According to Brand Republic more than half (55%) of senior marketers are too busy to provide creative input into their own campaigns. Whether this is because they are too busy, don’t want to get involved or maybe even because they don’t know how?

After attending #Inspireldn hosted by Digital Doughnut here in London, we thought we would distill some of the great nuggets of insight shared on the day to help inspire you to get involved in the creative process.

Considering the power of a good creative idea and how reliant the success of a campaign often is on having one, we feel that you just cannot afford to place creativity in the “too hard basket” and make it someone else’s problem - even if you work with a creativity agency! 

Over the next week we will be sharing the 4 steps - here is number 1 to whet your appetite:

1. BE CURIOUS. SEE WHAT OTHERS DON’T.

Being truly creative is not about isolated revolutionary thinking aimed at reinventing the wheel, it is about being able to make connections and see patterns. Some of the best creative ideas are often just simple combinations of existing things, which work together to create something new.

As children we have the inherent ability to see connections and patterns more clearly as we are able to see the world from a more relaxed and objective perspective. As time poor adults, blinkered with what’s in front of us, often failing to see the bigger picture, we must actively work at honing this skill.

Dave Birss, founder of marketing agency Additive recommends taking a creative generalist approach by constantly feeding your mind with information and being genuinely curious about everything around you. He says ideas are everywhere, like dots waiting to be connected. We just need to see the connections.

Check out Dave’s latest book “A user guide to the creative mind” for more interesting tips on how you can approach problems in different ways and take the right steps to ensure you strike that moment of creative genius you’re looking for.  http://userguidetothecreativemind.com/

A useful tool that we use to stay informed and genuinely curious is Feedly.com check allowing you to get a constant news feed of all your favourite interest areas all in one place. Check it out. www.feedly.com/