Welcome to the Creative Age

This book chronicles the dawn of the age of creativity in business, when new ideas and practices based on creativity will drastically change the way we do business. Starting with an overview of the age of marketing, the book winds its way through the past and the present to show us the future of business, backed up with insights from sociology and psychology.

Foreword by Adam Morgan vii Acknowledgements xi Introduction: Bananas at Dawn 1 The ‘added-value’ banana 1 What’s it all about, Alfie? 3 Marketing hilarity 4 Resistance is futile 7 The death of marketing as an organizational principle 8 The War for Talent and how to win it 9 The Creative Age as a new organizing principle 9 Too ambitious by half? 10 Talking to the preacher man 11 How to use this book 12 Structure 12 Creative Age heroes 13 And dear reader … 14 1: Creativity Is Our Inheritance 15 The value of creativity 18 The man who knew too much 19 Creativity sees what isn’t (yet) 20 Creativity is our greatest inheritance 21 Creativity in the public services 22 But I’m not very creative … 23 The creative individual 25 The creative personality 27 What are we to make of the ‘facts’ of creativity? 29 Memories of the future 29 Team creativity = creativity to the power of N 30 Working together creatively 31 Leaving your agenda at the door 32 Diversity rules 33 Impro madness 34 Be kind to your fellow creators 35 Enjoy the journey, not the destination 35 Conclusions 37 Some questions 37 2: The Glorious Revolution 39 Looking forward and looking back 41 Change is a snowball made by many hands 42 Like frogs in a pot of water 43 The problem of history 44 The fertile ground 45 The Marketing Revolution and the doughboy 47 Something to believe in 48 Changing the world 49 The rise and rise of the brand 51 The final frontier? 55 What had happened? 55 Conclusions 56 Some questions 56 3: Tsunami 57 You’ve never had it so good 59 Tides of change 60 R-E-S-P-E-C-T 68 DIY careers 72 The importance of people 75 Tsunami and after 75 Some questions 76 4: Who and How We Are 77 It’s over 79 I am not who you think I am 80 The brain in action 83 Engaging the disengaged mind 84 Emotions and decisions 85 Humans as herd animals 87 The end of the individual? 92 Conclusions 93 Some questions 94 5: Ideas, Ideas, Ideas 95 Ideas and attention dollars 98 Home is here 101 This is the sound of the suburbs 102 ‘Don’t be so English’ 104 Ideas and B2B 105 Ideas and microchips 107 Key characteristics of the Creative Age Idea 109 Conclusions 112 Some questions 113 6: All that You Can’t Leave Behind (but must) 115 Learning to let go 117 Tea with Andrew Ehrenberg 120 Asking silly questions 122 Shaky foundations and empty promises 123 More shaky foundations 125 Opinions aren’t much use 127 So where does this leave market research? 128 The brand and the snake-oil salesmen 129 Problem 1: brand gets in the way of the real problems 130 Problem 2: the claims made for the importance of the brand are overblown 133 Problem 3: the brand ties you to the past 134 Conclusions 134 Using the ‘bnard’ 135 Some questions 135 7: How to Have a Creative Age Idea 137 Not the idiot’s guide to ... 139 Concept 1: purpose, not positioning 140 Concept 2: interventions – it is what you do 144 Applying these concepts – what to do? 144 Conclusions 151 Some questions 152 8: Interventions – It is What You Do … 153 Catalytic conversions 155 Ideas and interventions 156 Control is an (un)helpful illusion 157 The science of complexity 159 What this means for business 161 More modesty, please 162 Interventions as the expression of the purpose-idea 164 Benchmarking your way into a corner 165 Interventions as instinctive actions 167 Management interventions 169 The intranet fallacy 170 Conclusion 171 Some questions 171 9: Advertising is Not Communication 173 The big question 175 Advertising as communication 177 What’s wrong with the communication model? 180 Advertising and politics 181 No market for messages 182 Other effects of advertising explained 184 Implications for advertising 185 Advertising a promotion can be an intervention 186 What advertising can learn from PR 188 The only good ad is an intervention 189 The end of specialisms 190 Conclusions 193 Some questions 193 10: The Shared Enterprise – Putting purpose ideas at the Heart of Business 195 Changing the world 197 Pornography for the Creative Age employee 199 What this costs business 200 A sense of purpose at the heart of the company 203 (not to be confused with) Mission statement mania 207 Purpose-ideas and humans as herd animals 208 Back in the Apple hot seat again 209 Purpose-ideas and self-alignment 210 Conclusions 211 Some questions 212 11: A Place You Want to Work in 213 A purpose-idea is not enough 215 Something for everyone 216 Fulfilment and flow 218 Flow and the workplace 220 It is what we do 223 Enter the accelerator manager 224 Thinking-by-doing 227 A new model 228 Why don’t we ‘do the do’ more often? 229 Choose your weapon to avoid the doing 230 Who needs complete control? 231 Conclusions 232 Some questions 232 12: Us – Together 233 Architecture as intervention 235 So what is a company? 236 The company anthill 238 Basic programming in the machine company 239 And in the Creative Age company? 240 The value of networks 241 Making this useful 245 I’m special, me 246 Mr Blandings and his dream house 247 Advertising’s 80:20 rule 248 What are we to do with the ad agency? 252 The new 80:20 rule 253 The network company 254 Our house 255 Opening up our house 255 Mutuality 256 Ideas, ideas, ideas (again) 256 Conclusions 257 Some questions 257 Postscript 258 All changed utterly 258 The most powerful force on the planet 259 A fresh start 259 Endnotes 261 Index 272