About our blog
This blog has been developed to celebrate creativeness in business and elsewhere. And to give visitors, mostly business people, more ammunition to attack the challenges and opportunities that come at you daily in your work.
As a creative thinking coach to industry for 15 years, I feel I have as good a handle as anyone on the challenges business people face and the ways they employ resourceful, nimble, creative thinking to overcome them. This blog will address the following, maybe more. I plan to update it weekly.
• Creativity in business
• Creativity elsewhere; the arts, science, sports, plumbing, whatever.
• Brainstorming tips
• Great creative thinkers, again in business and beyond
• Other stuff that’s not easy to categorize
I plan to cover many industries, because I find people are more attached to how things are done in their own industries, and, therefore, more open elsewhere. That is, if they have the open mindedness to read outside their indusrties. (See my post Gaining professional perspective, a manifesto of sorts for this blog.)
I hope you find the content valuable and stimulating. And if you do, I hope you tell your friends about it. I also hope you add comments to any posts that interest you.
This being a new blog, let me explain a little why I’ve developed it.
Business is where a good many people choose to spend most of their professional lives. Business is a very dynamic place. Things are always changing. Consumers tastes are always shifting. Technology is always evolving. New trends are always emerging.
To stay competitive in business, people need nimble, resourceful minds. Where do we get the training to prepare our minds? Where do we get to maintain our minds to keep them lean and mean, creatively speaking?
You could say we get it simply by competing daily in our jobs. But think of a professional athlete. Does that individual only have to run during the course of his or her game in order to stay in competitive shape? It’s not that simple, is it?
So, are business people going to work on their minds 10 or 20 hours for every single hour of competitive action? I don’t think so.
My fellow Before & After creative thinking coaches and I work with thousands of people in business annually. One of the things we do is conduct professional development programs in the area of creative thinking. These programs last anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days. That may not seem like much, but for our clients, it may be 50 or 1000 time greater than their competitors, so it’s got to mean something.
This blog is here to serve two basic audiences. One audience is the over 250,000 people who have been through our programs, principally our Do-it-yourself Lobotomy workshop or those who’ve read my book of the same title. The second audience is others in business who just want to maintain their creative edge.
To those who have been through the Lobotomy in one form or another, we’ll frequently refer to lessons or practices from your training to reinforce these concepts beyond the workshop and book.
For those who have not been initiated into the ways of the DIY Lobotomy, don’t worry, it’s all universal wisdom, most all of it makes sense to anyone. And if it doesn’t, hey, maybe you should come to a workshop or go buy the book.
This blog will duplicate, compliment and supplement parts of our quarterly newsletter. (Of course, at the blog you can also comment on things that interest you.) If you want your creative inspiration delivered to you each quarter, sign up for the eNewsletter.
I hope you enjoy both the blog and the newsletter, and that they help you nail the opportunities and conquer the challenges that today’s competitive business environment throws your way daily.
Creatively yours,
Tom Monahan
Creative thinking coach
Before & After
