What does a marketing agency, a software house and an innovation consulting firm have in common?
They all need inspiration to stay creative and productive.
But that's not all. Inspiration doesn't come out of the blue. It takes a lot of research and brainstorming to get one good idea.
"Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration." — Thomas A. Edison
Studies point out that people spend about half their time looking at online content. They are looking at news, videos, articles, blog posts, and interacting with others on social media. All of those references fuel their minds and keep the creative juices flowing.
Creativity is one of the skills most valued by CEOs. Creative people solve problems. They are able to come up with innovative solutions and figure things out. Creativity pays off big time because it has a positive impact on ROI for any business.
So, where do top performing teams get inspiration from? How do they keep up with what is going on without feeling overwhelmed?
1. Curation
One way the most innovative teams stay on top of their game is by taking advantage of the content curated by peers and leadership.
"Something very powerful happens when you align common objectives and a common place for inspiration. What used to be useful for one person starts sparkling insight in more people. Sometimes that content you found is more useful to your team than it is to yourself." says Luis Novo, CEO and co-founder at Skore.
It’s no surprise that teams share a lot of information on Slack these days. Not only taking part in their own team's conversations, but also joining external groups and larger communities to exchange references.
What these groups have in common is a drive to expand their knowledge on certain topics and a collaborative approach to learning that makes them stay ahead of the curve.
2. Automation
As the number of channels you are part of increases, so does the noise. Chances are you won’t have time to process every single article that comes up. But you should have a system in place to make sure you can always tap into that rich knowledge source at your convenience.
We have seen an impressive growth in the number of said communities using Paperbot to automatically collect and organize content from their channels. Just a few examples include:
- A self-driving car community with over six thousand users
- A forum of over three thousand bot makers
- A Watson community growing north of three thousand developers
- An artificial intelligence nanodegree community just under three thousand members
- A robotics community with over two thousand scientists and enthusiasts
Sometimes, though, just sharing articles is not enough.
3. Context
Inspiration can only go so far without context. Part of what makes content relevant is how it applies to the challenges you are facing right now.
Curation alone may not be the answer when you have different groups tackling different challenges at different times. What matters most for the company's executives may not be top of mind for the engineering team, for example. Your newly hired designer may need to look at references that your product team already knows by heart.
On Skore, teams organize their content in designated spaces that everyone can quickly skim through and jump straight to topics they want to know more about.
This doesn't mean they need to reinvent the wheel or add more complexity to their daily jobs.
By integrating Paperbot with Skore, they automatically update the team's feed with content they are already sharing on Slack.
From there, they keep adding context by combining other related materials, sharing their comments, and creating tags as topics evolve.
Your team's knowledge is your intellectual property. As your company grows, make sure to keep that legacy available across multi-disciplinary teams.
4. Insights
Knowing your team's strengths and weaknesses is critical to take action and provide the inspiration they need to get things done. Finding out the most discussed topics among your team members helps you anticipate trends and stay one step ahead. In remote teams, that is even more important, since they are not physically in the same space participating in conversations happening around them.
Skore helps you identify thought leaders by looking at how much they know about any given topic and how much they influence other team members.
Now, perhaps the most impactful way to boost your team's creativity is yet to come. Imagine what your team could do if the most inspiring content found its way to each individual programatically. Picture what they would accomplish if you could give them back half the time they spend looking for information.
We have made this our mission at Skore. And you can be a part of this cause.
Want to know what we are working on? Send us a note and let's chat!
