Idea Economics & The Future Of Work
By David Wethey, author of ‘THE VERY IDEA; unlocking the power of idea economics.’
I wish I had discovered Idea Economics years ago….
Think how much more profitable all my agencies would have been if I had understood how to value our ideas when we were negotiating fees with clients!
And in my consultancy career, I could have persuaded some of my megacorp clients to pay me a fortune to help them adopt Idea Economics!
But before moving on to explain how Idea Economics works, and why it makes such a difference, I should like to share what I have learned about ideas from spending half a business lifetime as a ring-master in the contact sport that is the agency pitch circus…
Ideas Are Your Competitive Advantage
The most important lesson is that, however dramatic the changes in marketing communications (and they are huge and irreversible), clients still want ideas for their brands to enhance their competitiveness, and the smarter agencies (whatever their speciality) understand that strategic thinking and creativity is their best chance of seeing off their rivals.
My role at Agency Assessments International has been to work for the owners of some of the world’s biggest brands, who pay us, and spending a great deal of time with the world’s best agencies, who don’t. Managing pitches is not all we do. A growing part of our work lies in trying to help turn projects into relationships, and relationships into partnerships.
But across the board the search for ideas is the overriding priority.
If an on-going relationship is foundering, frustration (often on both sides) over creative and ideas is usually a key issue. In a pitch, credentials and chemistry are vital as well, but my experience is that credentials tend to be a qualifier to be assessed by procurement, while the chemistry factor is tied up with the attractiveness of ideas presented.
In other words clients like the people whose ideas they like!
Here is a quick summary of what else I have learned about ideas:
1. Every idea starts in someone’s brain. Not in a brainstorming session. Not in a conference room.
2. An idea is, quite simply, making a connection between something new and what’s in your memory already…
3. … but no idea can get anywhere until you share it. Idea generation is a solo activity. But idea development is a team sport.
4. Ideas are a numbers game. You need lots of ideas to find that elusive one in a hundred idea. The first decent idea on the table won’t win you the jackpot from a slot machine.
5. Distinctive ideas stand out. There’s a premium on original ideas, which have exponentially more impact and much slower wear-out.
6. With ambitious clients, risky tends to beat safe. There are two audiences here — the client who has to approve the idea, and the consumer who will hopefully be influenced by it.
7. With risk-averse clients, the opposite is true. Approving a safer idea will often restrict the degree of influence and impact that the idea can make.
8. Contrary to the traditional creative view, tinkering can make an idea stronger, provided the process doesn’t go on too long.
And finally a couple of definitions:
Firstly, a Very Idea is one that has the potential to be that 1/100 game-changer.
Secondly, an Idea Hero is someone full of ideas themselves, who also has the ability to work with others to help value, select and develop ideas — from whatever source.
The Problem With Creativity And How To Solve It
I wrote THE VERY IDEA to encourage people in offices (let’s call them clients, although it applies to a far wider sub-universe) to be more creative in generating and helping to develop ideas. We pigeonhole people in business. He/she is creative. The others aren’t.
It’s just so wrong. Lack of opportunity, not ability, is the barrier.
People can’t become Idea Heroes unless companies agree to free up enough of the executive time that is currently spent in wall-to-wall meetings and repetitive process tasks. Crazy busy people haven’t the time and space to come up with ideas.
I encourage my readers not to accept all the meeting requests they receive. Try ‘tentative’ or ‘decline’. The sky won’t fall in. Put ‘thinking time’ in your calendar.
In THE VERY IDEA there are fifty tips for activating your idea brain, and twenty lots of maths to help develop, select and value ideas.
Looking Forward To The Idea Skills Of The Future
At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2016, a “Future of Jobs” report was presented, highlighting a league table of the individual skills in business that are going to be the most important in the 20’s decade that starts in January next year.
The top three skills were Complex Problem Solving, Critical Thinking and Creativity. These are all about ability with ideas.
So idea skills aren’t a nice to have. They are a necessity for ambitious employers, and people who want to see off the robots and enjoy durable careers.
Writing reports, doing budgets and travelling to meetings and sitting in them won’t be enough to bring success to either companies or the people who work in them.
Without ideas there can be no progress, growth or change. It isn’t money that makes the world go round. It is ideas. That is the basis of Idea Economics. Conventional economics looks backwards, where short term performance is the key measurement.
With Idea Economics, we look forward. It is potential we are excited about.
Join us next week as we join David to take this look forward into his theories and work around Idea Economics; a belief, value and implementation system that is centred around ideas as the world’s most valuable commodity.
NB: This is the first article in 3-part series. Subscribe to the Creative Intelligence Bulletin and receive part 2 & 3 over the next few weeks. Alternatively follow our channel here to receive updates.
About the author:
David Wethey is the author of THE VERY IDEA (about Idea Economics and the value of ideas), published by Urbane Business in October 2018. His previous books are DECIDE (2012) about making better decisions better, and MOTE (2015), which proposes a radical solution to the problem of unproductive business meetings. David spent 20 years managing ad agencies (including his own) in Britain, Southern Europe and SE Asia, and 30 years at Agency Assessments International as a consultant on the client/agency relationship, where he has advised brands including Cadbury, Camelot, Coca-Cola, Confused.com, Electrolux, Ericsson, GSK, Heinz, HP, Honda, Jaguar, John Lewis, JP Morgan, Kelloggs, Lloyds Banking Group, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Pernod Ricard, Reckitt Benckiser, Shell, Toyota, Visa, VW, and Volvo.
About Sense Worldwide:
Sense Worldwide helps people to innovate. We understand the future, because we already live there; with the people who create it, The Sense Network.
Innovation is driven by people with creative intelligence. This is a uniquely human skill; the ability to understand, interpret and act with imagination. Often these people are outliers, misfits, rebels; the crazy ones. Since 1999, we have made a home for these extraordinary individuals. Here, we nurture their creative intelligence and apply it to global innovation challenges.
Our home is The Sense Network; we call ourselves Sensers. We collaborate to make things better and make better things for people, the planet and business.
