—

“… not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.” 

=

Boris Lermontov

—

Ok. I admit. I often get a little crazy when I hear “well, you pulled that one out of your ass” <this generation’s version of pulling a rabbit out of a hat>.

Well. I apologize. Only 99%+ of the time I go crazy. I account for the less than 1% of the time to the fact sheer dumb luck can happen.

I say I go crazy because when someone makes a surprisingly good ‘in the moment decision’ or uncovers a relatively surprisingly insightful idea, in most cases, the fact they are surprising people does not mean they just made something up out of the ether. And pulling a rabbit out of a hat <or out of your ass> implies you created something from nothing.

Here is a Life truth, even a business truth, so maybe let’s just call it Truth: You cannot create something from nothing.

Sure. Sometimes the connections between ‘what was’ and ‘what ends up being’ are blurry <if not even visible and sometimes appears to come out of the proverbial ether>, but everyone needs to have a solid base of knowledge before making the connections <thinking or tangible things> to create something. That knowledge can be within <your own pea like brain and its experiences and thoughts> or without <tapping into other people or things>.

Anyway. Here is the full quote reference.

Livy Montagne:

“You’re a magician, Boris. To have produced all this in three weeks, and from nothing.”

— 

Lermontov:

“… not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.” 

Again. You can’t create something from nothing; you can only create something from something else <or something elses>.

Another Truth?

Wrap your head around this: Ideas exist … and don’t exist <simultaneously>.

Yup. Physicists have found something <particles and things that move around that we cannot see> can simultaneously exist and not exist. In other words, some things are capable of existing in several different states.

Any physicist can correct me, but I believe it is the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics which suggests particles are allowed to travel along all paths and exist in all possible states simultaneously.

What changes uncertainty? The simple act of measurement. Measurement, or the simple recognition of what actually is, instantly forces it into just one path or state and it is no longer uncertain. I believe it is called something like ”collapse of the wave function‘” in physics.

Yeah. It is the same in thinking, doing or whatever.

Random knowledge collapses upon itself until it creates something. The ‘nothing’ is just a bunch of somethings yet to be consolidated.

I have been to far too many ‘brainstorming’ or ‘creative thinking’ or even ‘the power of visualization’ workshops <so many that my brain cannot storm and I cannot think straight let alone creatively> and I cannot visualize shit.

Every time I walk out of these mind numbing events I grab my copy of James Webb Young’s “Technique for Producing Ideas” <published in 1937 and still relevant today> and flip thru the pages to remind myself that ideation is all about cramming bits & pieces of ideas & information & thoughts into your head until you can either assimilate it into a ‘rabbit’ or you interact with someone else and inspire them to create a ‘rabbit.’

So. With that. Two thoughts.

Accumulate knowledge: the more you learn the more you can pull out of your ass <consistently>.

Practice: the more you use what you have learned the easier it is to pull something out of you ass.

Sorry. There is no such thing as divine inspiration. There is no such thing as pulling rabbits out of hats <unless there is already a rabbit there>. We all have a gazillion thoughts, observations, and information <parts, pieces or whole> bouncing around in our heads either in our subconscious or conscious mind. There are a myriad of possibilities existing with regard to possible outcomes.

The nothing is all these pieces and parts not assembled.

The something is when assembly is achieved.

Now. Not everyone is good at “assembling” or even implementing from the nothings floating around in their heads but that is a different post for a different day. If you feed your mind, you will end up with a boatload of rabbits in your hat.

But, please, something from nothing? Not even a magician can do that.

Remember. Most people who do good things & say good things are not pulling a rabbit out of some hat … they have worked hard, thought hard & done the work necessary to insure there is already a rabbit in the hat.

“You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.

What mood is that?

Last-minute panic. “

Bill Watterson

—–

Occasionally, you learn a new word which is worth learning. Rastrophiliopustrocity:

 a barrage of creative random thoughts, images, and ideas that spontaneously overwhelms the brain, which then becomes immediately exercised when other parts of your brain engage within spacious awareness from an empty point.

——

Oh my. What a thought.

Barrage of creative random thoughts engaging from an empty point.

First.

I believe a creative spark needs some fodder. It doesn’t arise from nothing because, well, nothing begets nothing. There has to be something from which a spark can occur. Or as i quoted in my ‘rabbits and ideas post’ … “… not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.”

Second.

I have yet to see a process that ensures great creative. Yeah. I just said that. Having been in the creation of creative output business for years I have seen far too many creative generating companies <tangible work as well as ideas> that revolve around some mystical ‘process’ for creative output. These processes get put up in beautiful charts outlining step by step, in nice tidy steps, how past great ideas have been consistently generated. Take note that the mystical processes are most often endorsed by the pragmatic boring logical anal people randomly strewn throughout these creative organizations <who want to define creativity so that in some way they can appear to control the creativity and output>. They are typically endorsed <and embraced> by people who want to manage their creative output like manufacturing plants.

Drives me nuts.

Here is a creative business truth. A rigid process is counterproductive to the creative process.

It is counter to the sometimes haphazardness, oft untidiness, of true creative thinking and will stymie if not stifle the best thinking. In addition, a rigid process often eliminates what we all know happens all the time <which is counterintuitively not a bad thing> that, uh oh, we often revise an original strategy document because of a creative idea.

Yeah. Uh oh.

This is the insidious uncomfortable ‘revising strategy once you have seen output’ discussion. I have had this debate so many times I think I could write a book <or I guess I could watch a slo-motion video of my head exploding>. What happens when a strategy changes in this way is it makes people think that creative thinking drives strategy. What also happens is that I laugh, throw something sharp, if I don’t have anything heavy, and say:

“No, it’s just like a boomerang. You throw the boomerang out (the original strategy/insight) and it goes out and there is creativity as it passes through the mix of sun and clouds but it ends up coming back to the same place. but the trip thru the clouds and fresh air and rain can enhance the original strategy. “

I also point out that means that boomerangs that aren’t properly thrown go astray. This means that boomerangs that end up in some tree means that idea isn’t ‘the one.’

Okay.

Bad metaphor but anybody who believes a well written strategy or insight is perfect and shouldn’t change is nuts. It is simply well written. And by being well written it inspires, it creates the ‘spark’, the overall creative thinking which ultimately generates the end ideas. In fact, a well written brief – or strategic idea/lily pad – should offer just a bit of gravity for rastrophiliopustrocity to occur.  Yeah. A great thinking process enhances the likelihood you can uncover a great insight (no more, no less). Not an “actionable insight” or some “big idea insight,” or even the heinous ‘bid idea’, just some great insight or thought that inspires thinking. Please note I said “enhances the likelihood” not guarantees (people who sell process rarely point that out). A process, or even an insight, doesn’t generate the output it simply provides input that enables output. Or maybe it is inspires …  rastrophiliopustrocity.

BUT.

Now that I have espoused on the limitations of process, let me suggest a process benefit which all creative generating companies want, need, and rarely get.

Alignment.

Huh?

What the fuck does that have to do with generating creativity? or a creative spark?

Well.

It doesn’t.

However.

A good process provides an opportunity to solidify an aligned objective and manage expectations.

That alone can make a process valuable. Yeah. Do not underestimate the importance of alignment with regard to creative thinking and ideas. What I mean by that is more good, and great, creative thinking dies within presentation and articulation and ‘agreement’ than anywhere else. Far too often creative sparks get smothered in presentation and discussion and go off to die.

So alignment and input actually paves the way for actually DOING great creative thinking. All this means is that process is EXACTLY like research. It is to inform not to make decisions and not to create.

Now.

With regard to process, I have seen a trend in the creative creation businesses that with timelines getting tighter and people wanting things faster that a lot of businesses use an initial client/agency immersion session as a creative briefing session.

Yeah. They are seeking shortcuts to the end creative output.

What they do is include all creative creators and non-creative creators in one room along with some moderator who typically guides the discussion with strategy or creative thinking in mind.

Personally, I think its nuts (although I will offer a non-nuts version of this in a bit).

You cannot, and will not, arrive at a ‘spark’ or an ‘insight’ in an initial immersion session. You can certainly ask divergent questions, do deep dive curiosity creating questioning and even maybe circle some interesting spaces. But it ain’t happening here.

To be clear.

Even with all the good potential I just cited this is high risk and high return territory.

Depends on how good your moderator is. How good your team is. How good the questions are and whether the right people are in the room.  As well as a confluence of factors <because as noted earlier … what works one time may not work another time>.

Oh.

And another thing. It also depends on whether the listeners hear everything that they are supposed to hear <and everyone hears the same thing>. Another thing <part 2> it depends on whether you have people in place who can quickly assimilate information and have good, if not great, ability to come up with smart, insightful good initial ideas.

And to be clear.

While many people in the creative business flippantly say that ‘often the initial idea and thinking is the best’ more often than not; it is not.

Anyway, the idea I just shit on is more often is simply a good starting place.

Ok. Here is the non-nuts version.

After some immersion and discovery and some information download, a creative agency puts a small group of ‘thinking’ people in a room and think. Pose possibilities, poke and prod, think out loud and craft some different ideas.  Sure. In these short cut type meetings, I have seen the best of the best in action and even then, arriving at a clear non debatable insight, or whatever you are aiming for, is not a 100% guarantee. More often you end up circling the answer, but struggle to pin it down because, of course, doing so means making choices. And, while earlier choices in the session are easy, toward the end of the meeting session when you are seeking a conclusion … the choices are difficult.

But the reason this isn’t nuts, is because it often provides the ‘gravity thought’ or what I often call ‘the lily pad of a thought.” Its kind of like a running start. The smart group of people sift through the chaff and isolate some potential wheat. I will suggest that this type of meeting, if you have the right people, definitely speeds up the spark process and creative process.

Anyway.

Process provides input, but should never be construed as the ways & means to creative spark.

Third.

Creative spark is really simply divergent thinking.

• Thinking where you seek more verbs than nouns.
• Thinking when you seek to stand for something instead of everything … or nothing.
• Thinking when your mind just says … well … fuck it.
• Thinking that the conventional is simply atrophy.

—

“Honestly, you just take a deep breath and say fuck it.”

Johnny Knoxville

—

Real creative sparks, the ones that matter, are really a combination of a “fuck it” <ignore conventional thinking and conventional ‘wants’> and “where did that fucking idea come from” type moments.

Oh. And maybe a little bit of some personal ‘fuck its.’ What I mean by that is an individual decision to leave the conventional and take a chance.

I say this because while I am not a creative artist or writer per se I have encountered creative sparks.

They can be overwhelming.

In fact I can honestly say that they are more often overwhelming than they are any blinding flash of insight or thought. It comes down to weaving your way through the barrage of thought that seemingly crashes out from this black void in which you have seen nothing, or certainly nothing clearly, that the creative idea arises. Uhm … rastrophiliopustrocity in other words.

Anyway.

There will always be a need, a time & a place, for creative thinking. Therefore, we will always be seeking to uncover how to generate a ‘creative spark’ on demand. We will always seek some magical process that ‘creates’ sparks and ultimately creative.

The difficulty is that creative sparks come from that black void called ‘the creative thinking space.’

There is no formula for a creative process or creative thinking. What works for one person doesn’t for another. And maddeningly what works at one time will not work in another time. Therefore, creative sparks are elusive to rhyme or reason. No. They defy rhyme or reason. And that is maddening to everyone, but mostly to accountant types, manufacturing types and ‘management measurement gwonks.’ And the ‘play-safers.’

All I can say is rastrophiliopustrocity. Ponder.

==

Sometimes life happens slow, then really fast.

==

“It is hardly surprising that dead rabbits are pulled out of the hat when nothing but dead bunnies have been put in.”

William Nordhaus, economist

==

The opening image sets the stage for discussing new products and innovation to point out that the term “new products” can be a sweeping term covering a long list of possible market introductions.

I’ve been thinking about new products and innovation (one would hope they are related because I’ve been watching Silicon Valley – painfully chuckling at times) and read this fabulous piece: Web3, the Metaverse, and the Lack of Useful Innovation.

Throughout my career I have worked with technology incubators, large company new product groups and just basic businesses who created new products and brought them to market.

Which leads me to say I have seen more bad ideas then is most likely healthy for me.

But new products are really important to existing businesses in that profits from new products tend to account for a substantial amount of the bottom line of businesses (note: there is a point to be made here about efficiencies and squeezing out profit from existing products in the market but that is for another day). We have all seen the simplistic surveys online showing “reasons why new products fail” as if CPG companies haven’t studied new products in depth. It’s a bit crazy. So, having pulled out an old folder with a bunch of notes scribbled in it about new products from my experience with P&G and other companies, let me say some things about innovations and new products. To be clear. I will share some dated information that I am too lazy to update mostly because I am 90% confident, in principle, the conclusions are the same today as they were then.

Suffice it to say successful new products all deliver a meaningful and perceivable benefit to a large enough market to be sustainable financially and are different in some meaningful and perceivable way from alternatives. The main principles that form the foundation for successful new product programs:

1. know what your product stands for and make its benefits superior
2. discover latent consumer insights which are tied to a specific need
3. ensure the product benefits align with latent insights
4. ensure market readiness
5. make sure it has the ability to scale out (have enough of a market)

Most of that seems fairly basic, yet, the hard realities are that a great majority of new products never make it to market. And those that do face a failure rate somewhere in the order of 25 to 45%. The figures may vary depending on what industry and how one defines a new product and a failure. Some sources cite the failure rate at launch to be as high as 90%, but most of those figures tend to be wild overstatements based on dubious surveys. My guess is the true failure rate is about 35%. Regardless of whether the success rate is 55% or 65%, the odds of a failed launch is fairly significant. I would be remiss if I didn’t note the news gets a bit worse because this doesn’t even include the majority of new product projects that are killed somewhere in process long before launch, yet, have already involved considerable expenditures of time and money. One old study revealed that for every seven new product ideas about four enter development, 1.5 are launched, and only one succeeds. Another study revealed that for every 11 new product ideas, 3 enter the development phase, 1.3 are launched and only 1 is a commercial success in the marketplace. The commonality between those two studies is only one success.

Which leads me to new product failure is fairly easy to identify through a number of reasons:

• Poor planning: it doesn’t really fit into the company strategy, expertise or distribution strengths, or margin, or ROI, market analysis is inadequate, poor timing or the company fails to face up to competitive strengths
• Poor management (tied to poor planning): product doesn’t fit the company character guiding these activities, no management sponsor, no management information system to effectively communicate throughout process, wrong department leads the introduction program, budget and time constraints due to something unanticipated or management direction is vague
• Poor concept: the concept itself doesn’t appeal all the time in the form of execution being evaluated, no unique benefit or one that is unique enough, maybe offers too many benefits and has no simple strong reason for being; maybe it does have unique benefits but fulfills little need; poor price/value relationship; out of sync with the market, maybe too innovative/different
• Poor execution: personality becomes point of difference rather than function or intrinsic benefit; maybe product defects, technical problems, or product over engineered, over/under package; misbranded; mistargeted; mistimed for character of market
• Poor use of research: most often this is because research is done backwards, i.e., attempting to prove out a technology (search for a benefit) rather than assess an existing need
• Poor technology: this typically drives poor execution in that the product, functionally, doesn’t offer a significant enough meaningful benefit
• Poor timing: new products can be too early to market (ahead of natural adoption acceptance) or too late to market (following without a significantly superior benefit)

But. That said. Simplistically, new products fail when consumers do not want to buy them. This is why if you are involved in new products, you really should be problem solvers rather than just idea generators.

Which leads me to a lesson to technology folk.

Technology is actually learning a lesson that the Consumer Packaged Goods industry learned a long time ago. More products can mean more sales, but you have to be smarter about your new product that you offer to the public. In 1964 there were about 1,300 new product introductions in supermarket/drug stores. In the early 1980s the packaged goods industries were introducing around 3000 to 5000 new products a year. By the 1990’s, we saw this number jump to about 18,000 to 20,000 and now we were over 25,000 a year. To be clear. Maybe only about 10% of new product introductions are truly new; for the most part they are extensions or additions to existing products/product lines (see opening image). The incredible thing about this phenomenal growth during that period (1960 to 2000ish) is that failure rates, while high, did not increase. It seems like consumers were finding space in their lives for five to 10 times more products per year than they were in maybe 1980. This suggests that the market likes to experience experiments as well as have been convinced specialty or ‘niche use’ has efficacy value. It’s like the culture has grasped the nature of change and finds value through experimenting with new products. But every business needs to remember with as much as 40%+ of new product ideas hitting the trash can, it’s just tough to swallow the failure rates and invest real money. In fact, I remember a number that there was an estimated 46% of all the resources allocated to product development and commercialization by US firms are spent on products that are cancelled or fail to yield an adequate financial return. There was an old study with some rough splits of innovation costs across stages in the new product process but basically it suggested for every $1million spent on product innovation, roughly only $150,000 is spent on exploration and screening research or even idea generation, i.e., the initial attempts to qualify the idea. This is kind of nuts. This also suggests ideas searching for a market rather than a market defining an idea. This whole section is something technology folk should ponder long and hard.

Which leads me to markets decide the fate of a new product.

There was an old study looking at General Electric products and the conclusions with regard to technological and market variables that decided their fates. The products had several things in common that created a well-defined product prior to the development phase and into market introduction:

1. Market needs were recognized and R&D was targeted at satisfying those needs
2. When a technological success did not meet a specific market need the product was adapted to suit an identified need (or dropped)
3. Involved managers communicated the possibility of a technological breakthrough clearly to all other departments whom, in turn, facilitated the identification of a real market need
4. Communication existed between engineers, scientists, and all other departments involved

But the bottom line, which I think some technology startups ignore, is the lessons that CPG has given the new product world that are timeless:

1. A unique superior product in the eyes of a customer (not the creator), one with a real differential or distinct advantage in the marketplace**
2. A strong market-orientation building in solid market knowledge and sound market inputs, and an undertaking of market research and effective marketing launch tasks done well
3. Technological synergy (both development and production technology) and competence in the technological tasks fundamental to the success of the product

• ** in the wayback machine with P&G we knew that new products with overall superiority (as indicated in consumer testing), met their objective 1.5 to 2 times more often. A strong product also almost doubled the repurchase rate.

Which leads me to efforts and assumptions.

In the early stages of any new product project, we make many assumptions in order to justify the project.

• We make technological assumptions: we assume the product is technologically feasible; we map out a probable route to the technical solution, manufacturability at a certain cost is assumed and so on.
• We make marketing assumptions: we estimate market size, growth, and need; we expect that the product’s features or performance will really be superior to competing products, and that while the world may not beat a path to our door the world will at least open the door of possibility of purchasing. We make competitive assumptions.

Based on all these assumptions someone gives a “go-to-market” decision and then most efforts tend to be devoted to verifying and validating the assumptions (rather than adapting as we learn more). That said. One of the most interesting factoids I remember from my way back machine with P&G is that about 75+% of total efforts ($ and work time) goes into technological and/or production activities while only about 15% is devoted to marketing activities (most of which goes into the launch).

I imagine my point on almost all of this is most new product innovations fail because, well, a business imagines a market, imagines a need and imagines a real benefit offered, and the market tends to choose how to spend its hard earned money not on imagined, but reality. Ponder.

sparkphoto consulting

—–

“You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.

What mood is that?

Last-minute panic. “

=

Bill Watterson

—–

Ok.

Every once in a while you learn a new word which is worth learning.

Rastrophiliopustrocity is one.

——

Rastrophiliopustrocity is a barrage of creative random thoughts, images, and ideas that spontaneously overwhelms the brain, which then becomes immediately exercised when other parts of your brain engage within spacious awareness from an empty point.

——

Oh my.

What a thought.

Barrage of creative random thoughts engaging from an empty point.

Well.

First.

I believe a creative spark needs some fodder. It doesn’t arise from nothing.

Because … well … nothing begets nothing.

There has to be something from which a spark can occur.

Or as i quoted in my ‘rabbits and ideas post’ … “… not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.”  <Boris Lermontov>

—

https://brucemctague.com/?s=rabbits+and+ideas

—

That said.

Second.

I have yet to see a process that ensures great creative.

<everyone should please note, and be highly impressed, with the proper use of ensure versus insure … although I am not sure if it is proper or not but the fact I used ensure should lead everyone to believe I knew what I was doing>

Having been in the creation of creative output business for years … I have run into far too many creative generating companies <tangible as well as ideas> that revolve around some mystical ‘process’ for creative output.

These processes get put up in beautiful charts outlining step by step how past great ideas have been consistently generated.

And oddly … the mystical processes are most often endorsed by the pragmatic boring logical anal people randomly strewn throughout these creative organizations <who want to define creativity so that in some way they can appear to control the creativity>.

They processes are typically endorsed by ex-anal mid level people or CFO’s.

They are typically endorsed <and embraced> by people who want to manage their creative output like manufacturing plants.

Drives me nuts.

Here is a creative business truth.

A rigid process is counterproductive to the creative process.

It is counter to the sometimes haphazardness of true creative thinking and will stymie if not stifle the best thinking.

In addition .. a rigid process often eliminates what we all know happens all the time <which is counterintuitively not a bad thing> that … uh oh … we often revise an original strategy document because of a creative idea.

Uh oh.

This is the insidious uncomfortable ‘revising strategy once you have seen output’ discussion.

I have had this debate so many times I think I could write a book <or just watch my head explode>.

What happens when a strategy changes in this way is it makes people think that creative thinking drives strategy.

What also happens is that I laugh, throw something sharp if I don’t have anything heavy … and say … ‘No, it’s just like a boomerang. You throw the boomerang out (the original strategy/insight) and it goes out and there is creativity as it passes through the clouds but it ends up coming back to the same place. but the trip thru the clouds and fresh air and rain can enhance the original strategy. “

I also point out that means that boomerangs that aren’t properly thrown go astray.

This can also translate into the fact that boomerangs that end up in some tree means that idea isn’t ‘the one.’

Okay.

Bad metaphor but anybody who believes a well written strategy or insight is perfect … and shouldn’t change … is nuts.

It is simply well written.

And by being well written it inspires, it creates the ‘spark’, the overall creative thinking which ultimately generates the end ideas.

In the end a great thinking process enhances the likelihood you can uncover a great insight. Not an “actionable insight” or some “big idea insight” <I have an entire diatribe coming on insights> but some great insight that inspires thinking.

Some people refer to that as “input.”

<but that doesn’t sound sexy enough>

And input is what creativity needs. A process, or even an insight, doesn’t generate the output … it simply provides input.

Or maybe it is inspires …  rastrophiliopustrocity

BUT.

A great process has another benefit which all creative generating companies want, need and rarely get.

Alignment.

Huh?

What the fuck does that have to do with generating creativity? or a creative spark?

Well.

It doesn’t.

However.

A good process provides an opportunity to solidify an aligned objective and manage expectations.

That alone can make a process valuable.

Do not underestimate the importance of alignment with regard to creative thinking and ideas.

More good, and great, creative thinking dies from presentation and articulation and ‘agreement’ than anywhere else. Far too often … creative sparks get smothered in presentation and discussion.

So alignment and input actually paves the way for actually DOING great creative thinking.

All this means is that process is EXACTLY like research.

It is to inform not to execute.

Now.

I do see a disturbing trend in the creative creation businesses that with timelines getting tighter and people wanting things faster … and everyone treating every piece of business like a retail business … that a lot of smaller/mid size businesses <who typically fear losing a client more so than a larger one> are using an initial client/agency immersion session … as a creative briefing session.

What I mean is that they seek shortcuts to the end creative output.

What they do is include all creative creators and non-creative creators in one room along with some moderator who typically guides the discussion with strategy or creative thinking in mind.

Now.

That’s high risk and high return territory.

Depends on how good your moderator is.

As well as a confluence of factors <because as noted earlier … what works one time may not work another time>.

Oh.

And another thing. It also depends on whether the listeners hear everything that they are supposed to hear <and everyone hears the same thing>.

Another thing <part 2> … it depends on whether you have people in place who can quickly assimilate information and have good, if not great, ability to come up with smart, insightful good initial ideas.

And to be clear.

While many people in the creative business flippantly say that ‘often the initial idea and thinking is the best’ … more often than not … it is not.

More often it is simply a good starting place.

Look.

In these short cut type meetings I have seen the best of the best in action. And even then … arriving at a clear non debatable insight, or whatever you are aiming for, is not a 100% guarantee.

More often you end up circling the answer but struggle to pin it down because, of course, doing so means making choices <and … reminder … you are in a group>.

And while earlier choices in the session are easy … toward the end of the meeting session when you are seeking a conclusion … the choices are difficult.

And when that happens the creative thinkers fall into information overload and … well … as my good well respected creative friend Luke Sullivan used to tell me … ‘Bruce, please just tell me what I need to know.’

Anyway.

Process provides input … but should never be construed as the ways & means to creative spark.

Third.

Creative spark is really simply divergent thinking.

Thinking where you seek more verbs than nouns.

Thinking when you seek to stand for something instead of everything … or nothing.

Thinking when your mind just says … well … fuck it.

—

“Honestly, you just take a deep breath and say fuck it.”

=

Johnny Knoxville

—

Real creative sparks … the ones that matter … are really a combination of a “fuck it” <ignore conventional thinking and conventional ‘wants’> and “where did that fucking idea come from” type moments.

Oh.

And maybe a little bit of some personal ‘fuck its.’

An internal decision to leave the conventional and take a chance.

I say this because while I am not a creative artist or writer per se … I have encountered creative sparks.

They can be overwhelming.

In fact … I can honestly say that they are more often overwhelming than they are any blinding flash of insight or thought.

It is weaving your way through the barrage of thought that seemingly crashes out from this black void in which you have seen nothing … or nothing clearly … that the creative idea arises.

Uhm … rastrophiliopustrocity in other words.

Anyway.

There will always be a need … a time & a place … for creative thinking.

Therefore we will always be seeking to uncover how to generate a ‘creative spark’ on call.

The difficulty is that creative sparks come from that black void called ‘the creative thinking space.’

There is no formula for a creative process or creative thinking. What works for one person doesn’t for another. And maddeningly what works at one time will not work in another time.

Therefore creative sparks are elusive to rhyme or reason.

No. They defy rhyme or reason.

And that is maddening to everyone … but mostly to accountant types, manufacturing types and ‘management measurement gwonks.’

In the end?

Rastrophiliopustrocity. What a great word.