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Thinking your way out of a problem

By Patrick Gant

Making the choice to innovate and be creative in your business and in the products or services you offer—it’s a smart move that can can help differentiate in a competitive market. But does it mean you have to balloon your R&D budget or go on an acquisition spree to make it happen? Not necessarily.

Apple has been rolling out game-changing products in steady succession, while keeping their R&D spending at $4.6 billion, or roughly 10% of earnings over the last four years. And as Steve Cheney points out, that’s at odds with the strategy of some of its competitors.

Example: between 2007 and 2010, Microsoft spent a whopping $31 billion—700% that of Apple—on research and development.

Real innovation starts by thinking long and hard about your customers’ problems, about how solutions to those problems are being unmet, and then finding better ways to solve those problems in ways that benefit your customers…first.

iPad acquired

By Patrick Gant

Yes, I could have waited until the Canadian launch, but the pull was just too much for me to resist. I bought my first iPad on the first day it became available.

I ordered mine through the US Apple Store, had it shipped to the UPS Store in Ogdensburg, NY, which is about a half-hour drive for me. Paid my GST & PST, plus the $5 UPS fee and now I’m busy exploring the finer points of how I can use this as a mobile wordcruncher. So far, I must say that it’s looking rather promising.

Photo: Wall Street Journal

Creativity is your engine for growth

By Patrick Gant

Trying to keep up with news from Tom Peters is a lot like trying to read a newswire: you never have to wait long for something new and interesting to pop up. This post is no exception.

Want your organization to be a hothouse of creativity (and of course you do!) Invest in innovation and give your staff the authority to be in the driver’s seat.

Here’s further proof that both Tom and the Gallup study he quotes are on to a great point. Back in 2000–2001, a lot of people in North America were worried about a deepening economic downturn. This was particularly true in the technology sector, where layoffs and cuts to R&D had already become the mainstay.

Not all followed that course, mind you. One firm, which itself had a near-miss with bankruptcy just a few years earlier, decided there was a better way to make the company grow. The CEO announced that rather than shrinking his R&D, he was telling staff to stay put and think big…no holds barred, adding: “We’re going to innovate out of these hard times.”

Many were impressed with that kind of gusto. Others, quite the opposite.

Fast forward to today. That company—Apple—is at the top of its game, thanks to products spearheaded at the beginning of that great innovation push.

Make no mistake: being creative is your engine for growth.

Kickstart the creative

By Patrick Gant

Not everyone believes in writer’s block, but the underlying symptom—ideas and words that suddenly don’t play nicely together—is experienced by even the most prolific writers from time to time. And in my experience, how you deal with it is what makes the difference between being afflicted or just mildly bothered.

One of the better bits of advice I’ve seen about this comes courtesy of 43folders. I’ve been keeping it handy in my ideas folder on my desk, but blogging about it just makes so much more sense.

Let me add a few more tips and elaborate on at least one that they mention:

Cut and paste some text. Find something—anything—and drop it into the document you’re working on. It’s often easier to develop a thought when it’s couched in text rather than a couple of lonely sentences orphaned on an otherwise blank screen.

Write for an audience of six-year olds who had sugar for breakfast, because kids are among the most unforgiving when it comes to buzwords and wordiness. You’ll get to the point in a hurry.

Write something else. On a bad day, I find email is especially helpful because it gets me sitting down and typing. Sometimes all we need is a little push to get the momentum working again.

Go have a shower. I’m being serious, here. Not only will you feel better, but it’s where some of the best ideas can pop into your head. Maybe it’s the isolation and the white walls around you. Who knows? But it works. Heck, Holiday Inn is so convinced of this, they’ve turned this idea into a benefit of choosing them for accomodation for business travel.

Go somewhere else. Grab your notebook—be it one with a pencil or one with a keyboard attached—and get out of the office. Go to the backyard, to a park, or go to a place that offers free wifi. Grab yourself a large cup of something, and then take another kick at the can. Some of my best copywriting ideas have come knocking just by making a change to my thinking environment.

Have some of your own failsafe tips about what to do with the creative turns from warm honey to cold molasses? By all means share!

Handy keyboard shortcuts for the Mac

By Patrick Gant

A client of mine recently made the big switch from PC to Mac and asked me if I had any handy tips vis-a-vis keyboard commands. So without further ado…

There are plenty of them, but for starters here are the ones I use a lot.

command + n = new page
command+ s = save
command + h = hide (very useful but commonly assumed by Windows users that this quits an application, when in fact it leaves the app running in the dock so it can be used again in a hurry)
command + q = quit application
command + i = get info
command + w = close window
command + option + h = hide all other windows
command + shift + a = show the “Applications” folder
command + option + eject = put the Mac to sleep

Exposé
F11= slide all windows to reveal desktop
F12 = launch widgets

Spotlight (search your computer)
command + spacebar = launch spotlight

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