Artists, musicians and scientists don’t come up with ideas in hotel rooms using post it notes and flipcharts. It’s only the business world that behaves in this way and expects to be inspired! At The Value Engineers, we believe that ideas come from a creative journey not just from workshops!

We use a creative journey to unlock ideas in a way that a traditional workshop can’t … using a diverse range of  brains, separate skunk teams (creative associates including artists, musicians, actors and designers), more immersive stimulus and Eureka Books to capture those ideas when you are most creative (e.g. on the bus travelling to work). True creativity requires immersion, inspiration and thinking space.

We are not left or right brain thinkers, we are whole brain thinkers. On our creative journey we believe that it’s important to think in 4 different ways…

1. ANALYTICALLY – more logical, analysis based creative techniques
2. ANALOGICALLY – drawing parallels, analogies and metaphors
3. DEVIANTLY – challenging current category rules and assumptions
4. RANDOMLY – jolting the mind, making random associations

We believe this ability to think, to think differently, to think afresh helps set us apart and get our clients to better solutions.

… for creativity, of course (what did you think I was talking about?).

A recent workshop exercise sparked a bit of an email discussion at The Value Engineers on the best way to get oneself in the mood for being creative and innovative. A whole raft of different suggestions came up, from the delightful “watching the cat play in the garden” to the rather more straightforward “gin”.

But the thing that struck home for a lot of us was how few of these we actually make the time to build into our creative sessions, internally and for our clients. The lack of a Value Engineers cat and garden notwithstanding, we’re going to start using more of these suggestions to get us in the mood, and hopefully this list will provide a few inspirational warm-up ideas for others as well.

So, here’s the starter list… feel free to add your own suggestions too ::

• Rock guitar
• Shopping
• Sunshine
• The City e.g. Berlin
• A good breakfast
• Coffee
• Diverse people
• Ice cream
• Positive spirit
• Energy from music and chatting
• Football
• Adventure trips
• Gin
• Team spirit
• Watching kids
• Running
• Dancing
• Walking amongst trees
• Sitting on a park bench
• Watching the cat playing about in the garden
• Working out in the gym
• Lying on the pillow at 4 am i.e. ‘pillow moments’
• Watching water flow over rocks
• Reading fiction
• Elgar
• Constant Lambert
• The countryside
• Reeling
• A good night’s sleep
• The Wallace Collection
• Vorticist art
• Wild swimming
• The sea
• Observing nature
• Driving
• Watching cricket

Not sure what this list tells you about us, but it looks like a lot of fun!

• “The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates” – Oscar Wilde
• “Advertising doesn’t create a product advantage. It can only convey it” – William Bernbach
• “A competition intensifies, the need for creative thinking increases” – Edward de Bono
• “The creative ‘act’ is a process, not a moment” – Anon
• “The strongest logos tell simple stories” – Sol Sender

Borrowed with pride from all over the place