photo by Nigel Peake

I have been harping on the “creativity in the workplace” thing for a while now.  Sort of because it would really help me if got popular (I once completed a chemistry exam in high school with all illustration answers.  Got a D) but also because it’s becoming more and more necessary to come up with creative solutions to marketing.  The template is out there and it’s Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. until everyone has one and being creative suddenly means the difference between people caring about your brand or not.

Newsweek came out with an article this week that claims that creativity scores are at an all time low.  What that means, is that kids aren’t able to improvise well.  They seriously can’t think of a new, fun feature or way to use their toys and all of this is a big problem when  ” A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future.” (Newsweek).

Creative isn’t just “thick rimmed glasses, paintbrush in hand and T-shirts you can’t understand” either if that’s what you’re thinking.  I’m talking about creative process and problem solving which can be a great by-product of the paintbrush-in-hand thing but can also be applied by marketers, developers, and just about anyone else.

So you might know that I’ve been working with realtors a lot  and it seems like the creativity problem is affecting their industry as well.  How should they put themselves online when what they have to talk about (house stuff) is pretty run of the mill?  Check out what this realtor from Portland came up with:

Pretty creative solution right?

Here’s what Volkswagen came up with a while back for a quick subway exit:

My thought is that the meeting for the subway slide had a ton of ideas on different ways to build stairs.  Stairs made of interesting items, stairs of different widths or depths but the creative solution comes from someone being able to look at the stairway and think “slide”.

If you are the type that can look at stairs and think “slide” remember to put it into your resume and cover letter and to go ahead and shout it out at the meeting.  Yes you’ll be laughed at but with a shortage of creative thinking it’s your office they’ll be lining up at.

And if you’re not one of those kinds of thinkers?  Make yourself one by doing exercises like:

Take a walk and figure out a new way to light the streets, put up a sign, or do differently the things you are walking by.

Purposely coming up with the most ridiculous, out there, solution to a work assignment you’re given.  I think part of the “non creative” problem is not the shortage of ideas, it’s that we shut them down instantaneously as a “dumb idea” and they never even reach the front of our minds.

When you watch a TV commercial that makes you roll your eyes, think of  your own marketing idea for them instead of changing the channel.

Watch the news and solve the problems with something creative – seriously, the BP problem is maybe going to be solved by the guy that shouted “robots!”.