Collective inspiration with Steve Henry

Another week over, and I need to get my Friday blog out of the way. As is my wont, I have a couple of blog posts lined up, but I wanted to talk about the energy I felt this afternoon.

No point boring anyone with the exact details, but essentially, it was Steve Henry (creator of the Tango ads and the finest Pot Noodle ad ever), Marc the SCA 2.0 Dean, and a collection of advertising students talking about photography, washing powder, and banking. And the rate at which valuable ideas and thoughts were spilling from everyone's lips was like no conversation I'd been in before.

I came out of it thinking we could have seriously revolutionised banking. Maybe we haven't. Or maybe what we thought up could work, but no-one will be brave enough to hear us out and give it a go. But that isn't necessarily the point.

The point is that we were using our brains. We were feeding off each other - each idea was never one we'd stored in our heads and waiting to say, it was an expansion of the previous idea, or a lateral thought that took it somewhere new.

Because for all the talk of how creativity can be nurtured, and situations deliberately created to make it happen, I've remained just a little sceptical - especially as my best ideas have tended to be moments of solo inspiration. But today, for the first time, I really saw how it can work.