012 – Week #4 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-4/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-4/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:37:11 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2826
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It Takes Two In The Innovation Tango – Which is better for innovation – a lone creative or a group of creatives?

Innovation And The Art Of The Story – The art of storytelling is nothing new. Storify co-founder and Hacks/Hackers founder Burt Herman discusses the next generation of the centuries-old craft.

A Running Shoe Inventor Shoots Himself In The Foot - How hard is it for an independent inventor to sell an idea to a multinational? Try running a mile in Lenn Hann’s shoes.

Social Technologies Speed Innovation – Research by McKinsey indicates that open innovation will only improve, as porous company borders increase external participation.

Creativity Is A Gamble – Whenever we start a project or pursue an idea, we’re risking our time, energy, and potentially money, on something that we can’t see the outcome of. It’s a gamble to try something new, to be creative.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-4/feed/ 1 Creativity 2012 – Week #3 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-3/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-3/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:49:51 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2822
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The Rise Of The New Groupthink – Creativity happens to a single person working alone, not in a group.

January Brainstorm – A few ideas to get your little gray cells percolating as we jump into 2012.

How To Maintain A Creative, Healthy Perspective – A change of perspective is what invokes new ideas.

Culture And The Climate For Creativity –  Organizations that invest in a climate of creativity create conditions for dealing with risk and develop an environment of trust.

10 Creative Ways To Use QR Codes –  Here are some of the most creative, fun and interesting examples of QR code marketing that show QR codes have the potential to enrich the product experience and offer the customer real value.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-3/feed/ 1 Calling All Guest Bloggers http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/calling-all-guest-bloggers/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/calling-all-guest-bloggers/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:13:34 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2812
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Here’s a shout out to all guest bloggers. This is a new year and I want new voices here on THINKing.

You may be asking, “why would you want to write for this blog?” We had about 200,000 visitors to the site last year. So, it is a decent sized audience for your writing. We covered a variety of marketing related topics, ranging from advertising, PR and social media to creativity,  branding and writing. So, you will find a receptive audience for those topics.

Convinced? Read on.

If you have an idea for a guest post, here is what I want from you. First, send me a brief outline of your idea with reasons why your post would be a fit for our blog. This should include an explanation of who you are and why you are qualified to write the piece.

Let me know if this is a single post or part of a series of up to three posts that you propose. Final posts should be no more than 750 words, so point me to examples of pieces you have written in the 350 – 750 word range.

Oh, and I don’t want commercials for your company or yourself.

That’s it. Easy, right?

Times a-wasting. Send the information to me, harry at my-creativeteam.com.

 

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/calling-all-guest-bloggers/feed/ 1 Creativity 2012 – Week #1 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-1/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-1/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:11:04 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2779
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The 5% Creativity Challenge – Most of us don’t have the staff and resources to disappear for weeks on end, but we all have the ability to schedule two, one-hour thinking sessions each week (5% of a 40 hour week).

Clutter Kills Creativity – Clutter is procrastination not creativity.

Five Questions To Ask Of Your Next Innovation – If innovation is so critical to…everything…then how does one know when an idea is a valuable innovation?

Rituals That Turn On Creativity –  For some authors, there’s something spiritual about starting each day the same way.

How To Boost Your Creativity Quotient - Want to be more creative in your thinking and your life? Try these techniques to increase your creativity quotient.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2012-week-1/feed/ 1 Top 10 2011 Posts http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-10-2011-posts/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-10-2011-posts/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:51:28 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2774
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We’ve posted on a wide variety of topics in THINKing this year, and based on what you have been reading, you must like the variety. Let’s take a look at the Top 10 posts from 2011. You might find something on the list that you missed.

Creativity Boost #3 – Dictionary Excursion – This was far and away our most read – and commented upon – post. It’s an exercise to boost your creative writing skills.

Top 11 Free Resources To Improve your Blog’s Content - As part of a continuing series to help you in developing compelling content, this post provides you a list of the top 11 online resources to help you improve your writing skills.

How To Write Tweets That Get Noticed – This guest post from David Murton says you need to consider and understand two important rules: readability and retweetability when writing your tweets.

How Is Social Media Like A Mullet - As Joe Dirt said in the movie by the same name, a mullet is “business in the front, party in the back.” And that is how social media is like a mullet: it’s both business and personal.

LinkedIn – Branding – In our series on LinkedIn, we talked in this post about how to use the social network for branding purposes.

Top 19 Free Photo Sites For Bloggers -  This post outlines some of the best places to find free photos and images for your blog.

Creativity Boost #1 – The Mindtrip - A mindtrip is a way to find a novel solution to a problem by looking at it from a different perspective.

Pump Up Your Brain - According to Nobel prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling, the best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas. In this post, we discuss brain exercises to help you generate more ideas.

Creativity 2011 Week#12 – Our weekly series of creativity links produced one of our Top 10 posts.

Top 15 Uses For QR Codes – QR codes were much discussed in 2011. We posted on some ways we think marketers should be using them.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/top-10-2011-posts/feed/ 1 Creativity 2011 – Week #52 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2011-week-52/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2011-week-52/#comments Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:31:31 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2752
Photo credit: mensatic from morguefile.com

It’s the last week of 2011 and we have had some good creativity links this year. I’ll be compiling home into pdf form shortly.  Happy New Year and enjoy this last installment in 2011.

When It Comes To Ideas, Teams Win - In an office where innovation and creativity thrive, convincing employees that teamwork can help build up their ideas – rather than stifle them – is critical.

Mind Games & The Human Brain – Mind games may come across as silly diversions from boredom or against waning social interactions but they are so much more than that.

15 Scientific Facts About Creativity –  Although creativity keeps human society flourishing, science honestly offers few answers to how the intricate, infinitely complex concept actually works.

Tips To Stimulate Children’s Creativity -  Creativity is the greatest human potential and we need to work together to develop children’s creativity start from home.

Ads That Win Creative Awards Sell More Product - Ads that win creative awards are 11 times more efficient at selling stuff than other ads.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2011-week-52/feed/ 2 Thinking About Thinking http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/thinking-about-thinking/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/thinking-about-thinking/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:10:18 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2749

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about thinking. Done some research on the topic as well. As a creative thinker, you are trying to generate new ideas. These ideas typically come when you put together two ideas which have not been paired previously. Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, it isn’t that easy. So, over the years people have developed methods for the purposes of brainstorming. We’ve promoted some of those techniques here, like the use of random words in our Creativity Boost #3 post.  There’s the Random Picture method, as well as the SCAMPER Method.  This is just scratching the surface of the techniques available to you.

The purpose of this post is to introduce you to a few solid resources for using these and other brainstorming techniques to help make you a more creative person in 2012.

Creative & Lateral Thinking

Creative Thinking Games

Creative Thinking

OK, that should get you started. Oh, and if you missed it, check out our series of Creativity Boosts and tell us how you used these ideas.

 

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/thinking-about-thinking/feed/ 1 Creativity 2011 – Week #51 http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2011-week-51/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/creativity-2011-week-51/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:15:22 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2740

Hard to believe we have almost made it to 2012. We hope you are enjoying our weekly blast of creativity-related links. We’ll be doing it all again in 2012, so stay tuned.

5 Tools For Innovation -Startups are supposed to be innovative — but they can get as bogged down in the details as any big company. Here are five ways to keep the innovative spark alive.

The Rules Of A Creator’s Life – #1 is do more than you are told to do.

6 Steps To Building Creative Endurance – Just as an athlete quickly loses fitness without training, so your creative stamina will fade away if you don’t work at maintaining it – every week, if not every day.

December Brainstorm – What did daVinci and Edison have that we don’t have?

What Is A Problem? – Don’t fear “problems.”

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