There are people who are bursting with creative energy. There are people who think they are bursting with creative energy. There are people who have just been trained in the deliberate creative skills of lateral thinking. What shall we be creative about?
On several occasions, both in Thinking Managers and in my books, I have suggested The Creative Hit-List as a formal target list for creative effort. Such a list is set up deliberately by a department, division, group, sub-group or task force. The list contains focuses for creativity. They are both 'purpose' focuses and 'area' focuses. Not more than one-third of the list should be occupied by problems. As always, there is this need to insist that thinking is not just a matter of problem-solving.
Once the Creative Hit-List is in existence and visible to all, individuals who want to use their creative energy can pick a focus off the list. A team can be assigned a focus from the list. Someone reading a magazine or attending an exhibition may note that something has a direct relevance to an item on the Creative Hit-List.
NEGLECTED AREAS
So the Creative Hit-List is one answer to the question: 'what shall we be creative about?' We tend to think that creativity is most needed to solve pressing problems. Sometimes, however, the greatest rewards of creativity come when someone starts to think creatively about an area which has been neglected for a very long time.
I remember being told by the chief executive of a large food company that one of their greatest successes was simply changing the size of the carton in which they sold fruit juices. Big cartons were taken home and put in the refrigerator. Smaller cartons could be drunk anywhere like any soft drink.
THE SENSITIVITY OF ISA
If you had only a fixed amount of creative energy, where would you direct that energy? Where would that energy have the greatest impact? A 400 ISO photographic film is more sensitive to light than a 200 ISO film. A 1000 ISO film is even more sensitive. In the same way, an Idea Sensitive Area (ISA) is an area that is more sensitive to a new idea than most other areas.
This sensitivity embraces several points:
1. It is an area that will respond to a new idea. The new idea will make a difference. Change is possible. Seeking to change fire regulations is not an ISA. Seeking to change an airline schedule may be an ISA at one time of the day, but not at another time of day.
2. The change, once brought about, must make a significant difference. This is a matter of values and degree. A change in the duties of a car park attendant might make a huge difference to that attendant, but not much difference to those parking or the owners of the car park.
As always, there is a matter of value choice. Is the ease of working, for those within the organisation, as important as profitability? You can argue that the well-being of the workers eventually feeds through to profitability.
3. A sensitive point on any system means a point where a slight change can make a significant change in the whole system. Changing the ignition timing in a car can have a great effect on the performance of the car. An elevator breakdown in a skyscraper can have a profound effect on everyone working in that building. A strike of air traffic controllers can seriously interfere with all air travel.
An ISA takes all the above considerations into account. The time for which a shop is open may have more effect than the quality of the goods sold or the excellence of the customer service provided. Convenient and favourable financing may have more effect on car sales than technological wizardry. The convenience of telephone sales of insurance may have more effect on sales than the direct competitiveness of the policy. In advertising, credibility has more effect than almost anything else. But if the advertisement does not catch your attention, the credibility is pointless.
DOWNSTREAM EFFECTS
There is no magic formula for determining an ISA. There are matters to which we might direct our attention. We might consider a change at one point and then look to discover the 'downstream' effects. If you served coffee in a bookshop, what would be the downstream effects?
People might go there to meet other people, or even for a coffee. Once there, they might see and buy books. People might not feel so intimidated entering the bookshop. Of course, there are also negative downstream effects: more staff, higher costs; increased risk of theft; less space to sell books, etc.
At this point, it becomes a matter of value trading. How many people go to a bookshop to buy a specific book? (It might be easier to get such a book via the Internet instead). If the browsing and temptation modes are important, then the coffee-serving has a high value.
Perhaps there could be two types of bookshop. The 'specific' bookshop would just be an ordering desk. You phone in your order and pick up the book at any time. The 'browsing' bookshop would be a place to meet, drink coffee, eat, etc. There might even be a third type of bookshop called 'book ferrets'. Such a place would specialise in finding books which no one else could find.
BARRIERS
If you can identify a barrier, bottleneck or high friction area, then removing that barrier might constitute an Idea Sensitive Area. In expensive restaurants, the print on the menu is usually very small. This does not make sense, because most people with enough money to frequent such restaurants are usually older and sometimes cannot read small print. So the print should be very large. This would be an added value, but not really an ISA. I doubt whether more customers would come to a restaurant just because the menu print was larger.
But a restaurant that does not take the usual credit cards does have a serious barrier. One that does not take reservations also has a barrier, because many people will not like taking the risk of being unable to eat at the chosen restaurant.
Risk and reassurance form a classic ISA. Cruising and inclusive price holidays have the attraction that risk is removed. You kow what they are going to cost you. Italian restaurants have very competitively priced main dishes, but the bill at the end is often surprisingly large - because you are charged for 'cover', for the bread, for the water, for the vegetables, etc., etc. All these things add up.
VALUES
Among Japanese tourists visiting Queensland, 39% say they have come to 'cuddle a Koala'. Now, Queensland has magnificent resorts, great beaches, pristine rain forests, charming people, etc. But these are 'general' experiences. You can enjoy them, but you cannot talk about them. You cannot take videos or photographs to show others back home. Rather, you can certainly take a picture of a magnificent beach, but it does not have the same effect as a photo of you cuddling a koala.
So the value is 'talk and show value back home'. I once offered a prize to any Australian who could train a crocodile to pull a boat. Tourists would flock to a place to be photographed in a boat pulled by a crocodile. It is often small 'perceptual hooks' that build tourism, not 'general excellence'. For many entertainment complexes and stores, parking is a key Idea Sensitive Area.
SIMPLICITY
My next book is called Simplicity. Simplicity is fast becoming a key value - not just a peripheral add-on value. Simplicity of function, simplicity of procedure, simplicity of operations are all becoming key values. So a complex point is automatically an ISA for a simplification procedure. If you scan around for complex points, you will find many Idea Sensitive Areas.
EASE AND CONVENIENCE
Ease and convenience are closely related to simplicity. In any dealings with customers, then, ease and convenience become Idea Sensitive Areas. In a shopping mall, a store that had a place where customers could leave all their shopping would have a real advantage. Given the restricted space, this would not be easy, but it remains an ISA.
An idea sensitive area is not necessarily easy to do something about. The first stage is to define an area. The second stage is to seek to do something about it. This is where creativity comes in. You may shoot at a bird. There is no guarantee that you will hit the bird. But at least you know your target.
As an exercise in itself, it is well worth organisations and individuals setting their minds to finding and defining key Idea Sensitive Areas. These can then be added to the Creative Hit-List. Teams can also be assigned such focuses to think about. In my years of experience, I have found that 'focus' is the weakest part of creativity.
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