Creativity in the Box

CREATIVITY IN THE BOX Ali Anani, PhD Creativity In the Box  Nearly all examples in this presentation are based on my personal experiences in turning the familiar ideas into unfamiliar applications in a host of areas such as sales, marketing and teaching     One definition of creativity is to turn familiar assumptions into unfamiliar ones. The reverse thinking is also true. Thinking out of the box is a familiar expression for creative thinking. One way to turn this statement into unfamiliar one is by reversing it into Thinking in the Box. Is that possible? Or needed? And how? Is thinking in the Box a bad thing? Challenging assumptions is one key to creativity. First, a Little Introduction      An interesting story is that of a man who slipped in a muddy soil and dropped his car keys late at night in a rainy day. A policeman saw him and wondered why the man was standing in the rain Approaching and asking him about his concern, the man replied that he was looking for car keys that dropped over there, pointing with his finger. “If you dropped them over there, then why are you looking for them here”? The policeman asked astonishingly “You want me to look for the keys in the darkness and leave the street light”? First, a Little Introduction- 2     For me both the policeman and gentleman were wrong. Ideally, the man should stand at an edge where he may maximize the benefit of the street light to get as closely as possible to the place where he believed he dropped his key in the darkness The more intense the street light gets, the closer he may get to the place where he dropped the keys The man moves within a zone restricted by the strength of the streetlight First, a Little Introduction- 3     The changing light makes the man adjust his position The resulting edge I call “The edge of choice” It is at this edge that creativity sparks. This is what we know from the Theory of Complexity Complex systems may grow in a bounded zone (box) and manage to stretch and fold to accommodate an exponential growth of ideas within the same boundary First, a Little Introduction- 4    This way Thinking in the Box may generate creative ideas from within the system Complex system may have an additional attribute in addition to what we know about them: their ability to be creative within a box. Strange attractors evolve in a box and not outside a box. So do not be surprised if some ideas and applications in this presentation stemmed up in box and NOT out the box thinking First, a Little Introduction- 5   You need to go one step closer to your creativity breakthrough. Creativity lies at the edge of chaos and it is important to make small changes that may induce large changes Negative thinking is toxic to creativity. People who tend to think negatively do not open new directions and confine their energy to self-destruction. This is a form of creativity-suicide. Information Flow    The flow of information is complex. The information flow reminds me of the water flow in the water barrel metaphor. As long as the water flow is within limit the water wheel rotates in an predictable manner. However; once the rate of flow of water exceeds a critical limit the water barrels rotate chaotically. I believe that information flow works analogously. If we are bombarded with a rapid flow of information the wheels of our minds start rotating chaotically and disorderly. We need at this point to self-organize to cope with the flow of information. Information Flow- 2  The water barrel metaphor we used for information flow finds support. The greatest non-technical issue is the mindset. We have to view information as a flow rather than as a thing. Online learning is a flow. It’s like electricity or water. It’s there, it’s available and it flows. It’s not stuff you collect. I don’t see myself sitting in my home collecting jars of water. I use the water as it comes. If you think the internet as an environment that is moving and shaping all around you, then you will have a better attitude to be able to handle the flood of information that is coming at you" Information Flow- 3  Our economy is based on information. We either get flooded by this information, or rearrange it within boundaries at the edge of its chaotic flow to generate new idea in the box, and not outside it Creative Business Ideas from Known Facts    Customers buy benefits and not tools I generated few ideas by stretching this concept I present examples in the next few slides Putting Benefits before Costs   A new newspaper could not attract advertisers to advertise for rear the new newspaper does not circulate properly and in enough copies How I generated ideas to overcome this worry? Putting Benefits First     If advertisers reap the benefits first they would advertise in a new newspaper The first idea was to offer the first three ads free and then escalate the remaining four ads. Any client was tempted to advertise seven times in keeping with the Rule of Seven and sign a contract to this effect As we knew his benefit from the first ads would be minimal we offered the first three ads for free Putting Benefits First- 2     The cost for free ads was zero and any thing you divide by zero gives you infinity of benefits As of the fourth advertisement we expected readers to move from awareness and interest phase into the desire phase, so we made the advertiser pay. We increased the price exponentially as we approached the fifth advertisement. Now, we expected the benefits of the repeated ad to be clear as sales of the advertiser would increase and his benefits would become evident thus lessening the impact of the cost of the ads The idea was met with an overwhelming success Putting Benefits First- 3     A modification of the idea was later applied to collect early cash. Again, the advertiser had to sign a seven-ad campaign However; this time he agreed to pay a fixed cost of the add, which approximated 50% of the contract The remaining 50% were to be paid in parallel to the benefit the advertiser reaped from the ad Putting Benefits First- 4   Skepticism was high among colleagues for fear that the advertiser will not pay the remaining 50% My answer was that we should not assume all advertisers are dishonest. Secondly, he will not be able to repeat the campaign because he will have no justification to do that unless he benefited from the first one. This way we may gauge our own performance Putting Benefits First- 5    Thirdly, this skepticism prompted me to generate creative ideas to monitor the impact of our ads We convinced an advertiser to give coupons that carried 20% discounts for customers who have the coupon with them when they made purchases. These coupons were part of his ads The advertiser decided to advertise in an established newspaper and us. The background of the ad was the same Putting Benefits First- 6     I objected on the ground that it would be difficult for him to tell from which ad the coupon was torn off The advertiser was very happy with the idea and changed the background from white to orange in his ad in our newspaper We did a study on his branches and namely in areas where the competitive newspaper did not circulate properly The result: 80% of the coupons in some areas had orange background. The advertiser signed a one year contract with us Expand Benefit and Distribute Cost- 7    I developed later a modified version of this approach by maximizing the benefit and distributing the cost. The Revolving Ad concept or Time-Share idea was sprung. The idea was based on having four advertisers share one page. The page was divided into four equal quadrants The four advertisers had to sign a contract and each pay for one page in advance to ensure that no advertiser defects. Expand Benefit and Distribute Cost- 8    The advertisers did not occupy the same quadrant; they rotated clockwise so that they had equal opportunities The selection of advertisers was based on the criteria that they reinforced each other and not competed with each other The psychology behind this idea was that the first advertisement might not generate the expected return. We tried to minimize this risk by having reinforcing ads Expand Benefits and Distribute Cost- 9     The second ad had a different psychology: they have already paid for the ad and now the advertisers get free benefit! The result was fantastic as the ads were repeated multiple times. This reduced our fixed and promotional costs and made our customers very loyal to us as well as getting the four ads money in advance One unexpected benefit was us getting “sweet complaints”. One advertiser requested us to freeze his last ad because he had no capacity to accept more contracts! We distributed his ad space to the other three advertisers It was a win: win situation for all parties Measure Intensions and Handle Them Creatively     To finish with the newspaper creative examples and move into other fields of creativity let me end with this creative example Advertisers would not advertise in a new newspaper Once the newspaper has established credibility some advertisers might change their perception and intensions To measure that change in perception I developed a survey Measure Intensions and Handle Them Creatively- 2  The survey carried several questions, but not exactly in the given order below Do you know about the newspaper (X)?  What do you think about it?  If the answer is yes to the preceding question then  Do you intend to advertise in the newspaper? And only of yes,  Do you mind if a salesperson contacts you? And only if yes,  What is the most convenient time for the salesperson to contact you?  Measure Intensions and Handle Them Creatively- 3    Almost 200 person of the surveyed sample indicated their readiness to have a salesperson contact them within a month The salesperson had confidence because he/she had a written commitment from the potential advertiser to contact him/her The result: Fifty new advertisers advertised Measure Intensions and Handle Them Creatively- 4    I later modified this approach to study the acceptance of a new venture: the investment in a grand sushi restaurant The people in the country in which this venture was to be established were not very fond of fish because it was all imported and they had doubts about the freshness of fish in general I designed a simple survey, of which the key question was (guess it before moving to the next slide) Measure Intensions and Handle Them Creatively- 5    I later modified this approach to study the acceptance of a new venture: the investment in a grand sushi restaurant The people in the country in which this venture was to be established were not very fond of fish because it was all imported and they had doubts about the freshness of fish in general I designed a simple survey, of which the key question was (guess it before moving to the next slide) Measure Intensions and Handle Them Creatively- 6    The question was: if you were invited to a wedding party (free meal) and you had the following list of meals: which ones would you eat (click all those apply) Only 3% of the respondents picked the free sushi. As expensive as sushi is, still people did not desire it for free The rest is history as the investment was abandoned Measure Intensions and Handle Them7    I extended the idea of intention measurement to the banking sector A bank wanted to initiate a program in which it would allow the depositors into the savings accounts to win prizes, in emulation of other banks The bank wanted to distribute weekly prizes instead of monthly prizes as a way of differentiating itself from the crowdies of banks Measure Intensions and Handle Them8    I suggested conducting a survey first to which the bank agreed The survey asked many questions on how people choose their bank. Surely, the survey carried some questions on saving accounts The last question was the most important one: Name the first three banks as they cross your mind Measure Intensions and Handle Them9    Surprisingly, a good portion of those surveyed said that prizes on saving accounts were very minor to them in deciding which bank to deal with Cross-tabulation of importance of prizes against which banks crossed the mind revealed a very interesting pattern 96% consistency was registered in that people who said prizes were not important did not mention a bank that offered prizes on savings accounts Measure Intensions and Handle Them10      It turned out that business people did not care for prizes Small accounts were interested in the hope that they might be fortunate enough to win the prize The bank was advised to abandon the idea of offering prizes on savings, which he did Not surprisingly, few more banks dropped this program later on Creative approaches to measuring intensions pays off Creativity That Is Not Creativity   We create nothing- it is the borrowing and mixing of ideas that generate new applications Try before you buy (get the benefit before you pay the cost) is very well-practiced in the software industry and e-books where you may read a chapter for free You Can Shoot a Moving Target and You Have to    In our world today we need to shoot moving targets as customers change their preferences and loyalty The question turns into how to shoot a moving target in abandonment of the long-established law of not shooting a moving target The question is how? You Can Shoot a Moving Target and You Have to- 2      Let me start by giving a short story Two prisoners were put in one jail- a small room with a small window The two prisoners had opposite characters: one of them was so active and the other prisoner was so lazy One day they had a fight The guard got angry with them and decided they had only chickpeas for lunch You Can Shoot a Moving Target and You Have to- 3      The guard opened the small window and poured the chickpeas from a small bucket. The beans scattered everywhere The active prisoner collected the beans while the other lazy prisoner was motionless The active prisoner had all the beans, except for one He threw the last bean at the lazy prisoner, which he accepted gratefully To his surprise, the dusty bean was a pearl You Can Shoot a Moving Target and You Have to- 4   Should we repeat this experiment hundred times what are the chances the lazy prisoner would get the pearl again? In business we need to maximize this possibility and shoot our moving target You Can Shoot a Moving Target and You Have to- 5     I experienced this challenge. A company in a developing country established a soft drink industry To its surprise, all sold well except for the strawberry flavored one as it sold in winter and not in the very hot and humid summer The assumption was that consumers consume soft drinks mostly during summer The company contacted me because of my background in chemistry and business to help it solve this problem You Can Shoot a Moving Target and You Have to- 6    Having inspected the previous futile efforts of the company to solve this issue I realized that the customer was left out I prepared a survey and distributed it to big supermarkets (in fact, they were mini markets) The survey was distributed to consumers so that those who bought or did not buy the strawberry flavored product were questioned You Can Shoot a Moving Target and You Have to- 7    I used data mining techniques to analyze the survey To my surprise, the survey revealed a rule: if the consumer did buy the strawberry product most likely the consumer was she and not he and in the age range between 17-26 years A second survey resolved the problem: High schools and universities were open during winter and closed during summer. Girls bought the strawberry flavored product to use it as a make up and not for its cooling effect You Can Shoot a Moving Target and You Have to- 8     I advised the company to increase the concentration of the strawberry and double the prices The strawberry product became the cash cow product The pearl was the golden finding: girls buy strawberry for other uses than the company assumed Again, measuring the intension of consumers allows for finding the pearl Float and Do Not Sink      You do not want to get drowned in the sea of changes Put a limestone in a beaker filled with water and it sinks Repeat the experiment with the surface of limestone coated with a proper wax and it floats The inner of the stone has not changed; only the surface. A superficial change that dragged considerable effects Many advertisement are not coated with wax to make them float. They sink and sink sales as well Mixing Opposites    A famous Arabic story is about a man who had a camel. The camel got very sick. The owner made a promise to sell the camel for a dollar should it recover The camel recovered and the owner was reluctant to sell it very cheap One of his friends advised him to keep his promise in a different way: to shout that the camel is for a dollar and the cat for 100 dollars, but you have to buy the two together (bundle selling). No body bought the bundle and the man kept his promise Mixing Opposites     A very interesting and creative tilt of this story is the story of the Tortoise and the Hare to illustrate creatively the importance of teamwork The common story is known to all of us in that the hare lost the race because of overconfidence The hare challenged the tortoise to race again and won because it learnt from its previous failure The tortoise was creative in challenging the hare to race again in a field of the tortoise choice Mixing Opposites- 2    The hare ran far ahead of the tortoise to be surprised that eventually it had to cross a lake. The hare failed because it could not swim The tortoise arrived comfortably later on to swim the lake and win the race There is no camel and cat: there is changing roles. The hare and rabbit decided to team up: the hare carries the tortoise on land and the tortoise carries the hare in water. It is building on the strength of each one Mixing Opposites- 3    I am surprised by efforts directed at isolating unprofitable customers from profitable one. Remember that in certain circumstances the small customer might carry you in difficult times An example- well think of one before turning to the next slide Mixing Opposites- 4    I read about a telecommunication company in the Philippines that turned small customers into profitable ones The idea was to sell telephone SIM cards at a discount to a major customers and the customer in turn would sell minutes to small telephone users. I call major customers “hub customers” because they act as nodes of distribution Think of ants how they glue sand particles together so as not to sink. Glue your small customers together to carry you to success. Think positively Managing Expectations     I accepted under pressure a part-time job as a lecturer in a private university I gave the first open book exam. I still remember how students reacted in disbelief of the new reality that they could harmlessly open a book during an exam All students, except for two, finished the two-hour exam in one hour The two remaining students complained that time was not enough Managing Expectations     The students reported to other teaching staff how they had two hours to solve such an easy exam and were allowed to open books on top of that The staff accused me of giving an easy exam so that students would enroll in my class I corrected the exam and the class average was 16 out of 30 The staff who complained about me alluring the students to enroll in my classes had a different view (guess it) Managing Expectations- 2    This time they warned me of the forthcoming trouble that students had high expectation and that they pay high fees and therefore would revolt against me I challenged them if one student would complain. The trick was to manage the students’ expectations As I went in the class I asked each student to estimate his mark. The class average was 23 out 30 Managing Expectations- 3     I went on to tell the students that I was going to solve the exam first The realization of the students that the exam was within their domain and that they did not give enough serious thinking to the exam grew as I went on solving it Having finished solving the exam, I asked to students to reevaluate their possible grades The average dropped to 12 out of 30 Managing Expectations- 4    I distributed the exam papers and not a single complaint was made They students expected an average of 12 and they got 16. That exceeded their expectations. Had I distributed the papers when their average expectation was 23 I would have run into trouble Next time you evaluate employees try first to tame their animal of expectations My Creative Scale of Measuring Positive Attitude     I introduced an idea of measuring to what positive degree people are The idea is based on reading a word that carries double meaning The word I used mostly is in Arabic, It is Nashtum. You may read this word as Nashtam meaning to smell or Nashtom meaning to curse (98% of the people read it as curse and only 2% read it as smell) My Creative Scale of Measuring Positive Attitude- 2    Now, I added the flowers after the word Nashtum and still around 40% of people read it as curse the flowers and not small the flowers I found out that those who read it the wrong way or the negative way were the least creative and most complaining Small tests can reveal a lot Separation and Creative Mixing    Oil and water do not mix In some regional universities mixing classes is like mixing oil and water- you end up with an emulsion I experienced this as I was on loan to teach a course on applied statistics Separation and Creative Mixing     I had to teach the female students first then in 15 minutes to repeat the same lecture to the male students As if repetition was not enough; I discovered that the female students were more serious than the male students The female students dressed well and were in high spirits. To the contrary, the male students either cared about their dress or spirit I realized I had a formidable task ahead and I needed a creative solution Separation and Creative Mixing- 2     I decided to mix the classes, but with seating the male students in the front rows and behind them the female students. Not a real mixing, but was sort of an emulsion I managed to foresee the male students more closely The female students took active roles in the discussion and excelled over the male students The male students felt ashamed as the female students scored higher grades than them Separation and Creative Mixing- 3       Gradually, the male students improved I had enough breathing time before the dean called me to his office with many surprises on his face The first surprise was that by reducing my teaching hours into half meant that I get half my rate The second surprise was that I overlooked the rules of the university Having explained to the dean my motives and the improved results I was getting he allowed me to continue with the experimentation It was a success and the University paid me as if I taught double classes. Measuring Desirability     Teaching statistics in another university gave me a different experience I did not allow a student to enter the lecture room even if he/she was ten seconds late I kept on doing that for four lectures and then told the students that I was no longer going to take names and those who desire may come to the class Those students who do not attend classes were not to be penalized and could take the exams without having to attend classes Measuring Desirability- 2      I based my experiment on the equation that: Performance = Desirability * Ability I needed four lectures to teach students statistics by using “A lab. approach”, or an experimental statistics approach to help students see animations of statistics and visualize it in action If I increased their ability then I believed I could increase their desirability to study statistics. If their desirability was high enough then they would attend classes without being forced to Measuring Desirability- 3       The result: not a single student was absent Those who were absent due to illness insisted to bring medical reports to justify their absence Not a single student failed Do not drag your employees to work. Instead, make the work desirable and workers will flow in The more control you have to exercise, the less desiring your employees are to come to work Not even six-sigma will get you anywhere Final Note    I have many more personal experiences to share with you. If I feel there is a desire from you to know about them then I shall present them in a forthcoming presentation I wish you a creative life