When you straddle the world of business and the world of the arts, it can sometimes be a stretch. Josh Linkner reminds us that the only thing that can’t be commoditized is creativity. He has come up with 5 steps to follow that both discipline and enhance creativity process – for as those of you know who work in a creative space, creativity is also a discipline. When you are fighting to maintain ‘share of mind’ – some solid tools help the process. Simple and yet effective. The five steps are : (1) Ask (2) Prepare (3) Discover (4) Ignite (5) Launch. Linkner believes that this methodology can help anyone and encourages you to let your ideas come out and play. In order to play to win – instead of playing not to lose – to stand out and be truly remarkable – creativity is the only sustainable competitive advantage.
Some questions from the book to whet your appetite:
1. What percentage of your time is spent creating something new, as opposed to working out operational details or protecting the past?
2. List five ways you can beat your competition. How can they beat you?
3. If you were entering your industry as a start-up, how would you break the mold to beat the incumbents?
4. What elements of the past or status quo are you clinging to? What do you need to let go of?
5. List five ways your company is stagnating; for each of these, list at least two ideas addressing how to break through those barriers?
Some great food for thought and would work at the beach.
MythGinger 
Creativity and discipline are usually seen as two opposing poles of thought, but these questions are intriguing jumping-off points to get us used to tying the two together. My suggestion is to take this one step further by not limiting these lists to linear expressions, but web them out on the page to make best use of the creative brain linkages we’re trying to stimulate through this brainstorming. Thanks for the great post!
Cymbria:
Great suggestion – I love the idea of a ‘web’ of intriguing questions that stimulate ideas!
And I applaud your focus on story as a medium for communication and learning. As someone who lives by story, always have, always will, its power and importance should never be underestimated! Especially when it comes to strengthening and appreciating our own unique place in the world – whether that’s our world of work or family… or humanity at large.