Creativity: The response to pressure

I have a coffee addiction. There, I’ve said it. The confession is finally in print. A day without caffeine is sad and gloomy. As a result I spend a large amount of time in coffee shops imbibing java infused beverages. Last week I walked into the restroom of one of my favourite venues, Freshly Ground in Harare, to be confronted by a larger than life print of a man wearing sunglasses on the wall. Someone had carefully cut mirrors into shape and placed them where the lenses of the sunglasses would be. How creative! How innovative! How different!

Pressure fosters creativity. Right now with economic pressure on creativity needs to come to the fore in order to stand out. The stress will either crush you, causing you to shrink back or it will provide the impetus to explode out in a burst of creative excellence.

The coffee shop with the restroom decor had renovated a few months before but I never noticed the glasses because I had not needed the facilities. It made me question what else I was not seeing. That is the essence of creativity; throwing out the preconceived and asking ‘What else am I not seeing? What is my conditioning stopping me from seeing?’ I strolled back into the main section of the coffee shop and deliberately studied the artwork. There were a dozen details I had taken for granted-from the upside down cups used as lighting to the larger description of coffee on the wall. The details all creatively add to form the vibe that the coffee shop wants to maintain. Your creativity needs to work to create an end result. Your ideas need to say something to you clients about you, or facilitate the transactions behind the scene in a way that makes things better.

The decor will not work in any other coffee shop; they will have to come up with their own furnishings that work for their unique system. Uniqueness that people will not copy because it will not work for them will get you ahead. Now there are some things that everyone will copy and that is okay if you are the first in with the idea. Take cupcakes in coffee shops. Cupcakes became fashionable around the world a few years ago. It took Zimbabwe a little while to pick up on it but someone started it here and then suddenly every cake shop was selling cupcakes of varying sorts. Suddenly cupcakes are no longer unique on the menu. What are unique are the beautiful, state-of-the-art, intricately decorated cupcakes, more than just a blob of icing on dry confectionary, that only one or two places offer and that people will order in lieu of wedding cake.

The temptation right now when the economy is tough is to try differentiating on price, to be the cheapest. While there is a long way for people to go in reducing prices from the level of ‘rip-off’ to ‘reasonable’, simply cutting prices is not a creative way of generating clients and revenue streams. Creative price cutting would be the auction type system that low budget airlines utilise where the earlier you purchase the cheaper the ticket, but as the demand for tickets increases the price goes up the closer to the fly date you buy. Their pricing structure has been an industry game changer. Tried and tested will still work to a degree, but add to it the new innovative. Budget airlines will not compromise on the backbone of safety but you are not going to get a meal on the plane either.

Break out of the nonexistent box that you have put yourself in, refuse to shrink back. Do not remain static and comfortable. Think ahead. Look for that uniqueness that will put you ahead of the game without compromising what you stand for.

Its A Kinda Magic

Wonderful! It exists after all! I could fill this article with superlatives to describe a recent shopping experience. I am currently padding around in my new Actos skin shoes (they are a minimalist footwear that basically resembles a latex sock with a thin sole), they are comfortable, funky, and trendy. The best part though was the incredible service experience I had obtaining them. I found an advert in a fitness magazine, looked up the website (www.actos.co.za) and contacted the South African company that distributes them (getting them into Zimbabwe would entail a little more than standard shipping arrangements). From the outset there was a swift response to my query. The real crunch for me came when I emailed a proof of payment to them. It was 8pm at night, I had just got in from a long and social day and was tidying up a few personal odds and ends before bedtime. Sending the email, I expected a reply the next morning when business hours resumed. No such luck. Rather I had a reply 10 minutes later! That was a dedication to service. The supplier would have been well within their rights to deal with it in the morning but they made a choice to deal with it there and then. That little instance has made me a fan for life.

What I have experienced with my shoes it called 'Brand Crush' by Seth Godin. It is the interaction of the magic of the brand and generosity. The magic is the excitement of a new experience with a product or service, in this case the concept of skin shoes; the epic feeling of walking around almost barefoot. The generosity is the giving aspect, for me the sacrifice of Kathy on the other end of an email late at night to deal with my order. I'm sold, I'm hooked, I never want to wear another shoe (well not quite).

I remember the first time I saw a colour television. It was a bulky number that my grandmother had splashed out on. We gathered at the house the weekend it arrived, a bunch of excited kids and adults. It was carefully unpacked, studied, assembled. We waited as it performed the channel search. Then as the screen exploded into colour we were wowed and amazed. Comments about clarity were bandied about the room. We were in love with the magic, with the experience. A few months later we took it for granted. It took flatscreens, LCD's, and retinal displays to recreate a new level of magic for the television.

The magic part will fade a little over time, I will get used to the experience of wearing the new shoes. The generosity has the capacity to keep me there. Generosity can manifest itself in many ways. At a very basic level by giving something away for free. Facebook gave itself away to users. Now those users are getting a little annoyed by the inevitable commercialisation that has come with the need to please shareholders in a public listing. Generosity wins every time you give a service that is above and beyond the perceived value you are paying. It is not always free; the shoes cost me money but the service I received was priceless.