New York SBDC Research Network

From Marketing Profs : What does it mean to be human (and a marketer) in a world where even the most creative and intuitive endeavors are being turned into automated, optimized, and streamlined processes? With the onslaught of stories about the launch of new, fantastic pieces of software or technological advancements that'll make life simpler and computers able to make essential data connections, it seems that we're quickly entering a full-blown "Artificial Intelligence Age." At the root of AI are perception and cognition, which also happen to be two of the fundamental tenets of the marketing industry. It's no surprise, then, that software, algorithms, and AI applications are consistently used to help marketers and make their job of "adaptive persuasion" more effective and efficient. Far from being a substitute for the creative process, though, data is empowerment. By offering deeper and more comprehensive consumer insights, data fuels curiosity ...

From Patreon : When I got to PatreCon— Patreon’s first conference for creators— I’d hit a wall in my career. My novel trilogy had just been rejected by publishers. Not because it wasn’t good, but because almost no one wanted to commit until all three volumes were finished. Which meant I’d just spent three years writing for free, and was looking at two more years of doing the same. I arrived at PatreCon feeling pretty helpless. The first night of the conference, we got a tour of Patreon headquarters. As soon as we started walking around, I felt better, though I couldn’t say exactly why. I just felt like I’d come to a safe space... In talking to other creators, I realized that everyone had stories like mine. Everyone had hit a wall—realizing that even if they were talented, worked hard, and did everything “right,” the game was rigged against them. In fact, that’s how musician Jack Conte came up with Patreon in the first place: he’d once spent $10,000 of his own money building a set...

From the Harvard Business Review : Moody, erratic, eccentric, and arrogant? Perhaps — but you can't just get rid of them. In fact, unless you learn to get the best out of your creative employees, you will sooner or later end up filing for bankruptcy. Conversely, if you just hire and promote people who are friendly and easy to manage, your firm will be mediocre at best. Suppressed creativity is a malign organizational tumour. Although every organization claims to care about innovation, very few are willing to do what it takes to keep their creative people happy, or at least, productive. So what are the keys to engaging and retaining creative employees? [Not that I'd agree with #5, unless Wall Street brokers were paid likewise.]

Follow these rules, and you'll see a dramatic difference in your own team's ability to innovate: 1. Manage Creative Friction The wrong type of friction on teams makes people hate each other and hold back, but the right type gets results. How do you encourage good creative friction? Share the experience. The whole team, including the client, work together through all steps of the ideation process from consumer learning, to analysis of possibilities, to envisioning the final idea. Working with consumers directly to understand their needs and aspirations is an especially powerful bonding experience that gives the team a common sense of purpose, and creates a shared foundation of facts and feelings. Remove communication barriers. People communicate in different ways, so we do social styles analyses to help people understand how their teammates tend to communicate. Are they a driver, amiable, expressive or analytical? They learn that it is not that Harry is necessarily overb...

There are times when you or your staff are feeling less than inspired but creative problem solving is essential. And there are some people— maybe even you—who fear the blank page or any situation in which they must use their creativity (technical term: getting creative-now-o-phobia). Getting started is often the most difficult part of the creative process. Rather than worrying about the finished project, start by creating sparks. Think of them as embryonic ideas that still need a lot of nurturing before reaching maturity. Don’t worry about the finished project just yet—instead, focus on rough concepts that ultimately can be molded into a final version. HERE are five fun techniques that will help generate creative sparks.