Post-it Modernism

Monday August 21, 2006

Perhaps you’ve read about our Post-it Elvis Mosaic. We’re receiving emails from around the globe. Italy loves the artsy grandeur. Argentina just loves Elvis. Reporters in Korea and England want to do articles on the quirkiness. And best I can tell, the Germans believe we wasted perfectly good office supplies. Unfortunately, I can’t read German that well.

All the messages generally fall into 3 buckets.

“Awesome! Thanks for the inspiration.”
“You obviously work in a place that fosters and appreciates creativity.”
“Did your boss get mad that you used all those Post-it notes?”

One message summed it up best, “I live on Post-its but this is extreme. I love your creativity and only wish I thought of it first.”

Now get this – it was signed “Priscilla.”

Well, ’Cilla hits on the exact reason we did this mosaic in the first place. We needed more inspiration in the room we call the “war room,” a windowless bunker intended for full-contact brainstorming and free thinking. As part of revitalizing this area, I thought we needed to make a big-impact statement to inspire staff and clients while making all visitors say, "This is extraordinary!"

Any person working in communications knows that stellar creativity is often needed to fill the gaps where budget and goals do not meet. After all, we're in the idea business. Big ideas translate into big wins for our clients. In that spirit, I wanted to create a wall-sized mural using the most ordinary materials found in any office.

We must inspire and motivate others.

I believe inspiration for truly original ideas comes from the most unusual places. If you always go to the same creative well, you’ll always get the same result. As people who make their living by inventing original ideas, we need to stay open and sensitive to everything as possible inspiration for a later assignment. We must continuously observe life.

As a frequent lecturer at universities, I usually tell students to donate their copy of Ogilvy on Advertising to Goodwill and instead, tell them to head to the flea market for inspiration. No offense to Mr. Ogilvy, he certainly achieved more than I probably ever will. Rather, my lesson is simple. Make the ordinary extraordinary.

When our office manager Meg Emrich and I talked about this mosaic, I suggested the use of Post-it notes. The original thought was that brainstormers would grab a Post-it note off the wall and jot thoughts as they worked. Now that Elvis is complete, no one wants to remove them.

So, why Elvis?
I asked one of our designers, a fellow Elvis fan, to help bring this to life with some brilliant systematic problem-solving. We immediately decided on a portrait of The King because he's iconic, bigger than life and…well…extraordinary. Exactly the impression I was going for. We worked out the details of color and placement and he was off and running.

Ordinary to extraordinary

For creative problem-solving to remain integral to business, we must stay at the top of our game. We must facilitate smart idea generation wherever and whenever possible. “Post-it Modernism Elvis” is an inexpensive example of the ordinary becoming extraordinary.

First, look around. Aside from a few thousand common Post-it notes, all that’s invested is sheer creative problem-solving. To break through communication clutter, we must realize it’s what we say and how we say it.

Second, strive to create something that you’ve never seen before. That takes passion. Once you get okay with that, ideas will flow like crazy. As one blogger wrote, “That's rather amazing – congrats for not giving up halfway through.”

Finally, good ideas are infectious. Pursue as many as you can. Others will follow your lead.

We created this for our own inspiration. As it turns out, this simple exercise is inspiring people all over and suggestions are flooding in for our next mosaic tribute. In the running: Johnny Cash and Che Guevara. We’ll keep you posted.