Be creative, be a troublemaker

This was according to the key note speaker at the Nedbank Digital Edge Live 2014, Tom Kelley, of IDEO and best-selling author of the Art of Innovation and 10 Faces of Innovation. The conference, with the theme Go Do Good took place this week at Vodaworld in Gauteng.

Go beyond the data

Kelley outlined design thinking as the key to unlocking creativity. According to him design thinking requires three parts:

• Starting with empathy
  
• Experiments to learn
  
• Choice architecture

"Always start with empathy and understand the people in your equation. Start with humans and figure out how your service/product applies to them, then embrace it."

He says to find a way to go beyond the data; instead go to the latent human needs. "Go out into the field, do not just accept the data you receive across your desk. Companies need to understand people more deeply and therefore they must look beyond the surface. What marketers must do is find the real story."

Tell the story of your company in simplest, quickest and cheapest manner he says. "Find the way to get to the yes. Do not waste time if you can get to your intended result quicker."

Panel discussions

Four panel discussions were hosted by the conference. The first asked the panellists: What are the biggest challenges facing marketing in the next five years and comprised Brett Morris, CEO FCB SA, Arthur Goldstuck, founder World Wide Worx, Fran Luckin, Executive Creative Director, Quirk Jozi, Pepe Marais, founding member, Joe Public, and Pete Case, founder, Gloo.

The discussion centred largely on big data and the panellists agreed that most agencies and marketers know what Big Data is, but they are battling to get to grips with it.

"Big data is a catch phrase and no one knows what to do with it. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to interpret it," says Luckin.

Marais was of the opinion that marketers should spend less time on data and more time on ideas. "Everything starts with ideas. The big idea still carries more weight for me than big data. We need to move back to what we actually do and spend time on ideas and then dictate how to use these on technology and devices. Not the other way around."

The second panel debated: "Is advertising still a valid voice in society?" and included Justin Gomes, ECD and co-founder of FoxP2, Jon Ratcliffe, agency relationship manager at Google South Africa, Vincent Mather, Chief Innovation Officer at Kagiso Media, and Luvuyo Mandela, social entrepreneur, Tyathumzi.

It was concluded that while it is harder for brands to be valid today and that to be successful they have to work much harder, brands that do work harder get the attention and reap the benefits. Brands will have to earn their place in the future. Already overseas brands only pay on certain channels if a viewer watches their complete advertisement. Brands will have to earn the time of the user to watch their ads.

Go Do Good

The panel of Ian Calvert, Red Bull Amaphiko, Zakheni Ngubo, Syafunda, Andrew Human, CEO Loerie Awards and Gavin Weale, Livity Africa MD, examined what companies should be doing to make the world a better place. Calvert says companies need to go back to the old fashioned systems of being a patron, while Ngubo said organisations should find what they are good at and then do that.

Has digital fundamentally changed the relationship between consumers and brands asked the last panel of the day. Adrian Hewitt, CEO Machine, believes digital has presented us with access to brands and created opportunities we previously never had, while Helene Lindsay, Head of Strategy, New Media says the problem lies between the promise and the delivery. "We have embraced digital as a channel. It is not a channel, but a way of life."

A highlight of the day was writer and activist Jillian Riley, who says the world needs more troublemakers. Riley held the audience's undivided attention as she took them on her journey as a "do gooder" to the realisation that she needs to be more of a troublemaker if she is to truly bring about change in other people's lives.

"Nelson Mandela at his essence was a troublemaker. If only I was a troublemaker when it mattered most. If this country is to realise what it is then it needs more troublemakers. Accept that the reality is that doing good should and cannot always feel good. Do good, go and make some trouble."

*Adobe State of Create Study