The nest of creativity

Creativity is similar to the act of flying. Birds fly behind a purpose. Nests are the structural base that creativity needs to be born, the base from which to flourish.

In a context where the winds of change hit the trees, increasingly stronger, more frenetically, and more unexpectedly, the nests of creativity need a new structure and those structures need their song, orchestrated in unison; an agile, flexible and versatile structure, but with a solid foundation, with a scientific-engineering basis.

The beginnings of the Age of Knowledge began to be felt on the skin like soft breezes, and sporadic gusts of wind, in the form of chains of symbols:

START! DO 10 J = 1,11 --------> I = 11 – J --- Y = F(A(I + 1)) ------------------> IF (400 ? Y) 4,8,8 ----> 4 PRINT 5,1 -----------------------------------> 5 FORMAT (I10, 10H TOO LARGE) …..

It was 1954, John Backus, with the help of IBM, began to blow his chains of symbols with more and more force. In any case, these chains already existed before, as in the Jacquard Loom Machine, which created in 1801, through holes in punched cards represented the movements of an arm of the weaving machine; then passing through the breaths of wind of Ada Lovelace, who in 1843 translated the memoirs of the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea about the new machine proposed by Charles Babbage, the Analytical Engine, thus creating the first algorithm of the Digital Age.

It was an Autumn afternoon, on the Costa del Sol; Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers was playing in my headphones; The wind was blowing strong, although here the leaves of the trees were not falling as they usually do in Bologna, Italy; The aroma of jasmine flowers made me feel at home; The wind was blowing even stronger, here the raindrops do not fall frequently, as happens in Chivilcoy; The warmth of a blue sky made me feel at home.

That day he had gone out for a walk in the Alfafar neighborhood; I was walking along a path at the edge of an orange grove to come up with digital transformation solutions for my clients. My specialty is management control, process improvement; My specialty is making companies, or as I like to say, groups of people organized behind a goal, do better what they know how to do; "to do more with less effort."

As usual, I went for a walk to imagine; to ideate and then create.

To awaken my creativity, when I do my Art (Management), for businessmen and entrepreneurs, I always start by repeating three phrases that build the purpose of my creative process, that is, that direct my knowledge when generating ideas to cause an impact on the world. ROI (Return on investment):

1) Increase your income.

2) Reduce your costs.

3) Improve your brand positioning.

Then I just let my mind go blank for a few minutes, observing details in the surrounding nature. That day I observed a long line of red ants; They crossed the path from end to end.

Little by little I move away, until I see a long chain of red ants that rotated from the branch of a tree to their nest, sunk in the ground; It resembled the mechanics of a car's timing chain. How wonderful nature is!

My eyes suddenly filled with dirt; a great gust of wind raised a great cloud of dust; Those wind blows of 1954, like the first flutter of a butterfly's wings, brought before me great hurricanes of chains of symbols; The clouds of dust did not allow me to open my eyes; I think it is about the arrival of Artificial Intelligence; I also think that they are the first breaths of wind of AI.

I reflect: "If these are the first breaths of AI code chains, if this is its first flutter, we must be prepared now to navigate the future seas."

It reminded me of the book "The Forty Bramadores" by Vito Dumas, an Argentine who in June 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, set out for his greatest feat: circumnavigating the world alone in a small ship baptized "Lehg II."

Vito Dumas returned during the morning of Sunday, September 7, 1943, after having traveled "the impossible route." The myth says that he found a group of trees, those mentioned by Prof. Piero Formica, which he called "Creative Ignorants", and that it was one of them, the tallest, who told him about a magical island, the Island of Non-Comfort, and it was at that moment that Vito decided to embark on his journey.

The myth says that that tree is where all the birds of that magical forest nested.

With eyes full of dirt, I decided to go out and look for it. I will tell you about the road later; but I found him in the forest.

At the last fork I turned left. For a few moments the sun blinded me, the song of hundreds of birds gave voice to the wind that enveloped me as if it were a cloak; as if it were a hug. In front of me, a large lake the color of the sky opened; the water was completely calm; You could see the reflection of the white clouds that brushed the angelic light blue color, and laurel leaves floating.

I decide to swim, although it was not necessary; Instantly I found myself standing again, and dry, in the middle of a large forest.

The wind gusts were intense. There I see an immense tree, and not only immense; I see a dancing tree.

This immense tree had the agility of a reed; It contoured to the beat of the gusts of wind. Its branches were full of nests of different birds; large eggs could be seen, other groups of hundreds very small; There were birds the size of an elephant and others as tiny as ants.

All the nests remained intact while the great tree danced, from one side to the other, and its branches marked the musical rhythm. The birds; The birds sang in unison, and at the same time as the movement of the tree.

The tree told me like this:

“They call me Vincenzo B. I have lived here for many years, I was born here, my parents left the Island of Comfort a long time ago, and took a ship to here. I am the first born on the Island of Non-Comfort. My family had a hard time adapting to the wind, because they were not used to it, but I adapted. That made birds from all over the world choose my branches to make their nests. At first it was not easy to dance these winds, I had my mistakes, and every now and then a nest would fall. For this reason, the birds had the idea of starting to sing, to set the rhythm of the wind for me; This is how we learned to organize ourselves. I give them the structure. The structure allows my birds to build a solid foundation for their further creation. Each bird here is unique; From each nest the most wonderful works are born. As the winds blow stronger and more frenetically, we all together learn to adapt; change is our best ally; resilience is our greatest virtue; our agility is our strength; “Our flexibility is our source of stability.”

Eureka!

Currently the wind blows of the Age of Knowledge surround us in a giant and complex blanket of chains of codes. The arrival of AI causes gusts of hurricane-force winds from time to time.

The secret is to dance, like a reed; not in resisting.

Groups of people organized behind an objective; the companies; the organizations; they are like trees. Some live on the Island of Comfort, others are traveling towards the Island of Non-Comfort, others are being born, and Vincenzo B. continues to grow. The wind doesn't stop blowing. The chains of codes that move the world do not stop propagating and branching, second by second, at the rate of the Entropy of the universe.

Agile companies; flexible companies; synergy; an internal harmonic orchestration, and with the external. So that the tree can adapt to the wind; For companies to adapt to digital transformation, they must listen to the singing of birds, and for that, nests are needed; nests of creativity are needed.

These nests, I call them CINT+iT+i, are also known as Command Centers, Strategic Planning Office, or Project Management Office. These nests are known in the academic world, they are also known in large companies, in those immense groups of people organized around the world, known as Transnational Companies.

I call them the Center for Intelligence + Innovation (CINT+i).

What tasks do these nests perform?

In these nests, processes are designed, analyzed, improved, and then best optimized practices are suggested, through the use of Management Engineering techniques, methodology, and instruments.

This is where through Data Analysis or Big Data, the use of Project Management instruments, such as the Gantt Chart, the use of Strategic Planning, such as Action Plans, Economic-Financial Analysis, Management by Objectives , and the creation of Dashboards and Management Control, the company becomes aware of its internal abilities and understands the context where it operates.

This is an area that produces singing that allows the company to dance to the rhythm of the winds that blow; new trends, changes in society, new paradigms.

For this reason we call it the Intelligence + Innovation Center, because it allows the company to “be intelligent”, a concept that changes its meaning over time, today being intelligent in learning to manage the chains of codes of the Digital Age; It is smart today to give a structure to creativity, to innovation; It is smart today to be able to adapt agilely to changes.

Is it expensive to set up a nest in my company? Is it expensive to have a CINT+i?

As founder and CEO of Free Consulting Group I answer no. Not today.

After our conversation with Vincenzo B. I set out to create a service that allows all companies to have their own area specialized in Management Engineering, without the need to make large investments, and that is how I designed CINT+i, in 2016, and with it I gave Free Consulting Group the opportunity to be born.

CINT+i is a strategic outsourcing service for companies, entrepreneurs and independent professionals, specially designed for SMEs. When companies need to solve legal problems, they call a Law Firm, when it comes to tax issues they call an Accounting Firm, fine, but:

Who do they call when they have problems in their workflows, when they need to carry out technology projects, when they need to work more efficiently, when they need to increase their revenue, lower their costs, or improve their strategic positioning? Who do they call when they need to make critical decisions? Who do they call when they need to reengineer processes, expand areas, create new business units; Who do they call when they need to innovate, create, differentiate?

To answer those questions we created CINT+i.

Some companies outsource their Project Management activities, others Strategic Planning; Generally, all companies start outsourcing Management Control and Data Analytics activities.

We have cases where CINT+i only carries out the production of digital transformation projects of a company, and others where we produce audiovisual products for the film sector.

For 2 years, for example, a company was close to closing, in a critical performance situation, and CINT+i took general control of the business until it grew. I remember that in 3 months we increased sales by 400%, and service quality by 4 points, on a scale of 0-10 (NPS).

CINT+i, the nest of creativity, is a key area currently. New. New because it is born together with the first breaths of wind of the Digital Age; born as a consequence of “measuring to improve”; This is what Management Engineering is about, Management; It is about measuring to improve, giving the act of creating the necessary information to improve, and offering it the right structure it needs to grow in the right direction; and flexibility; and the agility to adapt to change.

What activities can I outsource to CINT+i?

The main activities requested from us are:

• Align projects with business strategy.
• Create plans to increase revenue, and reduce costs.
• Improve the strategic positioning of the brand, or the company.
• Generate coordination and coherence between daily work and corporate objectives.
• Standardize workflows to achieve good synergy between different departments.
• Periodically control the degree of progress of the company's projects, keeping the Budget, Time Schedule, and Objectives monitored, as well as the quality of management, product, and customer experience.
• Generate periodic reports for the correct coordination of people.
• Establish standards for project management throughout the organization.
• Make key business information visible, both at an operational and strategic level.
• Develop techniques and methodologies, as well as management instruments with the best Management practices throughout the organization.
• Integrate and exploit data from across the organization.
• Increase operational efficiency.

And many more, we work to measure, we use all the existing Engineering Management tools, and we also create new ones. We innovate...

Always remember that fear is a human privilege.

Today companies, businesses in general, are produced through the synergistic coordination of people, machines and software; Data are the drops that make up the rivers of knowledge; It is the chains of codes that allow us to tangibly visualize all the workflows that make up each stage of the product and service transformation process; They are the creative ignoramuses supported by the instruments, methodologies and technologies of engineering and science, those who are capable of “doing more with less effort”, because they do not fear the unexplored and because they continually train their ability to incorporate new knowledge, and discover new skills, supported by the effectiveness of mathematics, supported by the structure of science.

If you put an orange in a blender, you will have orange juice. If you enter the number 1 in the X of a mathematical formula: X2+3+X=Y, you will have the number 5. If you enter the code string in SQL: IF TODAY=10/23/2023 UPDATE FRIEND SET YEARS=34, you will have the age of your friend updated on the PC, the one who had a birthday yesterday. If you insert sheet music into a piano, you will have a melody. If you enter a series of letters in a Blog, will you have a story?

We will talk about semantics and syntax, today the important thing is to remember that code chains have always existed. Not to be afraid of new technologies, it is better to know them, it is better to make friends with them, as Nassim Taleb said, in his book Anti Fragile:

"Sudden changes are the melody of life."

Mr. Outheway.

Franco Bogliolo.

CEO & Founder of Free Consulting Group.

Freedom to create. Innovation for a better world.