How do we recreate that sense of the idea?

The question comes not from me, but instead from my brother-in-law Paul, the fourth in an ongoing series.?Paul’s concern:

“We no longer seem to be able to brainstorm or?to think of the ethos of something. Everything is data.?And that data is monetized.”

Then came the question that is the subject of this post.?Here comes my answer.

The longest section of the session I conduct on?Five Ways to Build Trust with Clients and?Colleagues?is devoted to item four, “Make it up,” which, as its name suggests, is about idea formation. I suspect Paul is mostly concerned that organizations today come from the school of “look it up,” where facts and figures, charts and graphs gang up on and bully insight, but as I point out in?The Art of Client Service, “One insight is worth a thousand data points,” because it is.?There’s even a chapter called, “Ideas Are the Currency We Trade in,” where I acknowledge that ideas are “in alarmingly short supply.”

I devote the vast majority of my time connecting with agencies that got their start in the digital space or have their origin story is in media; it doesn’t take long to see that the people who populate these firms, like most of Paul’s consulting firm colleagues, don’t know where to begin when it comes to addressing challenges creatively.?Instead of seeking out that next great idea to solve a problem, they default to data.

Birthing ideas is like labor – it’s?really?hard – but being hard doesn’t mean impossible, which reminds me of the classic “Light bulb” joke:?

Question:?“How many Creative Directors does it take to change a light bulb?”

Answer:?“Only one, but the Creative Director has to?really?want?to change the light bulb!”

Possible reasons why ideas are scarce in Paul’s firm? No one cares about ideas, no one thinks clients want or even value good ideas, no one wins new business with good ideas, everyone is afraid they have no ideas.?Ideas are supplanted by data:?you serve clients with data, you address problems with data, you win new business with data.?Not observations, not intuitive and exacting questions.?Just data.?And more data.?And still more data.?End of story. Over and out.

Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic, uninformed, or downright na?ve – it wouldn’t be the first time – but where Paul sees an obstacle, I see a way forward.?

I often advise clients to seek the proverbial “white space” opportunity, meaning the place where no one else treads.?If everyone is?data-centric, be the person who is?idea-centric.?Where everyone else thinks in terms of numbers, think in terms of insights.?Where everyone else is beholden to a spreadsheet, be beholden to brainstorming, to thinking, to making it up.

No one else doing this??No problem; be brave about, forging and following your own path.?To quote a famous advertising campaign for a creatively legendary company so obvious it needs no introduction:?“Think different.”

Will it work??I have no idea, but neither did any other person who chose to run counter to the prevailing herd of the many.

And this, I think, is how Paul begins to recreate that sense of the idea.