“Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” —Theodore Levitt
Pearlfisher New York’s Creative Director, Matt Sia and Head of Strategy, Cait Starke hosted an Innovation Workshop at this year’s SxSW—walking 50 strangers through one (very fake, but very relevant) innovation brief using a “Choose Your Own Adventure” model based on voting.
These are the six key takeaways from the session:
1. Colliding multiple perspectives isn’t just about getting the right people in the room (including the consumer), it can also mean looking at category perspectives—and both can unlock unexpected ideas.
2. Workshopping is the key to innovation—rolling up your sleeves to turn ideas into brand creation and even new-to-world brand launches.
3. To design things right, you need to start by ensuring you’re designing the right thing.
4. Bring in the right inputs to inspire meaningful outputs, aka put good in, get good out.
5. Inspiration and opportunity scoping starts by filling our brains with relevant context, insights, and observations that can inform and excite our thinking.
6. Innovation—much like choosing your own adventure—means never knowing exactly where it will lead you…which is only half the fun!
