I have a great new idea every 15.2...

Posted: 2010-05-18 13:06:16

We all have great ideas. Many of us have great ideas all the time. I think personally, I have a great idea every 15.2 seconds. On average. As professionals in all areas of business, is creativity really our problem? It's often really easy to sit down around the table as a creative team and come up with great marketing ideas, great ideas for blog posts on our site, and even a whole list of amazingly creative ways to reach a broader audience more effectively. Creativity is easy, so what is the real challenge? Is it innovation?

Innovation is defined, quite simply, as "the introduction of something new". In our business, this is essentially two fold: first the pitch to the client, and the delivery to the audience. Easy? Maybe not so much. Everyone likes to talk about creativity, how 'creative' an idea is, or how new and fresh it seems. There is a natural tendency to dumb down and label everything revolutionary as creativity. Unfortunately, creativity is most certainly not the key to success, at least not on its own.

The real key to successfully introducing a new idea, especially in the context of a paying project or client, is to actually apply creative thinking to the exectution: the actual real world innovation of the idea. Really, the only thing that separates a cool idea from a world changing or mind shifting innovation is in the execution.

The reality for most of us is that status quo is easy, status quo is cheap, status quo is timely. You don't have to work late for status quo, you don't have to think outside the box to deliver status quo. The challenge here is obvious: How do we take that amazing idea, and with a little effort, innovate it into something revolutionary, or (at worst) different? Can we turn status quo into mind shifting and game changing? Can we raise the bar on a limited budget and timeline?

Get innovative, make your next idea a revolution.