CREATIVE THINKING

I’m always fascinated by brilliant, small inventions that make our lives easier in an amazingly huge way. I came across one such invention about a month ago at my local Starbucks; or as I like to refer to it "The Mecca of life giving fluid." The coffee dude… excuse me "Barista" handed me my quad shot venti vanilla latte and kindly asked "Do you want one of those green stick thingies"? "A green stick thingy" I asked? "Yes", he said, "So you don’t spill your coffee while walking around". He then showed me how the green stick thingy went inside the mouth part of the lid and locked, thus preventing my coffee from spilling while speeding down the highway and dashing into work, out of breath, but albeit, on time; all the while, never losing one single drop of my caffeine beverage that required a small loan to purchase. Throughout the day, every time I looked at my green stick thingy, which I later learned through intensive research on Google it is officially called a splash stick, it made me chuckle. Something as simple as a splash stick would now bring ease in transporting my coffee from the countless places I bring my coffee to. Let’s face it, our cell phones and Starbucks containers are pretty much the new appendages of the millennium and anything that allows their transfer from one place to another hassle free, I’m all for it.

This got me to thinking about how small, positive changes in our work processes, attitude, thoughts, how we deal with our clients, and our creativity can have a huge impact on our overall work product. One such example came last week when one of my associates, Christine Semana and I were attending the LA Chapter Ascend Networking event. Our competitor firms were going to be in attendance and offering valuable raffle prizes. Unfortunately, we had a budget of about $1.14 to work with to supply an equitable raffle from our client. Not that they didn’t want to give us more, but, with a global recession, the monies just aren’t as easily available right now. Christine got the brilliant idea to check with the firm’s partners to see if they had some sports tickets they could donate to the cause. As a result she was able to score two tickets for the coveted Rose Bowl game in January, a PGA golf bag and a $200 Godiva chocolate gift pack. All because she thought outside of the box, put her creative thinking cap on and utilized the resources around her. This simple gesture of creative thinking had an amazing impact when it came time for the raffle. Our raffle prize rivaled all of the other firms, including each of the Big 4. Our raffle was the prize everyone wanted.

I challenge you all to have a splash stick idea, to think of ways you can re-engineer your process, thinking, or use your resources in ways that may seem small at the onset but will have a positive, profound effect in the long run. Now if only someone could invent an easy, fool-proof way for me to program my DVD player.

copyright 2008