Sometimes we are just stuck. Organizations and companies at some stage need a paradigm breakthrough. What is that next thing to move on to…. I can be difficult, but think it can happen and be very valuable.
Sometimes we grow by new things, sometimes we are just too scared to make a change. Hard to know how to take care of the user at every stage. Creative marketing and creative thinking is needed at every stage. Be more user-centric.
Yes a paradigm breakthrough is needed.
Do creative things over email, if you can, save email for less productive time of day. (of course don’t ignore anything important) When you are most peaked and alert do creativity. There might be something new to invent today. Maybe a new way to do an old thing. Maybe a new technology for a new or old thing.
Growth Hacking is a creative analytical marketing used by many technology startups. In Growth Hacking there is a careful dance between creativity and analytics. In the old days one would do A B testing. Well that’s great to find the best horse to ride on, but it will not take you to a new paradigm where transportation is now an invention by Henry Ford called the “Horseless carriage” — p.s. why is the word “horse” in there???
Get fresh ideas, from anywhere…
Where is anywhere? Learn something new, try something new, travel where you have never been and watch your creative self come alive with new ideas.
Tenacious – a great word to describe how one needs to just keep going. Don’t give up on a great idea. Some creative business ideas just do not take off because the visionary gave up too soon.
The Importance of Creative SEO in Marketing
Not many years ago, salesmen or marketers would do door-to-door marketing, and then came the telemarketers who would call you on the home phone and talk about their products and services. Nowadays, it is the age of digital marketing, where time is at a premium. Gone are the days of yellow pages where searches were based on the categories of services, searches these days are conducted on the digital media and the search engines have taken over. With millions of searches conducted online, how does a marketer ensure that his product or business garners attention? Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is therefore a concept which the marketers can only ignore at their own peril.
For the uninitiated, SEO is the technical term used to explain your business in a few keywords. When a search is made on any of the search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing, a series of complicated steps are followed by these search engines to bring you the search results. The sites which will feature in the top 10 of the search results are decided by the search engine based on the keywords and their combinations. So for an advertiser or a marketer, these keywords become a matter of immense importance, because these keywords will determine whether your business will get due attention or not.
Enter the creativity in marketing! You need to conduct keyword research on not just the relevant words but also their combinations, synonyms and similar words. The SEO is a continuous process where the keywords are tweaked regularly based on the search engine feedbacks and data analysis. For effective marketing it is also imperative that the content in the pages is relevant, has good linkages to more information and keywords are not all concentrated together.
An intelligent marketing technique does not only involve creativity but it also need to be integrative. The aim of SEO may be to attract more traffic to your content, but it is equally important to capture the interest of the audience, inform it and then retain it for future reference. Digital marketing therefore forms a big chunk of the total advertising spend for all the big companies. And search marketing forms a dominant percentage of it. SEO is therefore a specialised arm of the marketing department and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that SEO is actually driving the marketing philosophy of many businesses now.
November 3, 2014
Qualities of Successful Creative Thinkers and Entrepreneurs – This is Creativity blog number 2
Creativity in business is not new. It has been around a long time. In fact, any enterprise to be successful requires a bit of creativity, whether it be creativity in product design, in marketing approach or in distribution. Nowadays, creativity is considered to be the paramount quality desirable for a leadership role in the business world. And the reason is not hard to fathom – with greater advances in technology, the marketplace is inundated with products. Therefore, an enterprise needs to be creative in its products as well as marketing strategies so that it can carve a niche for itself.
According to a recent Gallup study, highly creative entrepreneurs are rule breakers who don’t like to conform to the norms and traditions of the industry. Keeping the rules is sometimes verses creativity. They look to be creative so that they can forge new paths beyond the present and sculpt a future that lies beyond the obvious. They use novel methods whether they are introducing new products or services, moving into new markets or developing new production processes. They not only use creative thought to develop new ideas and methodologies but use innovation in presenting older ideas in a newer space.
Beauty helps us in creativity
Creative entrepreneurs have their finger on the pulse of the industry – they are fully conversant with the opportunities and threats to their ideas and are aware of the larger economic scene – and hence are able to take advantage of the gaps and be the pioneers in their chosen fields. Creative entrepreneurs are always reading, learning and considering many things even outside their primary area.
The essence of creativity is innovation and the creative business people understand this well. Herein lies the greatest and the simplest truth of business leadership– an invention that is just creative may not be innovative, but the invention that is both creative and useful will be innovation – and the successful entrepreneurs understand this tenet extremely well.
There are certain limitations that these creative individuals have to guard against to remain in a leadership position. They have to constantly innovate – they cannot just sit on one innovation and let it run its course. They have to launch their product, gather feedback and improve, and this cycle has to go on. The creativity also has to be balanced by efficiency and industry. An entrepreneur cannot let efficiency be marred by creativity or vice versa. They have to run hand-in-hand for a successful business. Their failures have to be learning experiences. Risk taking, knowledge gathering and independent thought are a few other assets of successful creative thinkers and they allow them to produce better technologies and remain in the forefront of their business.
Ok, there is a lot in this article, any comments?
I have always been peaked by the topic of “creativity”. What is it, how does it work, who is good at it, what hinders us. These are all great topics to discuss in this field. In brief creativity is putting things together. This can be logical, virtual, material or spiritual. It could be the foundation of a business, or it could be something with no economic engine attached. Creativity could touch any industry including both technical and non-technichal. Creativity could makes things better or worst. Most of the time creativity is entrepreneurial and starts a business with an economic engine.
Creativity usually starts with the fun of wondering why or if. So how could I for instance couple my love for beauty, nature, photography, and business into a creative enterprize.
Beauty helps us in creativity
The road to creativity sometimes also requires the removal of a few thoughts such as: “it cannot be done”, “who would like that” or “that makes no sense”.
Creativity is usually defines as thinking up something new or a new way to do an old thing. Sometimes it is the next step, other times it is a big leap. Sometimes ideas are quickly adopted, sometimes society or culture is not ready. Creativity could involve change or involve just a new away of thinking about something. Change is hard for people, so small steps is best and easier for a future to accept.
There are other hinderances to Creativity such as “fear”. That hinderance is a hard one to address because every creative person want people to accept or adopt the new creative thing. If there is a fear that people will not accept the new idea, some inventors will simply not invent it. Creativity stops right there. But fear can involve other rings like concern for something being mis-used or mis-understood.
So we will consider what kind of a person is creative, what helps and what hinders. Are there sociological factors, biological factors or educational factors that affect creativity. Is it an internal or external thinking operation. Are more inventions considered in the morning or evening, over coffee or over beer?
When one considers Thomas Edison, when and how did he create new inventions. Did he time the invention of the electric light for optimal productivity and results? Is there something special about Edison that helped him be creative? What can we learn from him. Was he motivated by economics?
Are there mental or physical exercises to help me be more creative? Does travel or reading work? Does learning new things help? How does one build a culture of innovation in a company.
October 25, 2014