“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Richard Buckminster Fuller
I’ve decided to reinvent myself.
From today I’m an invention and disruption consultant.
Put simply, I’m an inventor.
I always wanted to be one since I saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a kid.
I’ve worked in some very successful agencies in my career, both advertising and digital.
Most recently (and still in a part time capacity) as Executive Creative Director of Realise, one of the UK’s biggest digital agencies, and part of a network of global digital companies.
And I’ve worked with global clients in almost every sector.
In 2015, I had an epiphany on a train somewhere outside of York, and I wrote the diatribe below. Since then I have decided to go solo and consult and to write my own digital philosophy I call ‘Transference’.
But it all started with this piece.
I’ve been lucky enough to learn from two careers.
The advertising industry and the digital industry.
Both taught me to make sense of complexity and to undercomplicate the overcomplicated.
But also, and most importantly how to connect the unconnected.
That skill is where original and valuable things happen.
I find new contexts for existing concepts.
(This results in new concepts, but this is the truth of creativity, it’s not purely a genesis thing — ideas born of nothing. It is a progression, one and one making three. An idea being more than the sum of its parts.)
And so I think I need to apply this to a new career.
In both previous careers I’ve noticed a frustration creeping in for me.
It’s the request from clients to ask for the ‘same but better’.
It’s frustrating because it puts limits on my thinking.
I’m more interested in ‘different but better’.
(Continuous improvement Vs discontinuous improvement — Russ Ackoff’s strategy)
And I realise that’s not something that an agency model can offer.
In fact that model is one of diminishing returns as businesses invest in in-house teams to improve their performance, to do their own ‘same but different’. After all, it’s a natural evolution to observe and learn and eventually master the skills you previously outsourced.
Also, ‘different but better’ is something you start, not something you build on.
So the very notion of being an agent in that respect is void, the possibility is for businesses and organisations to become a partner or an investor in ‘different but better’.
Or to build ‘different but better’ and take it to market on your own.
This is the basis of the success of the modern entrepreneur.
The real entrepreneur, not the guy who makes the ‘same but better’ product because he sees an opportunity in the failure or limitation of someone else’s model.
The real entrepreneur (I don’t even like that word really — inventor is better) sees a real space that can be filled, a need that no one realised, a problem that no one noticed, a solution that no one saw.
And often that space/need/problem/solution only comes apparent when a number of previously unconnected concepts are connected, contextualised, and found to be valuable.
Different but better is my focus now. To invent.
To make this work, I realised I needed two things.
Primarily, I need to be free to consult as an inventor, or an ‘Invention and Disruption Consultant’ to give myself a more professional title.
And so I founded One Hundred Flowers, my own company that will facilitate this.
And secondarily, I needed a criteria by which to define ‘different but better’ and a methodology by which to execute it.
The word ‘creative’ is both a burden and a blessing. It is both meaningful and meaningless. In an academic world, filled with mechanical thinking, I felt I needed to quantify and qualify the value people like myself can create.
That’s why I created the notion of the ‘Connector Class’ and the philosophy of ‘Transference’.
I don’t want to have to justify and validate the way I think, but the world at large wants an explanation, something tangible, and both concepts above provide this.
I’m naturally quite a rebel, a disruptor and a rule breaker. But I also believe that if you want to change something you have to do it strategically.
In Adam Grant’s book ‘Originals’ he shows that by framing new ideas within a comfortable and familiar model, there is greater acceptance.
Also that with the right advocacy, ideas perpetuate themselves much faster, to a wider audience.
So from my original epiphany, I’ve done three simple, strategic things.
I’ve reinvented myself as an inventor.
I’ve reframed my skills from a ‘Creative’ to a ‘Connector’.
I’ve developed a philosophy and a measurable delivery system I call Transference.
All I need now is to start inventing.
Which I’ll be doing two ways.
The first is to consult directly to organisations to help them reinvent from within.
The second is to invent in partnership with like minded people and help new organisations to invent and grow.
And if you’d like to discuss that in any way, please drop me a note to don@b100m.com
It will be different, but better.
Footnote:
My company is called One Hundred Flowers in reference to an ancient Taoist poem that reads ‘Let one hundred flowers bloom. Let one hundred schools of thought contend’.
Like the Taoists I believe that change is the only constant, and ideas are the only unlimited resource.
