Centre Pompidou: The source of inspiration for a line of Nike athletic footwear
The New York Time's Magazine recent issue on the big ideas of 2007 got me thinking about our sources for new business models, products, services, strategies, and tactics. Do our ideas come from familiar places or unexpected sources? Is it possible to look for them or do we have to stumble upon them, and when we do find them, do we know how to apply them?
And more appropriately for the purposes of this blog, how can social media help us find the inspiration we need?
For me, I regularly read a list of blogs and publications that discuss advertising, marketing and public relations. Their content is highly useful, infinitely practical, often insightful, but inspirational is a tough one.
Beyond creating an echo chamber, the web allows us to tailor our news through bookmarks, tags and RSS feeds. The good news is that we can concentrate information and focus on news we can use and points of view we support. The bad news is that it promotes insularity. We become niche focused and lose our ability to see the macro. It limits our exposure to different ways of thinking and topics unrelated to our professions. What we save in time, we can lose in diversity and variety.
Inspiration: Just Do It
It is hard to be inspired when we stay in our comfort zone. Inspiration is unanticipated. When we stumble upon it, it's liberating. It frees us from conventional thinking and allows us to break free from the steady flow of familiar ideas. Hitting us like a two by four, inspiration alters our world view. Once inspired, we can't imagine a world that came before.
Take Nike's CEO Mark Parker. In a word, he is inspirational. I was struck by a passage of a cover profile in the Wall Street from earlier this fall.
Mr. Parker later worked on signature brands such as the Air Pegasus running shoe. His breakthrough came in 1987 with the invention of the "Visible Air," which showed off the hidden cushioning system of Nike's successful Air Max line. The new idea came after fellow designer Tinker Hatfield visited the Centre Pompidou, the controversial Parisian art museum where gas and electric lines are exposed on the exterior. The two decided to cut away at the shoe's sole, revealing its innards in a new futuristic way.
From interior design, cuisine, art and music. Parker finds inspiration in places that few marketers of athletic footwear dare to tread. Mr. Parker is a visionary; I include myself in the "everybody else" category. I marvel at his ability to make connections where others don't, just as I marvel at scientists who examine the life of bees to better understand human communications and the movements of ants to explain network theory.
Where is your Centre Pompidou?
So where is your Centre Pompidou? Where do you draw your inspiration - from your peers or somewhere else?
This is not a trick question. The choice is not binary. It is critical to engage our peers, share ideas and draw on their thinking and recommendations. It is also important to stretch ourselves and immerse ourselves in blogs unrelated to our profession. (Candidly, I need to leave my comfort zone more often.)
The collaborative nature of the Web gives us a platform to seek out different ways of thinking. By tapping its diversity, we can connect with viewpoints that challenge our assumptions and take us in new directions.
The Web has the power to not only bring together people from different parts of the world; it has the potential to connect neighbors with different perspectives. We can seek out discussion groups or we can create forums for open discussion to identify new ways to address old problems. Need an example. Dell's Ideastorm. It has become a place for Dell to tap the collective knowledge of its customers and consider ideas from an outsider's perspective.
The Mark Parker's of the world will continue to inspire us. They seem heroic. They stand apart. But it can be lonely out there. Fortunately, the Web has the capacity to do some of our heavy lifting -- introducing us to new ideas and new people with a click of a mouse. The Web connects us and can bring us closer together.
That's a little comforting this time of year. So as we enter the new year and make our new year's resolutions, let's venture outside our comfort zone. The results may be inspiring.
Let me get back to you.
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