1. The Conditions for
Creativity
A presentation in beta

2. About Me-
Ed Cotton
• A career in advertising as an Account Planner
and Chief Strategy Officer
• Responsible for developing insights and
informing and inspiring the creative process
• 20 years at BSSP- an internationally
recognized creative agency- Adweek Agency
of the Decade 2000-2010, Ad Age Small
Agency of the Year 2018
• 11 years working on one of the world’s most
iconic and creative brands- MINI

3. https://www.nytimes.com/video/arts/music/100
000006630077/bon-iver-imi.html

4. The Caveat
This presentation cannot provide all the evidence and
the answers
The topic and topics involved are simply too wide and
deep to cover in a short session
Consider this a flavor and a taster
A start-point for a potential process that could help
you by first allowing you to optimize your existing
assets and processes and then calibrate to use them in
new ways

5. Key Insights
From…
• Google
• SNL
• Steve Johnson
• Bon Iver
• Peter Field
• Orlando Wood
• Roger Beaty
• Radiohead
• Brian Eno
• Bressler and Menon
• Pablo Picasso
• Keith Richards
• Paul McCartney
• Karuna Subramaniam- University of California
• Rex Jung- University of New Mexico
• Charles Limb

6. Roadmap
WHY CREATIVITY
MATTERS
LEARNINGS
FROM INPUTS
CLOSING THE
GAP
SOME EXAMPLES SUMMARY

7. The Premise
The creative process has been a dark
art and a mystery for far too long
Not much has changed in 5 decades
The communication industry needs to
adapt the same level of attention to
its talent as sports teams do to theirs

8. Not that much has changed

9. Anyone with a core asset surely needs to know how to get them to perform as their best

10. Defining Creativity

11. “Creativity is
the defeat of
habit by
originality”
Alfred Koestler

12. A Creative Idea
Needs to Be
• Novel
• Surprising
• Valuable
• Margaret Boden- 2004

13. To be
Registered as a
US Patent an
Idea Must…
• Have evidence a non-obvious or surprising step

14. Defining
Creativity

15. Defining
Creativity
An idea that is both original and
appropriate
Surprise and optimal realization are key
Creativity exists in different forms
Social judgement

16. 3 Types of Creativity
Transformational- the big breakthrough – an idea that seemed
impossible, a shocking new idea
Exploratory – exploring and developing styles or testing theories- a
new painting in the impressionist style
Combinational- the most fundamental and basis – political cartoons

17. Why Creativity Matters

18. 1. The World Has Big
Problems to Solve

21. 2. When corporate growth
is hard to find,
creativity provides the
edge

22. “Creativity is one of the
last remaining legal ways of
gaining an unfair
advantage over the
competition.”
Ed McCabe

24. 3. The Creative Crisis

25. Creativity Does
Not Work
Short-Term-
We Need
Bigger, More
Durable Ideas
• More disconcerting, argued Field, is the evidence that
creativity is being applied more and more to short-
term sales activations, where it will only yield mediocre
results. Creativity is best applied to situations when
you want to use surprise to catch people’s attention
and change their perceptions: brand building, in other
words.
‘If you constrain highly creative advertising to work in
the short term or simply deliver short-term results, you
do even more damage to its effectiveness than you
would to less creative campaigns in general,’ said Field,
adding: ‘As a result we have witnessed a catastrophic
decline in the typical efficiency multiplier achieved by
creatively awarded campaigns.’
Peter Field – Crisis in Creative Effectiveness

26. Left Brain vs. Right Brain

27. The Curse of Sameness

28. As Brand
Takes on a
Bigger
Mandate-
Creativity
Must Follow
• Brand is officially liberated from the confines
of marketing. Counterintuitively, eliminating
the CMO position has set the brand free
from marketing, reuniting it with the
business.
• Forrester- November 2019

29. 4. The Threat from
Machines Makes Creativity
An Imperative

30. We’re all going to face a
very challenging next
fifteen or twenty years,
when half of the jobs
are going to be replaced
by machines.
Humans have never
seen this scale of
massive job decimation

31. One very valid reason for existing is that we are
here to create. What AI cannot do is perhaps a
potential reason for why we exist. One such
direction is that we create. We invent things. We
celebrate creation. We’re very creative about
scientific process, about curing diseases, about
writing books, writing movies, creative about
telling stories, doing a brilliant job in marketing.
This is our creativity that we should celebrate,
and that’s perhaps what makes us human.
Kai Fu Lee- Founder Sinovation Ventures

32. The
Conditions
for Creativity:
Inputs
1. HISTORY OF
GREAT IDEAS
2. THE SCIENCE
OF CREATIVITY
3. LEARNING
FROM ARTISTS
4. WORKPLACE
DESIGN

33. 11 Key Learnings

34. 11 Key Findings
What Happened? Requirements
Qualities
Cultural
Neurological
Stimulus
Mood
Discipline
Behaviors
Teamwork

35. Steve Johnson
Film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbP
FU

36. What Happened?

37. 1. Ideas Have Multiple
Authors

38. 23 people
simultaneously
came up with the
idea of the light
bulb

39. Requirements- Qualities

40. 2. Creativity
Demands
Outside
Interests
• “Importantly, we found that people who did
better on this task also tended to report
having more creative hobbies.”
• Roger Beaty

41. 2. Creativity Demands – Openness
• Scott Barry Kaufman,1 Lena C. Quilty,2 Rachael G. Grazioplene,3 Jacob B. Hirsh,4 Jeremy R. Gray,5 Jordan B. Peterson,4 and Colin G. DeYoung3 1 The Imagination Institute, Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania 2
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health 3 University of Minnesota 4 University of Toronto 5 Michigan State University

42. 2. Creativity Demands Curiosity
Via- Ian Leslie

43. 2. Creativity Demands Curiosity

44. 2. Creativity Demands Outside Interests
•
His day job is developing the theory of natural selection and in his spare time, he's always going
and working on his barnacle and beetle collection and working in his garden.

45. 3. Creativity Happens in
Small Hunches- They need
play to become bigger

46. Charles Darwin’s notebooks show us how he
had ideas about evolution long before he
wrote them into a unified theory.

47. Years ago, Colin played me the taped result
of a week or so’s exploration in their
Oxford studios; it was a mere sketch, and I
wondered how on earth those basic
rhythms and chords could become one of
the intricate, haunting and eccentrically
original numbers, streaked by Thom
Yorke’s bright voice (frequently ranging
into a crystalline falsetto), that have turned
Radiohead from a sixth form band into the
world’s most inventive.

48. Requirements-
Cultural

49. 4. Creativity Thrives in
Scenes

50. Why?
• There is mutual appreciation
• There is a rapid exchange of tools and
sharing
• There are the network effects of success,
which means whenever there is a success,
it’s celebrated by everyone within the
scene
• There is a local tolerance for the novelties,
which means that renegade, maverick,
unusual, and revolutionary ideas are
protected from tampering by a buffer
zone
• Brian Eno

51. Requirements-
Neurological

52. 5. The Brain Has A Process
for Creativity

53. IMAGINATION WHAT MATTERS? WHAT WORKS?

54. Different
Networks and
Pathways

55. At Our Most Creative –
We Turn Off Judgement

56. I paint
objects as I
think them,
not as I see
them.
Pablo Picasso

57. How Creative
You Are =
THE NUMBER OF
CONNECTIONS YOU HAVE
BETWEEN THE 3 BRAIN AREAS
THE SPEED OF ACTIVITY
BETWEEN THOSE
CONNECTIONS
MORE CREATIVE = TAKE IN
MORE VISUAL INFORMATION

58. Imagination is the beginning of creation.
You imagine what you desire, you will what you
imagine and at last you create what you will.
George Bernard Shaw l

59. “By the time I come to the blank
page I have many things to say.”
Joyce Carol Oates

60. 6. Ideas Emerge When
The Mind is Elsewhere

61. The default mode network
is most active when we
are at rest

62. The Default
Network
The default network consists of a group of
interconnected brain regions, including the
medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior
cingulate cortex, the angular gyrus and the
hippocampus.
These brain areas talk to each other when we
daydream, recall memories or think about
the intentions of others.
Previous literature suggests that they may
also play a role in envisioning the future.

63. The default network is a set of brain regions that
activate when people are engaged in spontaneous
thinking, such as mind-wandering, daydreaming
and imagining. This network may play a key role in
idea generation or brainstorming – thinking of
several possible solutions to a problem.
Roger Beaty

64. Dreams

65. Keith Richards

66. Paul
McCartney
“I just fell out of bed, found out what key I had dreamed it in…and I played it.”

67. Simon Sinek!!
• When I was writing Leaders Eat Last, I would have
so many ideas in the shower, or when I was
brushing my teeth, for example, and I would forget
them as quickly as I had them, that I kept a dry
erase marker in my bathroom and I wrote on the
tiles. So as soon as I got out of the shower, while I
was brushing my teeth, I’d write an idea on the tile.
When I was standing there the next day, brushing
my teeth, I’d be staring at my writing on the tile
and I’d sometimes have another idea. It looked like
a Beautiful Mind. It was ridiculous.

68. Requirements-
Stimulus

69. 7. To Create, The Brain
Needs Fuel

70. 7. To Create, The Brain Needs Fuel
• "The more raw material you have, the more time you devote to developing a
skill set, the easier it is to improvise. It takes expertise to have enough material
to draw on to be creative. So find an area that interests you, develop an
expertise in that area, and then start creating and develop something
extraordinary."
• Rex Jung- University of New Mexico

71. Requirements-
Mood

72. 8. Positivity Makes A
Difference

73. 8. Positivity Makes a Difference
• People are more likely to solve problems with insight if they are in a positive
mood.
• Good mood was associated with greater activity in the anterior cingulate
cortex (ACC) — an area that plays a role in a variety of functions, from
regulating blood pressure and heart rate to higher cognitive functions such as
decision-making, empathy, motivation, and attention.
• Karuna Subramaniam- University of California

74. 8. Positivity Makes a Difference
• By inhibiting the part of the brain that allows self-criticism, the musicians were able to stay in
their creative flow, known as "in the zone." "I view this as a neurological description of letting
go," Limb said. "If you're too self-conscious, it's very hard to be free creatively."
• Commentary on the work of Charles Limb

75. 8. Positivity Makes a Difference
• Generally, positive mood broadens our potential intake of information, while also allowing
us to activate the parts of our brain responsible for keeping our attention on the task at
hand.
• Cognitive neuroscience of insight John Kounios and Mark Beeman in Annual Review of
Psychology, 2014.

76. Requirements-
Discipline

77. 9. Everyone Has Creative
Potential
It Just Takes Work

78. 9. Everyone Has Creative Potential
• "Everyone is creative; it's just a matter of degree. We have this prototypical
idea of artistic creativity, but we are creative in our relationships, our work, our
cooking or even arranging our homes in a different way.
• Rex Jung- University of New Mexico

79. 9. Everyone Has Creative Potential
• What the trained experts who are so creative are always revealing is that it was
practice -- a lot of effort and practice -- that gave them the creative edge,"
• Charles Limb

80. 9. Everyone Has Creative Potential
• This classic two-year study provided creativity training to 150 students (with
another 150 as a control group).
• The research approach separated students into class sections to receive four
15-week semesters of creative study courses.
• These courses provided semantic and behavioral tests which showed
improvement in divergent thinking and problem solving skills.
• The findings suggest that creativity can be improved through training
• The Creative Studies Project Sydney Parnes, Ruth Noller in Journal of
Creative Behavior, 1972.

81. 9. Everyone
Has Creative
Potential
• Do you want to maximize the creativity of non-
creatives?
• If so- you need to create the right environment
• Intrinsic motivations must be high- people must
love the task- be interested and enjoy the
challenge
• Employees must be correctly matched to task and
challenge
• Freedom in the way they approach the work
• Resources- allocation of time, money, and space
• Diverse work groups
• Management goal setting- as role models
• Organizational support- valuing creativity,
encouragement of information sharing and
collaboration
• Amabile – Harvard

82. 9. Everyone
Has Creative
Potential
• The big challenge is harnessing the collective
creativity when people are rarely in the same
place at the same tine

83. Requirements- Behaviors

84. 10. Four Behaviors Make A
Difference

85. 10. Four Behaviors Make A Difference
• The findings suggest that successful, innovative entrepreneurs differ from
unsuccessful entrepreneurs based on their practice of four behaviors:
questioning, observing, experimenting, and sharing ideas
• Entrepreneur Behaviors, Opportunity Recognition, and the Origins Of
Innovative Ventures Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B Gregersen, Clayton Christensen
in Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2008.

86. Requirements-
Teamwork

87. 11. How Teams Work Best

88. 11. How Teams Work Best- Personal and
Team Work Works Best
• People that engaged in intermittent interactions performed best, interspersing
time together with individual work.
• Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore, David Lazer in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 2018

89. 11. How Teams Work Best –
Psychological Safety is Everything
• Google spent years studying its internal teams and determined that the the factor that made the greatest
difference was psychological safety
• Team members had to be comfortable working with the group and convinced that their ideas and would
be given serious consideration
• …….psychological safety allows for moderate risk-taking, speaking your mind, creativity, and sticking your
neck out without fear of having it cut off — just the types of behavior that lead to market breakthroughs.
HBR
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRODwOqrAIg

90. 11. Teamwork and Collaboration Make
Work Better
• Enhances the experiences
• Gets everyone to experience being
creative in some way
• Gets the most out of people as
individuals
• Make them feel valued
• Is now an expected part of work

91. 11. Teamwork
and
Collaboration
Make Work
Better
• The survey found that the more innovative
companies–as ranked by employees–emphasized
individual and group work and were five times
more likely than less innovative companies to have
spaces that accommodate collaboration.
• 2016 Gensler Workplace Survey

92. Creating the Conditions for
Creativity

93. Creating the
Conditions
for Creativity
• Helping those who are called creative
• Encouraging those who aren’t called creative
to be more creative

94. Creating the Conditions for Creativity
• An examination of some of the history and science of ideas and creativity suggest that there
are conditions required in order to optimize it
• Core concepts relate to:
• The broadening of experiences as inputs
• How teams work together
• The mood surrounding the process
• The importance of rest and relaxation
• The use of play to build upon ideas
• How creative skills can be learned
• The workplace

95. Conditions for Creativity-
Evaluation

96. Delivering Against the
Conditions- Examples

97. Examples
that Deliver
Against the
Conditions
• Breadth of Inspiration
• WK Portland and Apple, Microsoft and Google- outside
speakers
• WK in Portland – agency is also home to local art institutions
• Diversity
• BBH London intern program – hire non ad people
• Pursuits
• Anomaly- building its own brands
• Hallmark owns a ranch
• St Luke's dream fund
• Positivity
• Lowe in London- creatives never attended client meetings
• Encouragement
• RGA celebrated the non-work passions of the employee base
• Poke London- allowed senior leaders to go and create their
own start-up businesses
• GUT- Employee awards the GUTSIES

98. Delivering the
Conditions-
Examples
Empathy- Replica of a favorite rental at Airbnb
HQ

99. Questioning The Creative Conditions of
The Organization
Inspiration
Are we equipping all of
our employees to be
their best creative
selves?
Are our processes,
buildings, workspace all
designed to optimize our
creative output?
Self-Expression
Are we encouraging and
supporting their creative
passions outside the
workplace?
Scenes
Are the organizations
connecting us to scenes
or just filter bubbles?
Are we connected to and
supporting the arts and
arts institutions?
Diversity
Are our organizations
truly diverse and is that
diversity harnessed?

100. Questioning The Creative Conditions of
the Organization
Breaks
Are we taking the need to rest, sleep
and dream seriously enough?
What happens when there is no such
thing as downtime?
Are we capturing creativity and
ideas when they do not apply
to a specific brief or
assignment?
Are we selling creativity to our
clients, not just creative ideas?
Do we have relationships with
academics who are studying
the neuroscience of creativity?

101. Implications for the Creative Process
•Are we bringing enough inspiration into the process?Inspiration
•Are we allowing ourselves to really empathies with the people we are creating for?
•Are we good at connecting that empathy to our own creative drives?Empathy
•Is our process positive and encouraging?Positivity
•Are we getting the most out of machines and AI to help in the creative process itself?Machines
•Are we collaborating together to turn small hunches into big ones- or are we too
obsessed with authorship?Collaboration
•Do we destroy or miss potentially brilliant ideas?Speed

102. Summary
• Creativity is needed more than ever
• We need to take it seriously
• We need to do everything in our power to create the conditions for it to thrive
• It will not happen in environments that are not set up to encourage it
• That do not allow people to be their best creative selves
• Huge opportunity to re-think how we nurture and encourage the creative talent we have and
the process of creativity
• Re-think what we sell to clients- not just the idea- the belief and the process of creativity
itself
• We need to do and make things that enhance our creativity- not just talk about it