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The idea we’ve all been waiting for. I just gave a speech about Conscious Capitalism to 400 marketing and media professionals.  If ever there was going to be a tough crowd, this was it. But, to my great delight, it went over really well. Really, really well.   Why wouldn’t it? People in marketing, media and adland are every bit as human as people on the rest of the planet and just as desperate to see a breakthrough from the drudgery, selfishness and short-sightedness of business as usual. This is what I spoke about in a nutshell. Forget the wheel, the scriptures, the printing press, the lightbulb, the telephone, the microchip and the internet, the best idea we’ve ever had is capitalism.  It’s been the most successful operating system for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship ever. In the last 200 years capitalism has elevated humanity from the clutches of poverty, crude agrarian living, illiteracy and widespread violence. It’s also helped to multiply life expectancy more than twofold to a global average of 68.  It’s worked wonders. But lately it’s been hijacked by greed and sold short by economists with little imagination and a narrow and pessimistic view of the human spirit.  People have become jaded, exhausted and overwhelmed.  And so capitalism has hit the wall. Enter Conscious Capitalism.  A new way to do business that is proving more successful, more sustainable and far more creative. Conscious businesses outperform their peers on every measure, including profitability.  And here’s why. First, conscious businesses understand human creativity and the desire for meaningful work. Second, they understand the interdependence of stakeholders.   In a world of hyper-connectivity and transparency, increasing intelligence (the Flynn Effect), with middle-age values on the ascendancy and a growing awareness that actions have consequences, consciousness in business will become the new normal. If capitalism was a great idea for much of the last 200 years, conscious capitalism is a better one for now. 

The idea we’ve all been waiting for.

I just gave a speech about Conscious Capitalism to 400 marketing and media professionals.  If ever there was going to be a tough crowd, this was it.

But, to my great delight, it went over really well. Really, really well.  

Why wouldn’t it? People in marketing, media and adland are every bit as human as people on the rest of the planet and just as desperate to see a breakthrough from the drudgery, selfishness and short-sightedness of business as usual.

This is what I spoke about in a nutshell.

Forget the wheel, the scriptures, the printing press, the lightbulb, the telephone, the microchip and the internet, the best idea we’ve ever had is capitalism.  It’s been the most successful operating system for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship ever.

In the last 200 years capitalism has elevated humanity from the clutches of poverty, crude agrarian living, illiteracy and widespread violence. It’s also helped to multiply life expectancy more than twofold to a global average of 68.  It’s worked wonders.

But lately it’s been hijacked by greed and sold short by economists with little imagination and a narrow and pessimistic view of the human spirit.  People have become jaded, exhausted and overwhelmed.  And so capitalism has hit the wall.

Enter Conscious Capitalism.  A new way to do business that is proving more successful, more sustainable and far more creative. Conscious businesses outperform their peers on every measure, including profitability. 

And here’s why. First, conscious businesses understand human creativity and the desire for meaningful work. Second, they understand the interdependence of stakeholders.  

In a world of hyper-connectivity and transparency, increasing intelligence (the Flynn Effect), with middle-age values on the ascendancy and a growing awareness that actions have consequences, consciousness in business will become the new normal.

If capitalism was a great idea for much of the last 200 years, conscious capitalism is a better one for now. 

Reality bites. Who do we think we’re kidding?  Business is in trouble.  In trouble because creativity is being squeezed out of the mix.  It doesn’t matter how many times business leaders go to conferences and show each other Apple’s “Think Different” campaign from last century, it doesn’t change the reality for the drones back at the hive in 2013. If you want to use Apple references, we’re closer to the mind numbing drudgery of Apple’s “1984” than anyone cares to admit.  Talented people are clocking out, burning out or checking out for good, and that’s just not healthy. It’s not an issue reserved for the media, marketing and advertising industries either, it’s spreading through companies like this year’s strain of influenza.    I’ve read accounts of talented young lawyers who, having clocked 16 hour days relentlessly for months, have checked into mental health facilities for respite, only to be badgered on their mobiles by senior partners.  I’ve seen new numbers on people feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and depressed in the workplace. Oh, dear.  No one can be creative in a climate of fear and anxiety.  And many people report increasing pressure to be more productive rather than more creative in the workplace. There’s the irony.  As the world becomes more complex, ambiguous and uncertain and we enter an era described by Google as “the age of acceleration of everything”, companies need to be far more dexterous and creative, not less. Forget business models, forget communication models, what matters most is your engagement model.  Your people are smarter, more connected and more conscious than ever.  The most successful and sustainable companies from now on will focus on creating meaning and purpose for their people. As Nietchze said, “he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. I wrote a version of this for Campaign in Feb, 2013.

Reality bites.

Who do we think we’re kidding?  Business is in trouble.  In trouble because creativity is being squeezed out of the mix.  It doesn’t matter how many times business leaders go to conferences and show each other Apple’s “Think Different” campaign from last century, it doesn’t change the reality for the drones back at the hive in 2013.

If you want to use Apple references, we’re closer to the mind numbing drudgery of Apple’s “1984” than anyone cares to admit.  Talented people are clocking out, burning out or checking out for good, and that’s just not healthy.

It’s not an issue reserved for the media, marketing and advertising industries either, it’s spreading through companies like this year’s strain of influenza.   

I’ve read accounts of talented young lawyers who, having clocked 16 hour days relentlessly for months, have checked into mental health facilities for respite, only to be badgered on their mobiles by senior partners.  I’ve seen new numbers on people feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and depressed in the workplace. Oh, dear. 

No one can be creative in a climate of fear and anxiety.  And many people report increasing pressure to be more productive rather than more creative in the workplace.

There’s the irony. 

As the world becomes more complex, ambiguous and uncertain and we enter an era described by Google as “the age of acceleration of everything”, companies need to be far more dexterous and creative, not less.

Forget business models, forget communication models, what matters most is your engagement model.  Your people are smarter, more connected and more conscious than ever.  The most successful and sustainable companies from now on will focus on creating meaning and purpose for their people.

As Nietchze said, “he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

I wrote a version of this for Campaign in Feb, 2013.

This will change your life, or remind you of what matters most.  Either way it’s worth three minutes don’t you think?

The pursuit of happiness. I recently went to the launch of the Conscious Capitalism movement in Australia expecting to find academics and bureaucrats stroking their beards.  But no, it was standing room only with as many bankers as armchair socialists and more professional women than men.  This movement is all about aligning profit with purpose and is yet another sign that business as usual is running out of road.  Our obsession with economic growth has gone unchallenged in mainstream economics for decades.  Growth was considered vital at almost any cost.  Now economists, humanists and environmentalists are looking to Bhutan for inspiration.  In 1972, the King of Bhutan declared that happiness was more important than the economy and established the Gross National Happiness index.  The serious pursuit of happiness is the subject of a new 158 page report commissioned by the United Nations and edited by luminaries Jeffery Sachs, John Helliwell and Richard Layard. Messrs Lennon and McCartney were spot on when they wrote, “money can’t buy me love”, much of the evidence in the report points to the conclusion that money and materialism can’t buy happiness either.  In the words of Jeffrey Sachs, “We live in an age of stark contradictions. The world enjoys technologies of unimaginable sophistication; yet has at least one billion people without enough to eat each day. The world economy is propelled to soaring new heights of productivity through ongoing technological and organizational advance; yet is relentlessly destroying the natural environment in the process. Countries achieve great progress in economic development as conventionally measured; yet along the way succumb to new crises of obesity, smoking, diabetes, depression, and other ills of modern life.” Far from being self indulgent or individualistic, the pursuit of happiness is likely to spawn a far more inclusive and kinder society.  Economic growth has proven to be a poor predictor of life satisfaction. No one is suggesting there is a future without commerce.  But we all need to recognize that business is just a part of wider interconnected social and environmental systems.  First written for Campaign in May, 2012. BTW, I’ve since joined the Board of Conscious Capitalism.

The pursuit of happiness.

I recently went to the launch of the Conscious Capitalism movement in Australia expecting to find academics and bureaucrats stroking their beards.  But no, it was standing room only with as many bankers as armchair socialists and more professional women than men.  This movement is all about aligning profit with purpose and is yet another sign that business as usual is running out of road. 

Our obsession with economic growth has gone unchallenged in mainstream economics for decades.  Growth was considered vital at almost any cost.  Now economists, humanists and environmentalists are looking to Bhutan for inspiration.  In 1972, the King of Bhutan declared that happiness was more important than the economy and established the Gross National Happiness index. 

The serious pursuit of happiness is the subject of a new 158 page report commissioned by the United Nations and edited by luminaries Jeffery Sachs, John Helliwell and Richard Layard. Messrs Lennon and McCartney were spot on when they wrote, “money can’t buy me love”, much of the evidence in the report points to the conclusion that money and materialism can’t buy happiness either. 

In the words of Jeffrey Sachs, “We live in an age of stark contradictions. The world enjoys technologies of unimaginable sophistication; yet has at least one billion people without enough to eat each day. The world economy is propelled to soaring new heights of productivity through ongoing technological and organizational advance; yet is relentlessly destroying the natural environment in the process. Countries achieve great progress in economic development as conventionally measured; yet along the way succumb to new crises of obesity, smoking, diabetes, depression, and other ills of modern life.”

Far from being self indulgent or individualistic, the pursuit of happiness is likely to spawn a far more inclusive and kinder society.  Economic growth has proven to be a poor predictor of life satisfaction.

No one is suggesting there is a future without commerce.  But we all need to recognize that business is just a part of wider interconnected social and environmental systems. 

First written for Campaign in May, 2012.

BTW, I’ve since joined the Board of Conscious Capitalism.

Don’t forget who you work for. If you’re a fan of futurist Raymond Kurzweil, you’ll know that computers will rival the cleverness of the human brain by 2030.  And by 2050, the lines between humanity and technology will be too blurred to decipher.  For the next few years, however, propeller heads will have to put up with the fact that people are still in charge and technology is in the service of humanity. Big themes I know, but highly relevant to the conversations booming in our industry. Right now the marketing and advertising communities are lit up with enthusiasm for everything digital, especially data. Big data.  But here’s the thing, “digital” is not an idea, is not automatically interesting, is not necessarily valuable, is not an insight and is certainly not a remedy for feeble thinking.  Digital can’t save you from being dull. Buying audiences automatically through data aggregation and analysis is powerful technology I agree, but I just don’t want to see miracle cures for toenail fungus popping up next to luxury cars and bridal gowns.   In the un-forseeable future, it will continue to be people that matter most.  Don’t forget it’s Fred and Fran Public that make Facebook work, that Pinterest only works with people pinning, Twitter with tweeters, Tumblr with curators and creators and Instagram with photographers.  All these platforms are building on existing behaviours. “Digital” may be evolving at light speed and throwing opportunities down like a Las Vegas croupier, but your best chances of success remains inextricably linked with your understanding of old-fashioned human beings.  In the digital landscape, anthropology is not half as dusty as it seems.  Knowing what makes people tick should be driving your strategy, creative thinking and execution online, offline and everywhere in between.  Because one thing’s for sure, it’s people who’ll decide whether your brand is entertaining, informative or useful enough to get another blink. They’re the people you work for and their attention and affection have never been in such short supply. A version of this appeared in Campaign, March 2012. Image via Gizmodo. 

Don’t forget who you work for.

If you’re a fan of futurist Raymond Kurzweil, you’ll know that computers will rival the cleverness of the human brain by 2030.  And by 2050, the lines between humanity and technology will be too blurred to decipher. 

For the next few years, however, propeller heads will have to put up with the fact that people are still in charge and technology is in the service of humanity.

Big themes I know, but highly relevant to the conversations booming in our industry. Right now the marketing and advertising communities are lit up with enthusiasm for everything digital, especially data. Big data. 

But here’s the thing, “digital” is not an idea, is not automatically interesting, is not necessarily valuable, is not an insight and is certainly not a remedy for feeble thinking.  Digital can’t save you from being dull.

Buying audiences automatically through data aggregation and analysis is powerful technology I agree, but I just don’t want to see miracle cures for toenail fungus popping up next to luxury cars and bridal gowns.  

In the un-forseeable future, it will continue to be people that matter most.  Don’t forget it’s Fred and Fran Public that make Facebook work, that Pinterest only works with people pinning, Twitter with tweeters, Tumblr with curators and creators and Instagram with photographers.  All these platforms are building on existing behaviours.

“Digital” may be evolving at light speed and throwing opportunities down like a Las Vegas croupier, but your best chances of success remains inextricably linked with your understanding of old-fashioned human beings.  In the digital landscape, anthropology is not half as dusty as it seems. 

Knowing what makes people tick should be driving your strategy, creative thinking and execution online, offline and everywhere in between.  Because one thing’s for sure, it’s people who’ll decide whether your brand is entertaining, informative or useful enough to get another blink.

They’re the people you work for and their attention and affection have never been in such short supply.

A version of this appeared in Campaign, March 2012.

Image via Gizmodo. 

Too close for missiles, switching to guns. I have a friend who started the Facebook Users’ Union about three years ago.  He reasoned that Facebook was going to make a lot of money selling advertising inventory in and around personal content and that the creators of said content (ie: you), should be cut in on the filthy lucre.  Okay, so the FUU didn’t really catch fire but it does tell us something about the new nature of brands.   Facebook is a platform with a purpose – to connect and reconnect people, friends mostly, with what matters to them.   But it wasn’t always thus.  Way back when Facebook was far from the ubiquitous social plumbing it is now,  one of the developers wrote a line, in tiny type, at the bottom of the page, “too close for missiles, switching to guns”.  It was just a bit of fun, but the line quickly disappeared when someone realised that it wasn’t for Facebook to editorialise, their role was to facilitate conversations between users.  Facebook was a social “platform”. So here’s the leap. All brands have the chance to become social platforms.  It’s got nothing to do with technology and everything to do with purpose and utility.  Ask yourself, what is your brand for?  Like, really. No one wants to hear brands whang on about themselves, but discover a clear purpose for your brand (and please don’t say to make money) and all of a sudden you’re busy hosting a conversation that matters to people in ways that most advertising doesn’t. Nike+ is a brilliant early example and, more recently, the Guardian’s open editorial platform.  Coke has fastened onto happiness, WholeFoods to sustainability and Pampers to parenting. Platforms are what we should all be building and conversations, not campaigns, are the proof of success.    First written for Campaign in January 2012. Pic via bbc news.

Too close for missiles, switching to guns.

I have a friend who started the Facebook Users’ Union about three years ago.  He reasoned that Facebook was going to make a lot of money selling advertising inventory in and around personal content and that the creators of said content (ie: you), should be cut in on the filthy lucre. 

Okay, so the FUU didn’t really catch fire but it does tell us something about the new nature of brands.   Facebook is a platform with a purpose – to connect and reconnect people, friends mostly, with what matters to them.   But it wasn’t always thus. 

Way back when Facebook was far from the ubiquitous social plumbing it is now,  one of the developers wrote a line, in tiny type, at the bottom of the page, “too close for missiles, switching to guns”.  It was just a bit of fun, but the line quickly disappeared when someone realised that it wasn’t for Facebook to editorialise, their role was to facilitate conversations between users.  Facebook was a social “platform”.

So here’s the leap.

All brands have the chance to become social platforms.  It’s got nothing to do with technology and everything to do with purpose and utility.  Ask yourself, what is your brand for?  Like, really.

No one wants to hear brands whang on about themselves, but discover a clear purpose for your brand (and please don’t say to make money) and all of a sudden you’re busy hosting a conversation that matters to people in ways that most advertising doesn’t.

Nike+ is a brilliant early example and, more recently, the Guardian’s open editorial platform.  Coke has fastened onto happiness, WholeFoods to sustainability and Pampers to parenting.

Platforms are what we should all be building and conversations, not campaigns, are the proof of success.  

 First written for Campaign in January 2012.

Pic via bbc news.

Brands are the content. For most of the last 50 years there’s been a massive assumption in the advertising business;  that media owners create audiences and advertisers rent them via advertising. There was a time when the ads were the best part of the media experience.  In the heady days of television ad campaigns would frequently deliver ideas so powerful that they made their way into the vernacular, had whole nations singing and worked themselves under the skin of popular culture. It still happens, as with Old Spice, but it’s rare.  Is that because we’re not as clever as we were?  Are we overwhelmed with media channels that nothing seizes our imagination any more? Or could it be that our whole relationship with brands, advertising and content has changed? Reams have been written about the shift from interruption to engagement and from ads to content.  And we’ve been banging on about participatory media since the early 2000s. But there’s something else going on.  Digital media in general and social media in particular have opened up every subject to a public discourse.  Brands have become the entertainment.  Not just the good bits that marketers want to talk about, the entire brand. It was noticeable that much of the coverage around the death of Steve Jobs zeroed in on the Apple brand and it’s many issues with the environment, internal culture and supply chain labor.   In the UK and Australia, the machinations of the national airlines are routinely dissected in the media.  Media brands are even doing it to themselves - recently the Guardian decided to start publishing notes from their editorial meetings to bring readers inside the organisation.  The inner workings of brands has become stimulating material for audiences.  Everything around a brand is content and all of it’s for sharing. First written in October 2011 for Campaign Asia-Pacific.  Visual via DesignBuddy.

Brands are the content.

For most of the last 50 years there’s been a massive assumption in the advertising business;  that media owners create audiences and advertisers rent them via advertising.

There was a time when the ads were the best part of the media experience.  In the heady days of television ad campaigns would frequently deliver ideas so powerful that they made their way into the vernacular, had whole nations singing and worked themselves under the skin of popular culture.

It still happens, as with Old Spice, but it’s rare.  Is that because we’re not as clever as we were?  Are we overwhelmed with media channels that nothing seizes our imagination any more? Or could it be that our whole relationship with brands, advertising and content has changed?

Reams have been written about the shift from interruption to engagement and from ads to content.  And we’ve been banging on about participatory media since the early 2000s.

But there’s something else going on.  Digital media in general and social media in particular have opened up every subject to a public discourse.  Brands have become the entertainment.  Not just the good bits that marketers want to talk about, the entire brand.

It was noticeable that much of the coverage around the death of Steve Jobs zeroed in on the Apple brand and it’s many issues with the environment, internal culture and supply chain labor.   In the UK and Australia, the machinations of the national airlines are routinely dissected in the media.  Media brands are even doing it to themselves - recently the Guardian decided to start publishing notes from their editorial meetings to bring readers inside the organisation. 

The inner workings of brands has become stimulating material for audiences.  Everything around a brand is content and all of it’s for sharing.

First written in October 2011 for Campaign Asia-Pacific. 

Visual via DesignBuddy.

Truth, the best idea yet. Crazy People was a pre-web movie starring Dudley Moore as the advertising writer teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  Consigned to an asylum for treatment he recruits his fellow ‘loonies’ to write campaigns for cars, travel and insurance companies. “Jaguar - For men who’d like hand-jobs from beautiful women they hardly know” and “Volvo — they’re boxy but they’re good”.  Or one for a Greek travel agency that goes: “Forget Paris. The French can be annoying. Come to Greece. We’re nicer.” The idea that consumers had tired of finely spun advertising hyperbole and preferred instead raw, unvarnished truths, is one of the central precepts for the plot. And how we laughed. But what seemed outrageous, absurd and crazy was, in fact, prophetic. Today truth is in high demand.  Okay, it may not be in rich supply just yet, but I believe it will be. The all-pervasive power of distributed social technologies is making transparency a minimum standard of conduct for brands.  Conservative brands are being dragged over the line by interest groups and independent media like Greenpeace and Truthout. Movements like MoveOn.org and Avaaz.org are turning their attentions to economic sectors and corporations and I know of two soon-to-start global consumer communities with “honest to goodness” agendas. Progressive brands understand what’s at stake here and are leaning forward to embrace this new era of openness and accountability.  Think Patagonia, Puma and Unilever’s public push for transparency.  These are revolutionary forces.  People are so marketing and advertising savvy that they’re expecting, correction, demanding honesty from brands. Corporations may be amoral and inhuman by design, but brands can’t afford to be.   Their all too moral and human supporters are looking for relationships based on genuine respect, trust and truth.  Ignore them at your peril, they’re the boss of you. Originally written for Campaign September 2011. Illustration via http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com.au/p/2-for-truth.html

Truth, the best idea yet.

Crazy People was a pre-web movie starring Dudley Moore as the advertising writer teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  Consigned to an asylum for treatment he recruits his fellow ‘loonies’ to write campaigns for cars, travel and insurance companies.

“Jaguar - For men who’d like hand-jobs from beautiful women they hardly know” and “Volvo — they’re boxy but they’re good”.  Or one for a Greek travel agency that goes: “Forget Paris. The French can be annoying. Come to Greece. We’re nicer.”

The idea that consumers had tired of finely spun advertising hyperbole and preferred instead raw, unvarnished truths, is one of the central precepts for the plot.

And how we laughed.

But what seemed outrageous, absurd and crazy was, in fact, prophetic. Today truth is in high demand.  Okay, it may not be in rich supply just yet, but I believe it will be.

The all-pervasive power of distributed social technologies is making transparency a minimum standard of conduct for brands.  Conservative brands are being dragged over the line by interest groups and independent media like Greenpeace and Truthout.

Movements like MoveOn.org and Avaaz.org are turning their attentions to economic sectors and corporations and I know of two soon-to-start global consumer communities with “honest to goodness” agendas.

Progressive brands understand what’s at stake here and are leaning forward to embrace this new era of openness and accountability.  Think Patagonia, Puma and Unilever’s public push for transparency. 

These are revolutionary forces.  People are so marketing and advertising savvy that they’re expecting, correction, demanding honesty from brands.

Corporations may be amoral and inhuman by design, but brands can’t afford to be.   Their all too moral and human supporters are looking for relationships based on genuine respect, trust and truth.  Ignore them at your peril, they’re the boss of you.

Originally written for Campaign September 2011.

Illustration via http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com.au/p/2-for-truth.html

Can old farts be creative? The t-shirt reads, “there’s no such thing as 40.  I’m 21 with 19 years experience”. It got me thinking, are young people naturally more creative? Advertising, they say, is a young person’s game. They say it of Forex and IT too.  And they say that the peak age for entrepreneurship is somewhere in your early twenties. No doubt they are the same peeps who like to talk about reaching their physical best at 25 and their sexual peak at 30. I saw The Social Network too, but I’m not sure it passes for science.  I’m going to argue that we’re not all fossilised at 40. Ideas really don’t care when they come from any more than they care about the age of the thinker who thunk them. Ideas of major cultural significance are no exception.  Walt Disney produced some of his most amazing creative work in his 60s. Da Vinci was a prolific polymath until his death at 67, likewise Picasso. Branson is 62, Spielberg is 64, Scorsese and Dylan are still creating at 70, Rupert Murdoch is 80 and Sumner Redstone 88.    Even in this era of radical digital innovation you needn’t have bumfluff to come up with major breakthroughs.  Evan Williams of Twitter was 35 when he started in 2007, Mark Pincus of Zynga was 41 when he kicked it off four years ago and Arianna Huffington was 54 when she started the Huffpo in 2005. At least one major research study finds that the most successful ideas people are on the high side of 40 - “the research shows that an older age is actually a better predictor of entrepreneurial success, and that three other traits also correlate strongly to success: strong fluid intelligence, high openness, and moderate agreeableness”. It turns out these characteristics are acquired with age. Great ideas come to those people who work at them most.  Young or old, creativity has more to do with curiosity, passion and persistence than a DOB.  This much is certain, you can’t be lazy and create anything amazing. Originally written for Campaign Magazine in August 2011.

Can old farts be creative?

The t-shirt reads, “there’s no such thing as 40.  I’m 21 with 19 years experience”. It got me thinking, are young people naturally more creative?

Advertising, they say, is a young person’s game. They say it of Forex and IT too.  And they say that the peak age for entrepreneurship is somewhere in your early twenties.

No doubt they are the same peeps who like to talk about reaching their physical best at 25 and their sexual peak at 30.

I saw The Social Network too, but I’m not sure it passes for science.  I’m going to argue that we’re not all fossilised at 40.

Ideas really don’t care when they come from any more than they care about the age of the thinker who thunk them.

Ideas of major cultural significance are no exception.  Walt Disney produced some of his most amazing creative work in his 60s. Da Vinci was a prolific polymath until his death at 67, likewise Picasso. Branson is 62, Spielberg is 64, Scorsese and Dylan are still creating at 70, Rupert Murdoch is 80 and Sumner Redstone 88.   

Even in this era of radical digital innovation you needn’t have bumfluff to come up with major breakthroughs.  Evan Williams of Twitter was 35 when he started in 2007, Mark Pincus of Zynga was 41 when he kicked it off four years ago and Arianna Huffington was 54 when she started the Huffpo in 2005.

At least one major research study finds that the most successful ideas people are on the high side of 40 - “the research shows that an older age is actually a better predictor of entrepreneurial success, and that three other traits also correlate strongly to success: strong fluid intelligence, high openness, and moderate agreeableness”. It turns out these characteristics are acquired with age.

Great ideas come to those people who work at them most.  Young or old, creativity has more to do with curiosity, passion and persistence than a DOB.  This much is certain, you can’t be lazy and create anything amazing.

Originally written for Campaign Magazine in August 2011.


New habits die hard. I have two Twitter accounts, a couple of Facebook pages, two blogs, three email accounts and devices strewn around the house and office like bar coasters in a country pub.   There’s wifi in every corner of my life and cable broadband for the places that get the most dwell time.  I can blog, post, share, email and talk all from the same set of traffic lights or toilet cubicle.   And if we’re not careful, that’s what’s going to pass for progress. All this technology and open access has made me smarter and dumber at the same time. Smarter because I can now find facts, reference, expert and amateur opinions on everything in less time than a hamster’s heartbeat. And dumber because it’s become increasingly difficult to find uninterrupted time to create new thoughts. So, I’ve been thinking about the importance of thinking more - using bigger units of time to get deeper into possibilities and better at imagining.  And now that the issue is so clearly time, I once again find myself rushing for an answer.  With some speedy Googling (Chrome of course) I’ve stumbled on some above the fold facts, drawn rapid conclusions and decided that the right amount of time is 7.5 minutes. It seems teenagers have determined the perfect cadence for the early 21st century.  The average 13-17 year old now sends and receives 3,705 text messages a month.  That’s 124 texts a day, or one every 7.5 minutes during waking hours. Seven and a half minutes must be ample time for even the toughest creative challenge.  The world’s wood-duck carving record is hardly more than eight. From tomorrow I’m running on a leisurely seven and a half minute clock, I just know it’s going to make my ideas better.  Either that, or I might  search for the “off” button on my devices and turn my imagination back on. First written for Campaign in July 2011. Image from http://eduardosproductions.deviantart.com

New habits die hard.

I have two Twitter accounts, a couple of Facebook pages, two blogs, three email accounts and devices strewn around the house and office like bar coasters in a country pub.   There’s wifi in every corner of my life and cable broadband for the places that get the most dwell time.  I can blog, post, share, email and talk all from the same set of traffic lights or toilet cubicle.   And if we’re not careful, that’s what’s going to pass for progress.

All this technology and open access has made me smarter and dumber at the same time.

Smarter because I can now find facts, reference, expert and amateur opinions on everything in less time than a hamster’s heartbeat. And dumber because it’s become increasingly difficult to find uninterrupted time to create new thoughts.

So, I’ve been thinking about the importance of thinking more - using bigger units of time to get deeper into possibilities and better at imagining.  And now that the issue is so clearly time, I once again find myself rushing for an answer. 

With some speedy Googling (Chrome of course) I’ve stumbled on some above the fold facts, drawn rapid conclusions and decided that the right amount of time is 7.5 minutes.

It seems teenagers have determined the perfect cadence for the early 21st century.  The average 13-17 year old now sends and receives 3,705 text messages a month.  That’s 124 texts a day, or one every 7.5 minutes during waking hours.

Seven and a half minutes must be ample time for even the toughest creative challenge.  The world’s wood-duck carving record is hardly more than eight.

From tomorrow I’m running on a leisurely seven and a half minute clock, I just know it’s going to make my ideas better. 

Either that, or I might  search for the “off” button on my devices and turn my imagination back on.

First written for Campaign in July 2011.

Image from http://eduardosproductions.deviantart.com