Tag Archives: creativity at work

Creative Cultures: Unbounce’s Growth In Moderation Success Strategy

In our Creative Cultures series, contributor Crystal Henrickson spends a day inside companies to learn how hiring, onboarding and company culture play a role in employee happiness. From startups to design firms and all in-between, we’re pulling back the curtain on what it’s like to work in inventive and productive environments.

When you think of a stereotypical tech startup, a scene of ping pong tables, foosball and beer on Fridays emerges. But every day at Unbounce, an eagerness and earnestness to create a welcoming space for team members and customers alike bucks the cliche. I spent a day visiting their Vancouver office to experience its forward-thinking and transparent approach to business myself.

Unbounce is a marketing company providing software for professional marketers to create, publish and test landing pages, without engaging a developer. The company, which was founded in 2009, has surged to more than 110 employees (and counting!), servicing over 10,000 customers with offices in Vancouver and in Montreal. Continue reading →

Creative Cultures: iQmetrix lives up to its give-back values

Crystal Henrickson

In our Creative Cultures series, Contributor Crystal Henrickson spends a day inside companies to learn how hiring, onboarding, and company culture play a role in employee happiness. From startups to design firms and all in-between, we’re pulling back the curtain on what it’s like to work in inventive and productive environments.

iQmetrix is a leading provider of retail management solutions for the North American retail industry. Its vision of creating great experiences for its people, partners and clients is evident in the creative, collaborative and open culture across their five offices: Vancouver, Regina, Winnipeg, Charlotte, North Carolina and Sydney, Australia.

Every morning, employees participate in an open meeting invitation to “Link Share,” and today, I’ve been asked to join them at their downtown Vancouver headquarters. The kitchen and lounge provide an informal place for an open meeting such as this one; staff are encouraged to stay ahead of trends, and these daily syncs feed blog commentary and social media fodder. Continue reading →

Is Collaboration The Silent Killer In Your Corporation?

Lori Franze

With a brainstorming session booked in four days coming, this subject is very topical and scarily relevant for me. I have booked a team to come together to brainstorm on initiatives for a client for the next calendar year. What have I done?

A collaboration session will be more successful if everyone has a chance, on their own, to think through problems and flesh-out ideas.

In “Collaboration Paradox” Ron Friedman, Ph.D., founder of ignite80 and the author of The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace, shows the potential problem and costs associated with collaborating.

Collaborations create a sense of false confidence. Friedman sites a study in Psychological Science that found that when we work with others to reach a decision, we become myopic dismissing outside information and more confident in the output from the group compared to outputs from individuals. This confidence in the work of the group vs the work of the individual did not have any foundation.
Collaborations create a platform for only the strong to be heard. Are you sure that all voices on your team are strong enough to make themselves heard? Do you have someone who will be attending who is going to shut down good ideas before they can be crystallized? You may end up only hearing from the stronger personalities and leave the others feeling defeated.
Collaborations allow people to be lazy. For a lazy person, the best place for them is in a full day group session, surrounded by their peers where they can hide behind those that are eager, enthusiastic and prepared. Over time this type of meeting or process may actually breed lazy people. Those who come prepared start to notice that they are doing all the work and will start to do less while the lazy keep trying to hide. Soon you will have a room full of people who are just not interested in “collaborating”

Now the negative outcome from collaboration, like a heart attack, can be avoided and not all collaboration is a failure.

Ask tough questions. While breaking down silos in the organization is an important goal, collaboration is not always the best option for the situation. Morten T. Hansen a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and at Insead, in Fontainebleu, France has studied this topic for 15 years and in his article for Harvard Business Review he states that the first thing you need to ask is “Will collaboration on this project create or destroy value?”
Assign homework. A collaboration session will be more successful if everyone has a chance, on their own, to think through problems and flesh-out ideas. Also, if homework is assigned it will help dissuade those who are lazy from opting out of the thinking.
Invite diverse skillsets and set expectations. Do not invite a room full of marketing managers to a session on improving client relationships and expect to get the best results possible. Nothing against marketing managers but you should have a cross-section of people from those who actually meet with customers to the customer support team that answers their phone calls; the product team that creates products for them. It really takes a village!

Continue reading →

Easy Tips to Boost Your Creativity

FreshGigs.ca Team

Creativity is essential in your career, from putting together an eye-catching cover letter/resume package to dreaming up your next marketing campaign. But, believe it or not, it doesn’t really just come naturally to most people. It needs to be developed just like any other skill in your toolbox.

The below list was inspired from this larger list on How to Boost your Creativity

Chances are you are far more creative than you give yourself credit for, but you just don’t write down your ideas when you think of them.

1. Commit

Just like going to the gym, or getting an education, making creativity a part of your everyday life is a necessity. Setting goals, finding mentors and setting aside time on a daily basis to work on it is important.

2. Make Time

Part of committing is officially setting time aside every day, or at least every week, to work on a creative project. If your creative project consists of writing, you might consider setting aside time first thing in the morning. According to The Best Time of Day for Creative Thinking, the prefrontal cortex is most active after first waking, and subsequently, so is creative thinking. Analytical thinking, and skills such as editing, fire up as the day goes on.

3. Keep a Creativity Journal

Keep a small notebook on hand to journal all those great ideas that pop up in your head. Chances are you are far more creative than you give yourself credit for, but you just don’t write down your ideas when you think of them. And we all know inspiration strikes at weird times: on your morning commute, eating lunch or even in that weird time right before as you are drifting off to sleep (a favorite for yours truly). Write it all down. You never know what will stick. Continue reading →

How To Summon Creativity & Slap “Status Quo” In The Face

Jeffrey Bunn

“I’m just not creative. Leave creativity to artists or musicians”

Are you one of these people? People who feel that creativity is limited to the lottery of the gene pool?

The truth is we all have the ability to be creative. Creativity is a muscle. You simply have to know how to flex it.

How we try to be creative

There are endless ways people try and induce creativity.

Drugs
Exercise
Eating better (or worse)
Endless research

among many, many others. The problem with this is that these do enhance creativity.

To a point.

I fully agree that the more clarity you have from eating better and exercising will help you be more creative. It also goes without saying that a high amount of experience in very different fields (online marketing, violin playing, Mandarin speaking and windsurfing, for example) will only help creativity.

How is this done? It sounds counter intuitive, but the best way to enhance creativity is to constrain yourself.

The problem is that this approach is inconsistent. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So how does one solve the problem of inconsistent creativity? What is present when creativity is rolling? What’s missing when you can’t be creative for the life of you?

The problem of choice

A major block to creative work is the problem of too much choice. With the internet giving us answers in seconds and businesses catering to our every obscure need, creativity seems to be less important than it was in the past. Solutions to our problems are seconds away, so it doesn’t make sense to try and be creative. Continue reading →

How to be More Creative at Work

Jennifer Wallis

I sat down to write today, but couldn’t find the words. So instead, I began cleaning out my closets and purging old clothes that I haven’t worn in a year. An hour later, I was moving my couch and sweeping underneath, then dusting my TV, and putting on clean bedding.

It was then that I remembered I needed a clean, uncluttered environment to help me think creatively.

This applies to my house and also to my desk at work. I often find that when my desk is cluttered, so is my mind. A little cleaning, organizing, and some quick feng shui helps my creativity flow much easier. And other things that need to be accomplished no longer distract me. Out of sight, out of mind.

After thirteen years in the advertising and marketing game, I’ve come to recognize the important factors necessary for my personal creative process. I need to remove all the obstacles. Clear the clutter. Turn off the television. Log out of Facebook and Twitter. And just focus my attention to get ‘er done.

It’s a funny thing, creativity. It can sneak up on you when you least expect it, or disappear right when you need it most. I decided to reach out to my network to find out what makes them feel more creative on the job. Everyone I spoke with seemed to have different methods of unlocking and super-charging their creativity.

Doug Bramah, Creative Director in Toronto, and Mark Busse, owner of Industrial Brand both gave similar insights; that heading out of the office and finding a change of scenery is the best way to reunite with your creativity.

“Most agencies have these open work environments; they’re noisy and there’s a lot of distraction. Sometimes that stifles the creative process.”

Says Bramah.

“Parks, coffee shops, restaurants – just changing where you do your work can make a big impact.”

But not all of us can come and go as we please. Continue reading →