Here you’ll find relevant use cases for Ideasicle X. Articles on the art of generating ideas while working remotely. Insights and studies into creativity itself. All from the desk of our founder and CEO, Will Burns.
I’ve known Roger Baldacci for almost 20 years now. I invited him to be an Ideasicle Expert because he’s a brilliant concept guy, has ridiculous energy, he sees the world differently than most (bring up anything paranormal and watch him go), and he’s a great collaborator. Well, he recently trained and ran a Spartan race and I thought the process he went through said a lot about who he is as a person and what he might bring to an Ideasicle X project.
Read MoreJust this month our crack developer team added some exciting new functionality to the Ideasicle X platform. If you haven’t heard, customers told us they wanted a division of labor with the implementation of idea jobs, as follows:
Organizer: sets up the idea jobs
Idea Director: monitors the team’s ideas within the Idea Stream
Observers: can view the Idea Streams but can’t engage with the teams in any way
Today, I want to share a deeper dive on these roles, what to expect, and how each can add as much value as possible to the idea-generating process.
Read MoreWe are thrilled to announce a new feature to the Ideasicle X platform that will give Organizers of idea projects the power to invite Observers (view only) and Idea Directors (full permissions) to each idea project. Virtually every beta tester and recent customer has brought this up to us as a need (thank you, 180/NY, White Rhino, North, and Lucky Generals, for your suggestions). Here’s what this new feature means for Ideasicle X users.
Read MoreOkay, this study is almost embarrassing to humanity, but is super useful in our collective struggle against fear and doubt. It's from Lior Noy and Liron Rozenkrantz at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and it suggests that the placebo effect not only works for physical ailments, but as a way to increase our creativity. This study reveals the subtle and frail nature of creativity, but also reveals how we can overcome our own insecurities.
Read MoreBy now anyone who’s got even a faint interest in the Beatles has seen Peter Jackson’s incredible documentary, “Get Back.” Being a bit of a Beatles nut, I’ve now seen it five times and I notice something different in it every time. But there’s an important theme in the narrative that is instructive for creative teamwork—in teams of four. When Paul tries to tell his three bandmates what to do, what to play, what to sing, he suffocates the group dynamic that made the Beatles the Beatles.
Read MoreCreativity can’t be forced. In fact, sometimes the harder you try the more ideas seem to allude you. I heard a story that John Lennon badly wanted to write a song for his new son, Sean. He tried and tried but couldn’t come up with anything he liked. John Lennon! So he gave up. And of course no sooner did he give up than the song “Beautiful Boy” came to him. Creativity isn’t linear or predictable. Its magic is clumsy. But if we know that going in we can increase the odds of ideas.
Read MoreTwitter is a minefield of flame throwers, harsh criticism, and downright bullying. People say things on Twitter (or other social media) they would never say to someone’s face. What is it about “virtualness” that brings out the worst in us? Especially because my experience is that the virtual nature of Ideasicle X is really good for creativity. But after reading Professor of Psychology at Rider University, John Suler's, The Psychology of Cyberspace, I believe both the vitriol of Twitter and the magic of virtual idea generation are caused by precisely the same thing. A little thing called “online disinhibition.”
Read MoreI’ve presented thousands of ideas in hundreds of presentations over the last 12 years with Ideasicle. Sometimes I leave the presentation excited and motivated to do more, other times I want to smash all my Beatles records. You could say I have pretty thick skin at this point. So today I’m going to reflect on how I think clients can review other people’s ideas without inadvertently ruining everything.
Read MoreReviewing brand ideas as a team exposes latent, fundamental disagreements within the leadership team. These disagreements will likely come out eventually, even without a brand idea process. And the longer these issues remain latent, the bigger the conflicts will be when they do finally come out. But here’s the thing. Reviewing several tangible brand ideas as a leadership team has the magical ability of getting it all out on the table now.
Read MoreThe creative power of advertising holding companies looks great on paper. But to what degree does this “paper power” translate to real, tangible benefits to the clients who buy into the promised depth of resources within a holding company? What I know for sure is that a holding company deploying a virtual idea-generating platform like Ideasicle X could bring specialized “super teams” together across multiple held agencies for any given local client need or pitch.
Read MoreIt’s one thing to come up with an idea. Doing so requires hard work, perseverance, and an open mind. But it’s quite another to recognize an idea as great. In fact, I’d argue recognizing a great idea is as important a skill as coming up with the idea in the first place. So I asked a few of my well-oiled advertising friends to chime in and tell me how THEY know an idea is great.
Read MoreAccording to IBIS World, there are 417,827 marketing consultants in the United States in 2022, ranging from pure-play client-side consultants to subject-matter experts to freelance creative people to everything inbetween. How does a consultant differentiate from the other 417,826 consultants out there? By augmenting their offering with big ideas using Ideasicle X, that’s how.
Read MoreWhether you’re a traditional ad agency, in-house agency, or a marketer running a marketing department, you’re always looking to use your own people for as much as possible. You want to avoid the expense of hiring freelance help, there’s no learning curve with your existing staff, and it just plain feels more “pure” to use your own people. But there are times when outsourcing ideas makes good business sense. Here are three.
Read MoreWe are giving away 5 one-year subscriptions to our idea generating platform. Ideasicle X is all about ideas, right? Lots of ideas and really great ideas. So we thought we’d highlight that fact with what we’re calling the “Bad Ideas Lead To Great Ones Challenge.” Check it out and try to win.
Read MoreI remember reading the appeal from a Ukraine advertising agency to creative people the world over for the first time. Reading the words from this Ukrainian advertising creative person asking for ideas to help stop World War 3 really hit home for me, as I bet it did with many in our business. It was billed as “The most important brief ever” and man were they right. Here I am running and idea-generating platform! I had to contribute to this calling. And now I want to share the entire process with you, including the ideas.
Read MoreBeen pitching Ideasicle X to agencies constantly lately. I can’t tell you how many agencies have the following reaction to the platform: “It’s so refreshing that you’re forcing the team to focus on the big idea and not on the execution.” Apparently agency teams get too executional with their ideas too quickly instead of getting the idea right first. Having been in the virtual-idea business for ten years, I thought it was obvious that you needed a big idea first AND THEN execute it. But I guess not. And I have some thoughts as to why this may be happening.
Read More…After studying another powerful force, creativity, and how/when inspiration strikes, I think differently about Tarot cards. Not that I don’t think they work, they definitely do. But I’ve rethought why they work. It’s less that the cards retain some mystical, magical force and more that we are paying attention and actively looking for connections.
Read MoreWe call ourselves a “SaaS,” or a software as a service, because it’s technically true. But what’s lost in that categorization is the role human beings play in our company’s purpose. It’s not an “idea machine,” which would suggest an artificial intelligence pumping out ideas. No, Ideasicle X is a machine whose purpose is to increase the odds of human intelligence happening. And that intelligence is anything but artificial. What follows are the ways our software platform is designed to be in continuous service to the real (and very human) heroes.
Read MoreRebecca Armstrong (CEO) and Mark Ray (CCO) run North, a creative advertising agency located in Portland, Oregon. They recently conducted a trial of Ideasicle X and I asked them about their experience via an email interview. And I’m glad I did. Here’s what they said.
Read MoreIdeasicle X is a new platform and, as such, is still open to interpretation. It’s exciting, really. We hope to see customers using it in ways we never expected. But also because it’s new, our agency customers are still getting used to the platform. And we see three common mistakes made that are easily avoided in order to maximize every idea-generating job.
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