Hunger racks one's brain

A few days ago, after a casual meeting with the guys of Ulugh, a start-up from Girona, I came across a conclusion: you don't need lots of resources to do great things and, sometimes, it's even a disadvantage to have abundance.

When I was at the presentation of BDigitalApss in Barcelona they showed several videos of products from start-ups and the one of Ulugh caught my attention:

I liked its simplicity and straight forward message utilizing so little resources. I really liked it. Afterwards, during the lunch, I had the chance to chat with Rik and Xandra, two of the three members of Ulugh, and I asked them how they got to make such a simple and clear video. The answer was great: “we didn’t have resources but we knew what we wanted to say”. Awesome!

And I do agree. I buy the concept. “Hunger racks one’s brain”. So let’s dare even without hunger!

I see in big companies that we’ve got used to create processes for everything and that, when it gets to creativity, there’s also a process for it. Planning, briefing, agencies, debriefings, etc. So why not to break those processes and try new things coming from our employees? Incentive their ideas and creativity and dare to bring them to life?

Really, if you work with a product and live it as yours, breathe it and smell it everyday, and all your energy is on it, why not to bring also your imagination?. Who’s going to have a better idea about it than you? Dare to create your own concepts, to exercise your creativity. You'll surprise yourself. If you are emotionally engaged with your product and have an idea about how to explain it and trigger the like of your customers, it really deserves exploring it.

Best ideas come from simplicity and genius is everywhere, what is difficult is finding people who dare to express what they have inside. Find it inside you, bring it out and you'll have a diamond.

 Do you dare????

Hamburgers, creativity and a way to solve Big Companies' artificial barriers

During the years I've been working in a Corporation and trying to change the speed of business, I and my teams have suffered the inmovilism, lack of will to change of some members of the organization we were supposed to change.

That is a commom feeling to all those that, in big Companies, are challenging the Status Quo and creating new things.

But I've seen with my own eyes that, no matter which barrier is in front of you, there's always a way to save it.

As an example a funny story that ocurred to me in 2008 in Barcelona. I was with a few friends watching the Davis Cup final and after the match wewent for dinner and drinks. When decided going back to  my hotel we went walking beside the shore. It was already late night and everything was closed.

Well, not everything. Suddenly, we came across a McDonalds that was opened. Great stuff! Nothing better that eating a burger beside the sea before going to bed, we thought. And there we went thinking on buying Big Macs. But when we arrived to it we realized that the restaurant was closed. The only thing open was the drive-in with 3 cars in a queue. So we thought, why not? Let's queue ourselves.

And then it showed up the security guard. Let's call him the Big Co Brick... Or Corporate monkey

He came and said to us that we couldn't be in the line because tha line was only for vehicules. We argued back that we were hungry, wanted to buy and pay for hamburguers and that there was no danger on queueing in that place. But the guy got furious and started yelling at us that those were the rules. We must drive a vehicule to get our food. We said that that rule was stupid but he threat us with calling the police. Can't you recognize the monkey hitting another monkey climbing the ladder... Buufff, what could we do? Of course, use the rule on our benefit. We asked the guy if we needed a vehicule and he said yes. So a friend of us went an picked up one of those bicicles for rental that are all over in Barcelona.

The guard was furious but he understood that we were using a vehicule and let us continue. It was ridiculous and funny at the same time but we got to what we wanted.

I see this everyday in my work. The Company Mavericks tend to fight the rules to try to break them. That's an option but each battle will be more and more difficult. What I've realized is that most of the times it's better to use the rules in your benefitnand leave the rule breaking just for those cases when it's totally neccesary

Use your creativity to turn the rules on your benefit and you'll make the difference

Are you a Maverick and will eat your burger?