Ideas need to flow from you and your team like some kind of creativity water fountain. But on-tap ideas aren’t always possible. Especially when the current remote working environment means creative activity is filtered through laptop screens and scheduled in an Outlook calendar. When it comes to creativity and spit balling ideas, we love having our colleagues to bounce off, to soundboard against, to brainstorm with, or to [insert your own blue-sky metaphor here].
But now, those beautiful, throw-away comments we could pick up and run with are probably only falling on the ears of pets and coffee cups. So we need to bring out the big guns. We need to find the formula for infallible creativity anytime, anywhere, no matter how iffy the Wi-Fi is. And we think we may have found just the guy to help us.
Creativity = Brains⁴
When establishing SaaS ideas generation platform, Ideasicle X, Will Burns believed he had founded the four-man (or woman) formula for the creative crack team. The answer lies in the power of four.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that so many mind-blowingly successful creatives come in packs of four. Think about it: The Beatles, Queen, ABBA – all of them (even #3) were great. And, like so many creatives, they harnessed the power of four for collaborative success.
4 ≥ Many
For Burns, the creative dynamic achieved with four people has the Goldilocks quality of not too much and not too little. He coined this process of rapido, awesome ideas generation “Quadraneural Acceleration”.
We’re keen to give it a try because his reasoning, unlike the pseudoscientific-sounding name, makes a lot of sense. Creativity and contributing ideas can be very exposing: we’ve all had what we thought was a ground-breaking idea shot down in flames or worse met with silence and a lack of eye contact.
Too many people in a creative process, and we begin to feel self-conscious about presenting our ideas to what can feel like an anticipating audience. Too few people and it’s just plain awkward. Whereas four; four is good, four we can work with.
Success = the sum of 4 great parts
It’s key to consider which four components make up this harmonious quartet of creativity. You’re going to want ideas people – that’s a given. Happily, we’re brimming with those at Fox Agency so we’re winning already, but there’s more to it than that.
Burns advises to mix up your team with a couple of sector-specific brains; if you’re working on a PR campaign, pull in one or two PR know-it-alls, but don’t pack out the team with them entirely. You also want a master of the topic. Even if you outsource this genius, the value that a category expert will bring in really grounding your team’s knowledge is huge.
Chuck in a Creative Director, because we are not messing about here. We’re bringing out the big guns, remember, so a seasoned CD will provide a safe pair of hands to drive and inspire your team. And finally, play your wild card. The final spot in your creative crack team should be a bit of an oddball – nothing personal, but you need someone who’s going to come at things from a different angle. For instance, a salesperson or account manager will offer a different perspective to the team around which the rest can play, riff and create sweet, sweet music. And there you have it, the A-Team for insane ideas generation, totally uninhibited by remote working.
We’re looking forward to putting Quadraneural Acceleration to the test, and if you reckon you could bring something brilliant to the table – in an artistic capacity, something more managerial, or maybe you’re happy to be our oddball – then get in touch.
Fox Agency is growing: there is an abundance of ideas waiting to be born, a whole lot of greatness to deliver, and we think you should be a part of it.