The unmysterious world of big ideas
A visit to AdNight at the WPP Campus in Amsterdam
Written by Kevin Bos
Account Intern at VBAT
Recently, the biggest open night for the creative industry in Amsterdam took place at the WPP Campus, Amsteldok, also the home of VBAT. During this night of fun, food, music, networking and workshops WPP creative agencies opened their doors to showcase their work and culture.
During the night, the campus filled itself with a variety of enthusiasts ranging from students to business owners. VBAT as a typical first mover was honoured with the chance to kick-off the event with the very first workshop of the night. Ironically and perhaps intentionally this workshop revolved around the very first step that can make or break a multimillion-dollar business.
Under the guidance of VBAT’s Creative Director Graham Sturt attendees were introduced to the unmysterious world of big ideas. Unmysterious? Yes, unmysterious. Often people are convinced that you need to be a creative person with a creative mind to come up with a brilliant (business) idea. In fact, everyone is able to be as creative as the VBAT team if they follow a certain process. With this process VBAT has acquired methods to efficiently come up with ideas and effectively translate them into designs.
Full of confidence and unafraid of being replaced anytime soon Graham provided the group with the tricks of the trade or the recipes of the chef that can turn anyone into a great ideas cook.
Yes, I will be so kind to provide you with the insights of the workshop, just keep reading ;).
In short, a good or even great idea is generally not born out of eureka moments. In fact, eureka moments rarely exist, as well as a single source of ideas.
As Steve Jobs once said; “Creativity is just connecting things.”
An idea is therefore rather a series of shared patterns and properties that recur to generate different kinds of innovations. To efficiently generate a series of shared patterns and properties, the most productive tool remains a circle of 5–8 humans at a table that are constantly bouncing thoughts back and forth building the idea layer by layer. Like mentioned before, anyone can fill a spot on the table. What’s more important here is to get them into the right mode or way of working. This right way of working is described by John Cleese as the “open mode”;
Within this open mode, individuals are more relaxed, more receptive, more humorous, unpredictable, unconventional and playful. Some may even describe the open mode as childlike. At the other side of the spectrum, you have the closed mode. Individuals in the close mode are generally not capable of creativity. However, once an idea has been generated it is advised to switch to the closed mode since it allows one to focus and get the job done.
During the workshop, Graham managed to get the point across by providing numerous examples. In the end, the group was ready for a recreated scenario that VBAT experiences on a daily basis, namely; the request of a client. By applying the discussed methods, everyone was divided into groups of 5–8 people and about to dive into the unmysterious world of big ideas.
As thoughts were thrown back and forth you could sense the creativity flowing in the room, mainly because everyone was smiling and having a good time, the key ingredient to operate in the open mode.
It was amazing to see what everyone had accomplished to come up with in a time frame of only 10 minutes, nevertheless, the keyword in this workshop was having fun.
In reality, the difference between an idea that is OK and a great idea is a matter of invested time. For example, the British advertising agency BBH made a pencil describing the quality of an idea based on the size of the pencil.
Since we were working in a limited timeframe it was obvious that no ground-breaking ideas were going to be created.
Nevertheless, I believe everyone got a great impression of the tools we can use while handling client requests and the methods we can use to come up with our ideas. Now it is the turn of our audience to bring it to the test! And maybe next year they will be the one giving the workshop at the Adnight 2020.
“Ideas are the currency of success. They inspire people. They change businesses and the world. And they are free to create.”
