Kalle and I have been talking about our creative crossover for years and reflecting on both our similarities in style and our differences. Kalle’s been brought up in large multi-national machines whereas I’ve gravitated more toward small-to-midsize companies and startups. We both love exposure to new ideas. We both love ideation. And beyond those stages, we each relish different aspects of the creative problem solving process.
I remember a long-ago conversation we had at a friend’s house where I was sharing learning from a creative problem solving conference I had attended. Kalle and I had a bit of a debate about how much creativity is innate versus learned. It was probably one of those debates where we were both essentially arguing the same point but I think it was a turning point for both of us.
In late 2021 as Covid restrictions lagged on, we found ourselves revisiting the topic and discussing the opportunity to bring more creative practice into the business world. We did a bit of spitballing ideas — maybe we could do a podcast, a blog, a vlog…or maybe, if we were even more ambitious, we could write a book.
On the morning of Tuesday, January 18, 2022, we met in my kitchen after school drop off and we developed a schedule, outlined some initial thoughts and we were out of the starting blocks. We put some tangible measures in place to ensure we were not just feeding our egos in this undertaking but genuinely filling a gap in the market. Our research was eye opening; we found that there are a lot of books about innovation and many about creativity but none really hit the sweet spot for us. They lacked some of the key components that we each have enjoyed in our workplaces: creative practise hardwired into every day business practise, creativity in teams, creativity given equal measure alongside productivity. Are we on to something? We’d like to think so.
Kalle and I also quickly learned that we have similar ways of working (and procrastinating at times). We agreed to be our mutual accountability partners for this journey because writing a book is a hard slog and it takes discipline and creating good habits (and maybe breaking some bad ones).
We are both incredibly fortunate to have deep and wide creative networks and we have leveraged those networks and their wisdom to feed into our work. This started with primary research which we conducted among 300+ creative business people from all over the world but these discussions continue as we explore, more deeply, how creative people work and apply creativity to their work, their teams and their day-to-day lives. We look forward to sharing these discussions with you along the way.
If you’ve read this far down, you’re already a part of this journey with us and we thank you. Regardless of where this takes us, it’s already been an incredible experience in mutual self discovery and I can’t wait to see where it takes us next.