Creative Ideas - 37 Articles to Get Your Creativity Brainzooming

Here's another compilation piece, this time highlighting articles about creativity from the Brainzooming blog during the past year. Beyond the post on 26 ways to defeat a creative block (one of the most popular Brainzooming posts ever), this list provides a whole array of thoughts to get your creativity zooming whether individually or with your team.

Being More Creative on Your Own

• Creative Block? 26 Ways to Get Your Brainzooming When Creativity Is Blocked - The ultimate Brainzooming list to get going when innovative ideas aren't flowing.
• 11 Ways to Back Out of a Creative Dead End - Additional jump starts when your creativity is stuck with nowhere to go.
• Create a Creativity Boost by Working from Memory - Sometimes your best bet is to crumple up what you've been working on and start over, from memory.
• Are You Walking Right Past Needless Constraints? - Challenge the completely unnecessary constraints limiting your innovative horizons.
• Forgetting as an Innovation Strategy - Another take on forgetting what you know as a way to greater creativity. This message is delivered via a video story about some kinds on a Southwest Airlines plane.
• 3 Ways to Generate Innovative Business Ideas When You’re Very Experienced - When you know a lot, you may have to shed a lot of knowledge to regain your edge.
• What If You Didn’t Call It Procrastination? - If you consider delays in tackling a creative project as part of managing the creative process, you'll feel a lot better about yourself.
• A Strategy for Bringing Your Creativity to Work - No matter what your job, you can inject creativity into it, even in a grocery store deli.
• Are You Facing a Creative Imbalance? - Balance creative inputs and outputs to stay sharp innovatively.
• Praying for Creativity - When you need some extra creativity, WHY NOT call on the supreme creative force?
• Get Up Early - I tend to burn the candle at both ends creatively. This is the case for using the early morning end of the creative candle.
• 7 Thoughts on Creativity to Change Your Day - A few simple nudges. I'll admit though, the toilet paper roll cartoon is not one of my best artistic efforts!
• Friday Creative Potpourri Plus - Unfortunately, the Atlanta meet-up that starts the post is long since past, but the other ideas still hold up.
• Innovation in Your Plans? Capture Bunches of Ideas - This is a plea to never let a potential idea get away unrecorded - since it may be just the idea you need later.

Creativity Boosts from Others

• Calling an Audible – Guest Post by Barrett Sydnor - Barrett points out in this guest post the importance of knowing where you're headed so you have the creative flexibility to change how you'll get there.
• Video Guest Blog: Alex Greenwood on “Creativity in Public” - My good buddy Alex Greenwood, videoed at Panera, talking about the experience of writing his novel "Pilate's Cross" at Starbucks. Go figure.
• Dealing with Creative Blocks – Guest Post by Robert Alan Black - Long-time reader and celebrated creative force Alan Black highlights fundamental ways to break creative blocks.
• Creativity in Interior Design – Guest Video Post from Jill Tran - Shot after a blogging presentation, Jill Tran shares her motivations as an interior designer.
• Some Mad Creative Thoughts – Guest Post by Doug Stevenson - Doug explores music, creativity, and how much of a factor youth is in the creative equation.
• Strengthen Your Organization’s Creative Core – Guest Post by Carol Kobza - Carol covers the IBM study in which CEOs discuss the importance of creativity with ideas for how an organization can exercise its creative core.
• The Right Culture Mix for Creativity – Guest Post from Liz Taylor - Liz Taylor (yes, THAT Liz Taylor - the one who helps businesses develop their creative potential) talks about balancing factors which contribute to creativity in an organizational culture.

Creativity with a Group

• 7 Extreme Creativity Lessons from “Cake Boss” - One of the most popular Brainzooming posts ever, baby! Buddy from Carlos Bakery and "Cake Boss" is in the sweet spot of his 15 minutes of fame, with several shows going. This was written when he had just one show and a penchant for extreme creative ideas.
• Not Even One of These Things Is Not Like Another - Don't put a homogenous group together and let it run inefficiently. Get smarter about group dynamics or let a professional expert do the work for you.
• The Value of Brainstorming for Innovative Business Ideas - Target a large number of ideas (and idea fragments) then, sort out the best ones!
• Creative Blocks – Avoid Them on Your Projects These 5 Ways - This post was inspired by a challenging stretch on a project being worked on collaboratively and remotely. Sometimes you just have to be willing to do what you haven't been told.
• Constraints Week – Constraining the Possibility of Poor Results - Don't let yourself be hemmed in by too much freedom. There are times when unusual boundaries force more intriguing new ideas.
• A Creative Partnership in Disarray? Best to Let it Be - At times, "stop" is the right answer when trying to wring more creativity out of a group (in these cases, musical groups) that appears done.

Creativity in the Marketplace

• Creative Ideas to Add Value to Old Books or Anything Else -See how you can take things with no value, process them a bit, and at try to sell them for outrageous prices. What a country we live in!
• Getting Guerrilla Marketing Value from the Mundane - There are lots of potential day-to-day, boring marketing tools companies don't ever consider using. Smart companies use everything they can to sell more of what they have or do.
• Bad Signs and Missed Strategic Connections in the @MSPAirport - For whatever reason, I seemed to be picking on the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. Notice though, I didn't say it was undeserved.
• Creative Ideas and a Destination for Them - Hilton goes beyond the standard hotel notepad to try inspiring creativity within boring meetings.
• Creatively & Interactively Shaping a Customer Experience - This example, also from Hilton, demonstrates ongoing engagement can happen with someone you've never met.
• Want a More Creative Strategy?  Watch What You Watch! - Don't let innovation-inducing inputs compromise your originality.
• Imagination – Rethink Possible Video - This AT&T commercial caught my eye. Although I'm not usually a big monster person, these childhood monsters are pretty cute and speak to a time when anything was possible in the big city!

Brainzooming and Creative Instigation

• What’s in a Name or Where Did Brainzooming Come From? - The story of where the Brainzooming name came from. Suffice it to say, it was a gift I can never repay.
• 10 Years Ago Today - This articles is a bit of a cheat since it's from 2009, but it sets the stage for the decade-long creative partnership I've had with Jan Harness, THE Chief Creative Instigator for so many people who depend on her creative spark.
• Creativity and Innovation When Everything’s Changing - A little more of The Brainzooming Group backstory and how a period of change can both instigate and slow creative output at the same time. – Mike Brown