An invite to creative thinkers who want to meet other, more diverse creative people and collaborate on briefs for social change. First event planned in NY for May/June but looking for more willing accomplices...
2. Where Good Ideas Come From?
I don’t know about you, but for me and the work I do, this is a pretty
important question. Perhaps you’ve read Steven Johnson’s book by the
same title, perhaps not. Either way, let me share with you why it’s
important enough for me to be writing this.
Ideas - in all their wonderful shapes and sizes - are the lifeblood of
innovation, and these precious little commodities are also the daily
grind for you and I.
Mr. Johnson has an interesting idea. Looking back over the history of
innovation, he suggests that good ideas emerge out of strikingly similar
environments. In short: high-density, liquid networks of creative
thinkers given both the opportunity and the forum for “spillover” of
ideas.
A primordial soup of creative opportunity.
3. It’s intuitive really. Johnson brings a myriad of examples from nature,
commerce and the sciences, but the one that stuck with me was the
coffee house phenomenon of the early Renaissance period.
Creative thinkers from all walks of life would coalesce around the
coffee shop and, in a caffeine-fueled frenzy, exchange ideas that
invariably led to bigger, better, more diverse creations than anyone
could have imagined.
Of course, Johnson also points out that up until this point, beer and wine had
been the staple drinks of the day, and as such the creative revolution may
have simply been a factor of a long overdue stint of sobriety – but we’ll
ignore that for now.
So what’s my point?
4. Where’s our coffee shop?
Starbucks isn’t cutting it.
Nor is any other coffee shop I’ve been to lately.
Last time I checked, the common scene in these much-loved
establishments was one of the lone-creative-genius, half melting Frap in
hand, Macbook planted firmly in the middle of the table, headphones
resolutely plugged, vehemently repelling any suggestion of conversation
from fellow coffee drinkers.
Hardly the picture of a hungry little carbon molecule just bursting to
connect with some other friendly protein in the aforementioned
primordial soup of creativity (ok, I’ll drop the soup bit now, but it’s just
such a good metaphor).
The trouble is, while we talk a lot about convergence of media,
channels, technologies and the like, we still have more creative
specialties (read “silos”) than ever and we tend to mix in our own
little cliques. We rarely, if ever, get to rub shoulders - let alone grey
matter - with other more diverse creative talent, and we are poorer
for it.
5. “But what about wonderful collaborative innovation networks like
openIDEO?” you might ask. Good point, they are indeed awesome, and
I’m a fully signed-up member.
But here’s the rub. Despite best intentions and a good platform for
inspiring, conceptive ideas, it’s still predominantly individualistic, with
little real development of ideas by the creative community engaged.
People tend to rank and vote, but rarely “build”.
And this brings me to my point...[at last]
6. COPYWRITER NOVELIST ARTIST INT
SPEECH WRITER JOURNALIST TRAV
The Coffee House Reborn PROGRAMMER CORRESPONDENT M
I’m putting together a little club of sorts - a new-age coffee house club
ANIMATOR PHOTOGRAPHER MUSICI
MICRO FINANCIER DOCUMENTARIAN
in fact. In doing so, I’m hoping, to artificially recreate the environment
that proved to be so fruitful over a millennium ago.
I’m inviting friends and friends of friends, all of whom represent great,
old and new, creative disciplines. It’s a diverse bunch for sure, we’ll
INTERIOR DESIGNER ART DIRECTOR
ANTHROPOLOGISTTRAVELER SINGE
have artists, musicians, copy-writers, designers, speech-writers, creative
technologists, architects, documentarians, urban planners, media
strategists, industrial designers…the list goes on.
But we’re not just going to throw everyone in a room and hope for
PUPPETEER SET DESIGNER GRAPHI
DANCER GAME DESIGNER MUSICIAN
some kind of creative spontaneous combustion (although that might
be fun). We’re going to be focused about this and here’s how...
TYPOGRAPHER MUSICIANNGO CON
INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER SCREENWRI
URBAN PLANNER SCULPTOR SOUN
CHANGE EXPERT COMMUNICATIONS
7. A Tight Brief
Each time we meet, we’ll focus our efforts on a specific problem. We’ll
experiment with different formats, in the spirit of, well,
experimentation, but we’ll always work towards a goal.
A few examples;
Remember the awesome openIDEO platform I mentioned before?
They have some pretty tight briefs from organizations with real issues
and with real budgets to make it happen – and we’re all for that.
So at one meet, we’ll take their brief, and then flex our combined and
considerable creative muscle against it. We then take the (hopefully)
many ideas we generate from our modest “closed network” of
thinkers and upload them into the bigger “open-network” of
openIDEO. We create the best of both worlds and have a jolly* good
time in the process.
At other meets, we’ll work with slightly loftier, though perhaps more
abstract ideas and see where our wonderings take us. We might look
at ideas to foster greater volunteerism in the arts. We might work on
adult literacy or childhood obesity.
As we gather momentum we’ll let our discussions shape future topics
for collaboration, after all, even a tight brief needs some wriggle room.
Ahem.
* I’m British and so have permission to use the word “jolly”
8. The Format:
Location: “The Local” Sullivan Street, Soho
I figured this should be fun, social and infused with food and drink. That Time: 6.30 for 7pm start. 9.30/10pm Close.
way if we suck, at least we’ll have a full stomach to show for our
efforts. 1. Arrivals: Drinks and hot food for all!
2. Introduction to the event and intros (I’ll share short bios)
And I wanted to be honest to the idea - this originated in the coffee 3. The Briefing and Inspiration
houses of northern italy, so, while a trip to Florence appeals, I’m 4. The Work
settling for the generous offer of “The Local” to open their little 1. Two team breakout
independent coffee shop after hours for our first evening of mis- 2. Each group led by facilitator (me and a friend)
adventures. 3. Each group works on the brief, but with slight modification/constraint* to spur
different lines of exploration
5. Group Share
We’ll have great coffee.
6. Each group shares and we have a discussion to build on the ideas
7. Wrap up
1. Agreed ideas are applauded and we all commit to earnestly review them online
over the next few weeks and build further as we have our shower-epiphanies and
train ride inspirations. I’ll provide logon for the collaboration platform at the
meeting.
8. The Action
1. After a short window of online collaboration, the ideas are curated, polished and (if
and OpenIdeo brief) uploaded into the openIDEO platform under a single user
logon. If it’s a self assigend brief we perhaps upload to a CHC tumblr or even
better, find a way to make it happen
*creative thinking thrives on rules, so things like; “must be sustainable”,
“must be under $1000 build cost”, “must be...” you get the idea.
9. My dream/charter for the results of our little endeavor, in descending
order of likelihood…
• We first and foremost have fun. We get to enjoy the company of
new creative minds and make new friendships and connections in
the process.
• Our ideas are warmly received by the broader community.
• Our ideas become a gold standard for quality creative solutions in
CoffeeHouseCreative
systems like the openIDEO collaboration model.
• Steven Johnson is so overwhelmed by the genius and inferred
compliment he comes to speak and participate in an event.
• We are so successful, IDEO bring the team for a workshop and
integrate the model into the next beta.
• Word gets out and we are obliged to provide starter packs/
templates for the creation of a whole franchise across North
America and ultimately global domination.
• The founder club members (me in particular) become rich and
famous – if you’re already rich and famous, congratulations; some of
us are still working on it. Oh, and the first round of beers are on
you.
I created a logo. It’s a bit rubbish* because I’m a strategist, not a
designer. Perhaps our resident designer will do a better job if we meet
a second time – I am, if nothing else, ever the optimist.
So, are you in?
* yup, still British,