Creative Strategy Generation Using Passion And Creativity To Compose Business Strategies That Inspire Action And Growth

A unique, inspiring guide to building business strategy from the president of Sequent Learning Network A key element of a successful business strategy is originality, which can only be fueled by creativity and intuition. Many business leaders are taught to develop strategies by analyzing case study after case study of other companies’ already implemented strategies, and using those studies as a framework for developing their own strategic plans. However, in order to develop truly great strategies, business leaders must learn to tap into their own creative process and develop actionable strategies based on their intuition and instincts. Creative Strategy Generation is a step-by-step guide to creating truly original and successful business strategies by tapping into one’s own creative potential. Modeled on Sequent Learning Network’s popular strategy building consultation program, the book uses compelling stories and examples drawn from music composition to show you how to produce your own “strategic masterpieces.”

This textbook provides a lively introduction to the fast-paced and multi-faceted discipline of social media management with international examples and perspectives. Aside from focusing on practical application of marketing strategy, the textbook also takes students through the process of strategy development, ethical and accurate content curation, and strategy implementation, through detailed explanations of content creation. Combining theory and practice, Strategic Social Media Management teaches students how to take a strategic approach to social media from an organisational and business perspective, and how to measure results. Richly supported by robust and engaging pedagogy and cases in each chapter, it integrates perspectives from public relations, marketing and advertising, and examines key topics such as risk, ethics, privacy, consent, copyright issues, and crises management. It also provides dedicated coverage of content strategy and campaign planning and execution. Reflecting the demands of contemporary practice, advice on self-care for social media management is also offered, helping to protect people in this emerging profession from the negativity that they can experience online when managing an organisation’s social media presence. After reading this textbook, students will be able to develop a social media strategy, curate accurate and relevant content, and create engaging social media content that tells compelling stories, connects with target audiences and supports strategic goals and objectives. This is an ideal textbook for students studying social media strategy, marketing and management at undergraduate level. It will also be essential reading for marketing, public relations, advertising and communications professionals looking to hone their social media skills and strategies.

Leaders as Learners, Learners as Leaders Drawing upon firsthand experiences and insights from senior practitioners, Leading the Learning Function: Tools and Techniques for Organizational Impact offers best practices, tools, techniques, and processes that successful business leaders use to develop, build, and implement their personal leadership skill sets. The ATD Forum—a consortium for senior talent and learning practitioners to connect, collaborate, and share knowledge, best practices, and company experiences—sought to extend those accruing benefits more broadly in the profession to current and aspiring learning leaders and talent practitioners. In this book, Forum managers and book editors MJ Hall and Laleh Patel and Forum members set out to document the work learning leaders do to help themselves and others build organizational capabilities and successful results. In 26 chapters, Forum contributors—leaders in their respective organizations—offer insights and lessons about setting direction, managing processes, leading and developing people, making an impact, collaborating with stakeholders, using technology for learning, and innovating. Growing leadership skills is a lifelong journey; gaining a portfolio of techniques others have used successfully to solve similar business challenges can provide an edge in your role as a business advisor. Leading the Learning Function is just that portfolio.

People tend to think of creativity and strategy as opposites. This book argues that they are far more similar than we might expect. More than this, actively aligning creative and strategic thinking in any enterprise can enable more effective innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and organizing for the future. By considering strategy as a creative process (and vice versa), the authors define ‘creative strategy’ as a mindset which switches between opposing processes and characteristics, and which drives every aspect of the business. The authors draw experiences and cases from across this false divide – from the music industry, sports, fashion, Shakespearean theatre companies, creative and media organizations and dance, as well as what we might regard as more mundane providers of mainstream products and services – to uncover the creative connections behind successful strategy. “Creative Strategy is a talisman for those looking to take a new path” Matt Hardisty, Strategy Director, Mother Advertising “It has been said that business is a hybrid of dancing and calculation – the former incorporating the creative within a firm, the latter the strategic. Bilton and Cummings show how these apparently contradictory processes can be integrated. Their insights about how firms can ‘create to strategize’ and ‘strategize to create’ are informative for managers and management scholars alike.” Jay Barney, Professor and Chase Chair of Strategic Management, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University “In today’s world, new thinking – creativity – is required to tackle long-standing problems or address new opportunities. The trouble is few organizations understand how to foster and apply creativity, at least in any consistent manner. This book provides new insights into just how that can be done. It moves creativity from being just the occasional, and fortuitous, flash of inspiration, to being an embedded feature of the way the organization is run.” Sir George Cox, Author of the Cox Review of Creativity in Business for HM Govt., Past Chair of the Design Council

Innovate your way toward growth using practical, research-backed frameworks The Art of Opportunity offers a path toward new growth, providing the perspective and methods you need to make innovation happen. Written by a team of experts with both academic and industry experience—and a client roster composed of some of the world’s leading companies—this book provides you with the necessary tools to help you capture growth instead of chasing it. The visual frameworks and research-based methodology presented in The Art of Opportunity merge business design thinking and strategic innovation to help you change your growth paradigm. You’ll learn creative and practical methods for exploring growth opportunities and employ a new approach for identifying what “opportunity” looks like in the first place. Put aside the old school way of focusing on new products and new markets, to instead applying value creation to find your new opportunity, craft your offering, design your strategy and build new growth ventures. The changing business ecosystem is increasingly pushing traditional thinking out to pasture. New consumers and the new marketplace are demanding a profound adjustment to the way companies plan and execute growth strategies. This book gives you the tools to create your roadmap toward the new state of growth, and gain invaluable insight into a new way of thinking. The Art of Opportunity will help you to: Start looking at business growth from a new perspective Create value for the customers, company and ecosystem Innovate strategically and design new business models Develop a new active business design thinking approach to innovation Your company’s goal is to grow, and to turn non-customers into customers. The old ways are becoming less tenable and less cost-effective. The Art of Opportunity outlines the new growth paradigm and gives you a solid framework for putting new ideas into practice.

Traditionally, company leaders develop a business strategy based on bottom lines and profit margins, then hire an ad agency to back up that strategy with creative advertising. But history shows that some of the most effective branding campaigns are born when companies work with ad agencies to develop a business strategy that has a big, creative idea at its heart-what CEO of Euro RSCG Bob Schmetterer calls the Creative Business Idea. In Leap, Bob Schmetterer shows advertisers how to combine advertising creativity and bottom-line realities to develop winning business strategies and winning ad campaigns. He analyzes some of the most creative business ideas in history, showing how successful advertising and marketing strategies do more than simply communicate the brand-they define it. Advertisers know how to create demand for an existing brand, but Schmetterer argues that the next challenge for advertisers is to help their clients apply creative thinking to their core business strategy before they launch a branding blitz. Leap is about connecting the left brain and the right brain to develop solid business strategies that are also creative, fresh, and exciting. It's about mixing business's cold fixation on numbers with the warm heart of art and creativity to build revolutionary brands. It's about connecting with and listening to the client, understanding the business and the product, tapping into the client's passion for the product, and transmitting that passion to the consumer. It's about what happens when the business makes creativity part of its core strategy-enabling it to move beyond self-imposed boundaries and expand the limits of its reach. With a wealth of examples from Volvo to Purdue, Schmetterer shows ad agencies and managers how to help their clients develop the big, creative idea that will transform their businesses-and perhaps their industries. It's time for companies to make the Leap that synthesizes business and creativity to reap the full rewards of profitable innovation. BOB SCHMETTERER is Chairman and CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide, a one of the world's top five global advertising and communications agencies with clients such as Intel, Peugeot, Air France, Orange, Abby National, MCI, Danone Group, Reckitt Benckiser, Volvo, and Yahoo!

How to solve critical business challenges by generating more and better ideas Every organization needs a steady supply of fresh, relevant ideas, but managers can?t just lock teams in a room with a mandate to brainstorm and hope for the best. Ideation is both a science and an art, and when group ideation processes are well-designed and well-facilitated, anyone can generate an abundance of creative, implementable options?not to mention true breakthroughs?for any business need. Drawing on his work leading high-stakes ideation sessions at over 300 organizations, Mattimore explains the how, what, and why of successful ideation and provides a framework for when and how to apply various techniques. Identifies Mattimore?s top ideation and innovation techniques (including ?brainwalking,? finding inspiration in worst ideas, the unexpected effectiveness of wishing, and more) and lays the groundwork for you to invent successful processes of your own Tells real stories of ideation at work in Mattimore?s consulting business, including how Ben & Jerry?s named a new strawberry fudge flavor, how Thomas? invented a new, healthier English muffin that now accounts for over 30% of its sales, how IBM transformed the culture of one of its divisions to make it more innovative, and many more Mattimore is a world-class expert on applied creativity and an innovation process consultant to over one-third of the Fortune 100 companies; he and his team have helped create and launch products and services worth over $3 billion in annual US retail sales With a diverse range of tested methods, Idea Stormers is the indispensable guide for developing original, practical solutions to even the most intractable-seeming creative challenges.

William DugganÕs 2007 book, Strategic Intuition, showed how innovation really happens in business and other fields and how that matches what modern neuroscience tells us about how creative ideas form in the human mind. In his new book, Creative Strategy, Duggan offers a step-by-step guide to help individuals and organizations put that same method to work for their own innovations. DugganÕs book solves the most important problem of how innovation actually happens. Other methods of creativity, strategy, and innovation explain how to research and analyze a situation, but they donÕt guide toward the next step: developing a creative idea for what to do. Or they rely on the magic of ÒbrainstormingÓÑjust tossing out ideas. Instead, Duggan shows how creative strategy follows the natural three-step method of the human brain: breaking down a problem into parts and then searching for past examples to create a new combination to solve the problem. ThatÕs how innovation really happens. Duggan explains how to follow these three steps to innovate in business and any other field as an individual, a team, or a whole company. The crucial middle stepÑthe search for past examplesÑtakes readers beyond their own brain to a Òwhat-works scanÓ of what others have done within and outside of the company, industry, and country. It is a global search for good ideas to combine as a new innovation. Duggan illustrates creative strategy through real-world cases of innovation that use the same method: from Netflix to Edison, from Google to Henry Ford. He also shows how to integrate creative strategy into other methods you might currently use, such as PorterÕs Five Forces or Design Thinking. Creative Strategy takes the mystery out of innovation and puts it within your grasp.