PowerPoint Presentation

Youve heard a lot of information already today so I want to start with a brain reset.

Heres a beautiful short film about starlings

https://vimeo.com/58291553

Presentations typically bombard you with facts and rational argument. That works the left side of your brain the logical side but it ignores the more creative right side.

So if you want to be more creative make sure you get different parts of your brain working and create a better state of mind that encourages creativity1

What is creativity?

What is creative media?

How can data be creative?

Im going to cover 3 areas today

There will be stories, examples and exercises.

And there will be things that you can apply to your jobs

It will be interactive so be prepared to answer questions and dont fall asleep at the back2

Im full of shit

Firstly I have a confession

This is a personal take on creativity. This works for me and it might work for you too or you might just think Im full of shit

And that is ok. You might disagree with me. The important thing is to find out what works for you. What inspires you and makes you more creative

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What is creativity?

So what is creativity?

Here we go with a predictable slide with a dictionary definition of creativity on it

But Im not going to do that. Instead were going to do a little exercise4

Please dont say anything for now. In fact please dont make a sound. Just relax and listen. Im going to play a sound and I want you to allow whatever images come into your mind.

Play sound of sleigh bell

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What did you hear?

What did you hear?Where were you?What did you smell?

(ask a few people to share their thoughts on what they heard and pictured in their head, what came into their mind.)

Interestingly I played the same sound but you all created a different world in response to that sound. There was only the sound of the bell but people imagined Christmas and it conjured up images and connections.

And that is the essence of creativity making connections6

Creativity = the ability to make previously unseen connections

Creativity = making previously unseen connections

We all have the ability to make connections but some people nuture and encourage that ability

Inspiration and having new experiences is central to creativity as it creates the raw material for creativity the new possibility to make connections between

Im going to talk about creativity though the lens of experiences particularly the things that have inspired me over the last year.

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My inspiration starting point for today is a book

I know there are lots of guides and sources of creativity

But I dont want to start where everyone else is starting

This is a book by this guy - Rene redzepi chef at worlds best restaurant Noma which put Danish cooking on the map and redefined what high end cooking is about

His Journal called a work in progress explored creativity, what it meant to him and what fuelled it.

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A clear vision

The first thing to note is that Rene had a clear vision which drove him.

He wanted to make Danish cooking as exciting and vibrant and a rooted in the sense of place as Italian cooking

Which if you think about it is pretty hard if the place you live in covered in snow for months of the year. But that clear vision and forced restriction fuelled creativity.

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Hard work

What was also phenomenal abut noma was the sheer hard work they put in.

80+ hour week trying endless combinations of things to find the perfect dish.

They knew that some of what they were doing was chanceBut the chance increases when you put in more time

Coming up with an idea for a dish could be easy but perfecting it can be the hard part

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Curiosity

Do you know what this is?

This is an ordinary carrot that has been in the ground for 18months

After a particularly hard winter they were running out of veg and they found a farmer who ha kept carrot in the ground for longer so he had enough food for his animals.

The first try at cooking it was a disaster but they then cooked it as if it were fine aged beef and created a dish that defined Noma

They never would have done that if they hadnt said what if,.. What if we cooked a carrot with as much respect as a steak.

Willingness to try new things and ask questions without knowing where exactly you are heading

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Playfulness

If that sounds like hard work and not much fun. Dont worry

Their approach was also full of playfulness and fun.

And play is a very childlike quality here is my 4 yr old daughter pretending to be a scarf and why not? Why cant she be a scarf?

Too often we limit our imaginations. Play helps stretch them out again and to see new possibilities and opportunities.

With that in mind we are going to play around and conduct a little creativity experiment.

I havent tried this before so lets hope it works

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What 4th word connects the following words:

CREAM / SKATE / WATER

Heres what is going to happen

Im going to give you 3 words - in this case Cream, skate and water

And you have to find a 4th that connects them.

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What 4th word connects the following words:

CREAM / SKATE / WATER

ANSWER: ICE

In this case the answer is ice

Easy right?

Its an exercise that measures creativity your ability to find connections between apparently random things14

What 4th word connects the following words:

OPERA / HAND / DISH

But to make things more interesting Im going to split the room into half

I want you guys to answer the question as you are (one half of the room)

And I want you guys (the other half of the room) to answer the question holding a pen in your mouth (show people what how to hold a pen)

Trust me there is a reason for this Il explain later.

Ok ready here we go

What is the connection between opera, hand and dish15

What 4th word connects the following words:

OPERA / HAND / DISH

ANSWER: SOAP

The answer is soap

Who go that right without the pencil? And who got that right with the pencil?

Apparently scientists found we are more creative when we are happy even pretending to smile. And holding a pen in your mouth makes you smile and improves creativity

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What is creative media?

So what is creative media and what makes it different from advertising creativity

Im going to show you 4 recent case studies and we can discuss what you think makes them creative17

(Show Guilt trip using parents and guilt to encourage young people to use the train and come home to see their parents.)

What did people think about this case? What did they think was creative in the use of media?

Target audience talking to parents to influence the behaviour of the actual target audience young peopleUse of media especially social channels - Give people the communications tools to help them do the job for us encourage young people to buy a train ticket

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(show Nazis against the Nazis - turning a nazi protest into a fundraising events for anti-Nazis

What did people think about this case? What did they think was creative in the use of media?

Subversion of an event turning a terrible event into a positive cause a fundraising eventAmplification using PR and social channels to amplify this event to increase awareness and raise money

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(show Look up - turning a poster into a real-time advert promoting BAs routes and flights across Europe)

What did people think about this case? What did they think was creative in the use of media?

Reinventing a medium Posters are typically static broadcast channesl this turned them into a dynamic mediumThe possibilities unlocked by technology technology allows BA to literally show people their planes and where they were flying.

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(show Mortal timeline- using youtube in an innovative way to promote safer driving)

What did people think about this case? What did they think was creative in the use of media?

Understand your audience young people were voyeurs looking out for car crash videos but not thinking about their own behaviourUnderstand the platform you are using they understood youtube behaviour so well that they could create and idea that took advantage of this a message that was only revealed when fast forwarding21

WHOWHEREWHENHOW

So these cases showcase different aspects of creativity and we have talked about why they are creative.

But broadly when you think about these cases you can see that there are addressing 4 key fundamental questions.

Who focus on who you are talking to for example talking to parents to reach your real audience their young childrenWhere Identify where is the best place for your message to be seen for example use a nazi rally to promote an anti-nazi messageWhen Identify the best time for your message for example promote your flight routes as actual planes fly overheadHow think about how you will communicate your message for example hide a shocking message in a platform that people are using for entertainment

Lets look at these in more detail22

Who to talk toBorn 1948; grew up in EnglandMarried twice, 2 childrenWealthySpend their winter holidays in the AlpsLikes dogs

Firstly who should we talk to?

Media people can be really lazy when thinking about who to talk to We often resort to bland demographics or personnas.

Lets consider who this person is.23

Who to talk to

We could be describing both Prince Charles and Ozzie Osborne quite different people

Thanks to data we can be more specific and smarter about who we really want to talk to

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Where to talk to them

Where to talk to people

For those of you who might have thought context doesnt matter I think this example of shocking placement will change your mind.

So dont uts think about the message you are communicating think about the most relevant context that that message can be seen in

Where you speak to people matters as much as what you say to them

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When to talk to them

When to talk to people

Ask a comedian (or a 5yr old) what is the best way to maximise your message and they will say timing

This very political 5 year old waited until the worlds press was watching until she had a melt down infront of the Prime Minister.

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How to talk to them

How to talk to them

Finally talk to your audience in a way that is most appropriate for them

The guardian wanted to hire hire programmers so they hide their recruitment ad in the source code of their website the only place that programmers would be looking at27

How can data be creative?

So we conclude our whilstestop tour with a look at how data can be creative..

Will data kill creativity? Or will it fuel creativity?

Let looks at some examples and lets look at where we started with birds flying to create beautiful shapes and patterns28

Emergent behaviour

It turns out that the Seamingly random (and beautiful) behaviours we saw at the start of our talk has a pattern

And the pattern and behaviour can be predicted and replicated. The birds are flying and just following simples rules an algorithm if you like

This is a model showing this emergent behaviour

These simple rules create emergent behaviours and the beautiful and complex patterns we see. This simulation is remarkably similar to the birds we saw at the beginning.

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DeepMind vs Lee Sedol: Move 102

Did anyone see google deep mind playing Lee Sedol at Go? (explain what Go is if necessary)

Observers of game called move 102 in the 1st game beautiful

As it when against all the conventions and history of the game and it helped win the game

the remarkable thing was the move was created by an algorithm not a human. It had used its knowledge of the game to create a move that no human would ever have thought of playing

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Nomas Fermented Kitchen

And finally back to the kitchen

When Noma were trying to create new flavours and experiences they experimented with pickling and preserving in what they called their fermented kitchen.

But they didnt ust experiment randomly they did it methodically. They created hundreds of variation of drying times. Pickling concentration and cooking times to create hundreds of possibilities which they then tasted

Most of these were disgusting or no improvement on what already existed but in some cases they created completely new flavours.

This produced the base materials which they then used to create new dishes in one instance turning a carrot into a completely new dessert

It was this very methodical rational approach to testing which fuelled their creativity.

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So what? what have these examples got to do with creativity and with media creativity?

I think there are 3 things to take out32

Uncover unseen patterns

Data can help us uncover previously unseen patterns

Flocking behaviour is ust the result of a few underlying rules and behaviours. Understanding these patterns helps makes sense of chaos and uncover new opporunities

Coke in the USA look at weather data and consumption patterns and found that consumption peaked on snow days when kids stayed at home and parents gave them a treat.

Tis provided a perfect tactical opportunity for them to amplify their happiness platform33

Go against conventional wisdom

We often think that conventional wisdom is build on facts and data. But sometime that data is unfounded and conventional thinking masks opportunity.

Deepmind analysed Go game play and discovered that conventional thinking about the rules wasn;t right and challenging those conventions gave it the upper hand.

Conventional wisdom was that Pizza sales increased when it was sunny and decreased when it rained. But when we looked at the actual data and modelled the results we found this wasnt the case. And that conventional wisdom was wrong.34

Inspire and fuel creativity

Data can also be used as the fuel for creativity - think about Noma;s rigorous methodical approach to creating ingredients in their fermented kitchen.

Whilst data didnt create the final dish it provided the raw materials and a different starting point that led to a new dish.

I dont know how many of you know the story about the origins of the house of cards of Netflix. They looked at viewing patterns amongst their target audience and found the types of films they were interested in as well as a old british film called House of cards. They then remade this series using information about the types of films their audience enjoyed to help guide the storyline

Netflix have now use this model of using data to create inspiration for future content to create new series

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Thank you

So thats it I hope you enjoyed my talk and found it both interesting and of some practical use.

As I said before this is my perspective. I encourage you to try some of the thoughts out for yourself, have a play and see where things lead.

Thank you36