More Creativity

Here's a couple creative people and what they did:

Matt Moman works in the plastic flower business. At a trade show he saw a bunch of lemons and limes that looked very real. A few days later he is sipping a beer and an idea hits him so he went for it. He used the fake limes to create a bottle opener with a magnet inside so it sticks to the fridge. Once the product is ready to go he then pitches it to Grupo Modelo (the company behind Corona beer) and they loved it. This cool little bottle opener is now going to make millions for him and the beer company, all from a simple idea that he decided to go for.

Mary Zeiff was a 1st grade teacher. She was frustrated by all the negative T-shirts she would see her students wearing ("Spoiled Brat" or "I'm with stupid"). She was sure these were not the kind of things happy kids are thinking. So she created her own shirts. She asked her students what they would put on a shirt and they came up with things like "First grade rocks!" and "I love mommy!". Well the shirts have taken off and the concept has grown. Through her website kids can submit their shirt designs and customers vote on their favorites. Winners get their shirt added to the inventory and they get 3% of the profits from the shirt, another 3% then goes to a charity of the designer's choice. Very cool idea and what an awesome thing for young kids to participate in. You can check out the website here.

I got these two stories from Entrepreneur magazine.

Have you heard anything creative lately?

More Creative

I think we stifle our creativity. We develop routines, avoid change, and try our best to never mess up or look stupid. The result is lackluster. Then we wonder why we don't get amazing results at work or feel energized by our free time.

The other aspect of this is that I believe we discourage each other's creativity. When people throw out ideas we critique them rather than encourage. One of the things I've read about an idea is that no one is likely to feel its great when they first hear it because it's not their idea. Yet the immediate negative feedback we get is often enough for us not to follow through or to become secretive about our creativity.

All this rambling is to say that I think we need to be creative. We should regularly brainstorm by ourselves and with others to see what we can come up with. We should practice giving some one fair consideration when they have an idea, or even make it a point to encourage and support even if we think its stupid. Think of all the things that started out as a crazy idea that some one was willing to pursue even though people around him/her thought it was stupid. Who knows what you're capable of?

Homework: Come up with something creative, share it with others and no matter what they say you have to respond with "I'm doing it, and I'll let you know how it goes."

Have fun!

Last thought: Try to figure out when you are the most creative, time of day, where, what beverage you need to be drinking...etc.