Where do we get our ideas?
I’ve always been fascinated with where ideas come from. I mean they have to come from somewhere, right?
Sometimes it’s very clear to us where we got an idea. Some times it’s clear to others, too. Like when it’s so damn obvious.
Take comedians. They can often be quite topical. Over the years we’ve had the OJ jokes, the Martha Stewart jokes, the Howard Dean jokes, all inspired by the their subject’s headlines at the time.
It’s a joke in the ad business when it’s quite clear that the creators of a piece of work borrowed shamelessly (often outright steal) from the advertising industry award shows.
This image was created by The Ad Workers Local in Milwaukee for a program I ran there a few years ago.
You gotta’ love the headlines, here. For those not familiar with the book being spoofed, it’s called “Communication Arts.” The sub head of their yearly advertising awards issue normally reads Advertising Annual, not Advertising Manual. If you can’t read the ad parodies on the book cover; there’s “Did you ever get that not-so-fresh idea?” and “Just do it again.”
This is the advertising business. The business with “creative” departments. The business that companies come to for fresh ideas to help them stand out in the market place and build their brands.
Now, I’m not implying that all ad people copy. I just point this out because, if the ad industry can poke fun at itself this way, then there’s got to be some truth to it. Having judged most of the major ad industry awards show back when I was in advertising, I can tell you there’s a ton of borrowing going on.
If you’re not in the ad world, what’s it like in your industry? Is there a lot of borrowing? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Even as a professional creative thinking coach, I must admit that often it makes a whole lot of sense to borrow from here and there to come up with something new (actually, it’s almost impossible to not borrow, but that’s a topic for another post).
Here’s where I see the greatest downside, however. If we borrow a lot, then our borrowing muscles get strong. And, while we’re using our borrowing muscles, we’re not using our creative muscles, so they get weak. Then when we have a truly unique problem, challenge or opportunity, a situation that absolutely calls for creative thinking, then what?
That is the greatest danger to borrowing too much. And I’m not talking solely about borrowing from others. For most people the idea bank they plunder the most is their own. You must have seen this a few times in your business dealings (or is that a few thousand times?): an experienced person has a creative opportunity and they fall back on something that served them in the past. Always wrong? No. But, in a dynamically changing business environment (and you know your category is always changing), is the “proven” idea really proven going forward? Often, not even close.
We have to be open to new ideas all the time. Yes, we can borrow sometimes. But we can’t do it without first looking for a better way. We owe it to the companies we work for. We owe it to ourselves. Because our long-term livelihoods are dependent on just how strong our creative muscle is. If you’ll excuse my borrowing this analogy to physiology.
