The paa of creativity speaks

PANJIM (GOA), INDIA: In a day packed with many sessions and panels on innovation, at C-Change 2010 here today, a man came and showed why theres is still “cheeni kum” in the innovation process of the industry.

This emperor of creativity came, spoke and conquered everyone's attention and sent ripples of fresh energy all across.

Be interesting. That was the punchline with which R. Balki, the chief creative officer, Lowe Lintas, won a thunderous applause today. And that rule applies everywhere in any aspect of work, life and in any industry.

In fact, as it appears, all the more so in an industry like IT. In his own words, “Heads turn and people notice you when you are interesting. You get noticed only if you are interesting.”

Another secret that he shared was to break the direction. As he illustrated with some interesting ads done under his aegis, is to break the direction.

“Don't follow patterns, or do the obvious”, is what came out. He made a strong and engaging selling point. “Break the clutter”. Balki also cited some IT ads that he finds interesting - like that of Apple Lenovo and IBM.

And before anyone could argue, that such stuff is easier to do in advertising, than in IT, he made some interesting confessions as a creative person. Balki told that there are not always 'eureka' settings, beaches or poetic views around for germination of good ideas and most of them strike in boring settings when the mind is pushed to work and think.

Understandably, he drew a lot of laughs, nods and questions from CIOs. Answering one such question on whether creativity is always the flash of life, he said, “You need some discipline even in a field of creativity. But yes, what is really important is to stay resilient and not give up when on a discovery of ideas.”

Truly, only something that Balki could teach!