five
This week I read a lot and wrote little.
It’s normal for me to have at least five books on the go at once, but Dave Trott’s Crossover Creativity has me completely absorbed right now.
The intro in particular struck a chord:
INTELLIGENCE ALONE ISN’T CREATIVE
“…the creative part, the electricity, that is where the magic happens: that’s where two disconnected things form a third thing, a new thing.
The overlap didn’t even exist until those two unrelated things came together.
Then something sprang into existence, something no one saw before.
Comparing and contrasting, collating and judging, seeking input and provocations.
Because that’s what makes ideas.
To do that we need lots of input, and we need lots of differing perspectives… ideas don’t just come out of nowhere.
Two things come together and a third thing happens.
Because new ideas are a reaction when existing things cross over…
All we have to do is keep putting things together and see how they react.
When producers bring people together, we are making that magic.
I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth repeating for two reasons:
Dave Trott, the recognised Godfather of creativity, has confirmed that in all his worldly experience (and it’s a lot of experience) that the crossover of different experiences, skills, and expertise is the de facto requirement for game-changing ideas; and
Doing this work - the work of bringing the right people together at the right times, and getting those people to act and think in complementary ways - is MOST of the producer’s work.
The more you deliberately foster collaboration, the better that collaboration goes, and the more successful you will be.
What’s so killer about doing this work is that it’s pretty much invisible, right? There’s often no discernible output following what is, ostensibly, a chat.
This is why nobody gets what we do.
Our work is dark matter - fundamental but undetectable, nebulous but amorphous - with little to no direct evidence of its existence.
Further Reading: Dark Matter and Trojan Horses
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Polite reminder:
Your statement of work is NOT your scope of work.
Brilliant article on this here.
Shameless plug: on April 28th, I am running a Scoping Masterclass. Part of that class explains why this common mix up between the SoW and the SoW is causing your agency so much pain in scope creep.
Early bird tickets are on sale now at half price.
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Moron is my favourite. I actually think it’s the only one you need to be great.
And the reason I think it is because you can’t fight the nature of a thing, and the nature of creativity is that you can’t predict it. It’s emergent, and so ideas appear from nowhere, then grow, and as they grow, they change, so it's impossible to know how a project will unfold before it's happening.
People don’t like this notion because it undermines the belief that we’re in control of the project. But if we’re honest about it, the creative process is something that happens to us, it’s not determined by us.
Given the emergent nature of the creative process, I truly believe the best producers don’t lead at all. Instead, they follow — or “lead from behind” by getting out of the way and creating space to let ideas come out.
Leading from behind means facilitating the discovery and iteration of ideas towards the thing the artists and creatives want, not showing them the path you intended and making them follow it, which is what your instincts scream at you to do. You have to run counter to those instincts, and let go to make great work. You have to be a moron.
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Making great ads and marketing comes from understanding what a business does, AKA the value the client provides for their customer.
NOT the products or the features of the products they make - but the *value of that product and those features*
This is easier said than done because clients are often amazing at talking about their products and absolutely shocking at expressing their value.
If your internal kick-off process doesn’t involve some kind of dive into the client’s business strategy and value proposition, or research about the client’s customer, you can’t expect winning ideas out the other side.
(I’m looking at YOU production companies without strategists who work directly with brands.)