Join the next CS Presents event... 'Creative Super Powers' on the 7th February at DigitasLBi where the panel of speakers include Laura Jordan Bambach, Mark Earls and Scott Morrison, along with Nicole Yershon talking about the super powers which they believe represent a modern skillset for creative problem solving. More info & tickets here
Creative Social have just launched their latest publishing project on Unbound - a book called Creative Super Powers. We managed to pin down Daniele Fiandaca, Co-Founder of Creative Social and Editor & contributing author of the book to give us the lowdown on why this book is so important in this new age of creativity.
Where did the concept for ‘Creative Super Powers’ come from?
It was actually inspired by our previous book, Hacker, Maker, Teacher, Thief: Advertising’s Next Generation. The book itself was ostensibly a collection of essays about the future of advertising and the title was something that one of the editors, Ana Andjelic, pulled out from some of the essays. However, as we started to tour the book, the title took a life of its own and we soon realized that we had discovered the new Creative Super Powers and they needed a book of their own.
Why did you decide to use crowd funding platform Unbound?
We self published the first couple of books, which while a great experience but bloody tough and did not want to go down that route. I have always wanted to crowd fund something and this seemed like a fantastic opportunity to test it. It also helped that Mathew at Unbound was as excited about the project as we were.
Tell us a bit about the contributing authors, how did they get involved with the project and why do you think we should be listening to them?
There are 4 editors on the book, myself (Hacker), Laura Jordan-Bambach, Creative Partner @ Mr President (Maker), Scott Morrison, Co-founder @ Thinksprint (Teacher) and Mark Earls, Herdmeister @ Herd Consultancy (Thief). The book has been a two-year journey and each of us have simply found people along the way who bring our sections to life. For example Annicken R Day, Founder, Corporate Sprint is a culture hacker and was a keynote speaker at our Talent Social event last year. Everyone loved what she had to say and I just had to have her in the book. While Ravi Deshpande, only joined as a contributor following CS Mumbai in November. While I was there, I discovered that India has a word, Jugaad, which has driven a lot of the innovation and creativity in India and is closest thing they have to Hacking. And as someone who has combined a creative business with a school, Ravi was the perfect person to tell the story of Jugaad.
As co-editor and contributing author of Creative Super Powers, why do you think it's so important that the industry refocuses and possibly reevaluates some of the fundamental creative skills such as Making and Hacking?
The industry has some massive challenges. Margins are being squeezed, ads are becoming less effective (not connecting with their audience), more and more clients are bringing creativity in-house and it is becoming less fun. The only way we are going to halt this decline, is by bringing the value of creativity to the fore as well as re-awakening the four key traits often forgotten from childhood. Those of adaptability, curiosity, empathy and fearlessness.
What do you feel are the main creative issues facing the industry moving into 2017 and will the book help people solve some of these issues?
There are a number of issues but the two biggest are probably diversity and not giving enough time for creativity. We have been doing a lot of work on the diversity side and it is definitely worth checking out the findings from The Great British Diversity Experiment. In addition I can’t help but feel that the industry has confused being busy and being productive - I’d say I hear ‘I’m busy’ from more than 80% of the senior creative leaders I meet every week. We need to find ways to protect our ability to be creative and the aim of the book is to inspire people from across the creative industry (and beyond) to learn new creative skills which will help them thrive in this new age of creativity. That’s why we will be including a set of workshops to help people hone their own skills.
In the creative industry the constant pursuit of finding inspiration is a daily challenge - how do you keep inspired?
My passion is movies. I probably watch at least 3 films a week and find it an amazing source of relaxation and inspiration. I am a massive fan of Secret Cinema and love the way that they have hacked the whole movie experience. Saying that, we are currently running about two events a month so my biggest inspiration is probably other people. There is a reason why we are called Creative ‘Social’ and we are lucky as we get to spend a lot of time with some extremely creative and inspirational people who are finding new and better ways to solve problems creatively.
Apart from the book, can you let us know what exciting things to expect from Creative Social in the year ahead?
2017 is certain to be a big year for us. We are looking forward to visiting Toronto for our next CS Global while we are also planning our first Innovation Social event in New York. We have been welcomed back to curate the Kinsale Sharks this year and look forward to making it THE festival of creativity for the ad industry. In addition, we are working with more agencies and brands to help them accelerate creative thinking and looking forward to unleashing some new collaborations in 2017.