Introducing Creative Super Powers
Sometimes it feels like every week, there’s a new emerging technology. It’s hard to keep up. But, the real question is, are you agile enough as a business to compete against the new start-ups entering the business every day? And, with these changes, are you finding it increasingly harder to connect to your audiences who constantly stampede from platform to platform? And, are you finding it more difficult to recruit talent who are no longer interested in the world of communications, but instead are magnetised towards businesses with a clear purpose?
These might be some of the things that keep you awake at night. Or the big one. Are you worried you might go to work one day to find your irrelevant?
You’ve been replaced. By a robot.
If you have been reading this Medium publication already, then some of these things are already front of mind (unless of course you are Elon Musk in which case you’re too busy saving the planet to have time reading this). As technology continues to open up the world to even more possibilities, it is increasingly hard to keep up.
The good news? Our brains are wired to rewire — they can be moulded based on conditioning and behaviour. It’s why the hippocampus, part of the brain that controls conversion from short term to long term memory and spatial navigation, is bigger for a London taxi driver than a London bus driver. While a bus driver has to drive the same route every day, a taxi driver is having to pull new routes every day from their long term memory. And it is this process of reconnecting that stroke victims go through during recovery.
This means that while we feel like we’re being left behind, we can find ways to adapt. Old dogs can learn new tricks, which is amazing, given we have never had access to such incredible technology. The creative canvas — from 3D Printing to virtual reality (VR) to circuit boards and coding devices — has never been so rich. The BBC Microbit, which is making it easy for children to code and unleash their creativity, is a stand-out example of this.
Technology has also provided brand new routes to market with the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo providing an alternative to the arduous route of venture capitalists while makers can easily get the goods to market now on platforms like Etsy. And, there is no better example than the book inspired by this series which we are launching on Unbound.
If we look at the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and the risk to jobs, it’s those routine jobs — like those check out tellers — that are going to be replaced. And by ridding us of the routine, we are going to have more time to be more creative and hopefully reignite some of the key traits needed for creativity, often forgotten post childhood, namely adaptability, curiosity, empathy and fearlessness.
Ultimately creativity is what truly differentiates us from robots.
Kevin Kelly puts it nicely when he said in 2016 at SXSW: “I’d rather have an economy built on ideas and creativity rather than routine”.
We believe that we are about to enter a new Age of Creativity that will require a new set of super heroes to help the world thrive.
Our new Creative Super Powers book is aimed at making you one of those creative super heroes by helping you unlock and unleash your nascent creative super powers.
But before we can do this we need to find a way for you to remember what it was like to be a child. So go find a LEGO set and starting build off plan. Remember what it was like to be naturally creative. And in the absence of a Lego set, watch this:
How do you feel? Did it remind you of a time when life did not get in the way and everything was possible? A time when your imagination would run rife and it was easy to imagine yourself as a super hero. What was your super power? Flying the at the speed of light, X-ray vision, invisibility or the ability to turn your brussel sprouts into ice cream.
Our new book is about unlocking many of the key traits lost during childhood (such a fearlessness and curiousity) as well as unlocking new powers to help you solve your biggest business problems.
We’ll uncover the four biggest super powers:
Hacking — how becoming a hacker helps you tackle problems in different ways.
Making (curated by Laura Jordan Bambach) — how ‘Making’ opens up new parts of the brain
Teaching (curated by Scott Morrison)— how teaching yourself and others consolidates experience in a fast-paced world
Copying (curated by Mark Earls)— how looking to what already exists helps you solve your problems.
We have also pulled in some of the existing super heroes from around the world we admire who are already solving problems in new and interesting ways to help bring to life the four areas of ‘Hacking, Making, Teaching and Copying’, which we believe represent the modern skillset for creative problem solving.
But, that’s not all.
As David Eriksson explains, the best learning is by doing. So the book will be concluded with a set of workshops to allow you to hone your new super powers.
Our aim is to write the most relevant book in the world right now for creative problem solvers across all industries. We hope that you can help us create a new set of super heroes who are going to help build better business and cultures by pledging for the book here. As Construction Guy says to Mr Business: “You are the most talented, most interesting and the most extraordinary person in the Universe. And you are capable of amazing things. Because you are the special”.
So avengers — go help us make our book happen so we can all make everything awesome.
Daniele Fiandaca, Co-founder, Creative Social
