You Are My Inspiration. You Are My Creativity.

At least, that's what Lady Gaga told the stadium crowd in Singapore Tuesday night.

Sharing some thoughts with Singapore's Little Monsters
Where does your Creatives' inspiration come from? If they're pure artists, it may come from within, but in the commercial world, much of it comes from your customers.

That's not as bad as it might sound at first. If you take the view of your customers that they aren't just sacks of money to be mined, but instead are your partners in the creative process, then it's a lot more fun.

First of all, your customers may tell you what they want. That gives your Creatives some direction. It's like a hairstylist asking you, "so, what are we doing today?" It's not that they aren't talented, it's just that they know you've got to be happy with the final result, and you may have some idea what you want, so they want to incorporate that into the final design.

Of course, to be truly creative, you probably don't want to rely too much on people telling you what they want, since if they know what they want, it probably isn't something truly new. That doesn't mean you ignore your customers, though, it just means you look to them for something else; telling you, perhaps, what they DON'T want. By providing some boundaries around your thinking you can still come up with something completely new that lies in the realm of the practical, and the commercial.

There are lots of ways this could play out, with increasing levels of interaction. It could be as simple as that hairstylist's one-on-one conversation, or monitoring different social media channels, or a series of focus groups that your marketing department oversees, or a crowdsourcing movement. The point is, by opening up your creative process to your customers' input, you stand to increase the value your customers get, and ultimately, the value you get, too.

One tricky part might be identifying who your true customers are, and whose opinion you should be soliciting. Sure, in lots of cases it's easy to see: the people who hand you money and take your product are your customers. But who are, say, Facebook's customers? Is it the advertisers who buy ad placement on their site? Is it the companies who buy consumer data from them? or is it the hundreds of millions of users who don't pay anything to use it, but whose participation and loyalty is essential to success (just ask MySpace about that). Everyone's views might not be equal; part of your job is to figure out to whom you should be listening the most.

Much of Lady Gaga's music tends to relate pretty closely to specific segments of her fan base, and her philanthropic efforts such as her Born This Way Foundation, suggest she really is tuned in to what they're feeling and experiencing. Are you as connected with your customers?

(We'll be back to the lessons from the London visit on Friday. I just wanted to write this while my ears are still ringing from the concert.)

What Do You Miss?

In London last week I was chatting with a Creative-in-training, a student from Singapore who's now finishing his first year at the University of the Arts. I asked him, "what was the biggest transition when you moved here last year?" I expected him to say something like "the weather," "the food," "being a minority," or something else that would mark a difference between Singapore and London.

His answer? "Missing my family."

My mistake. When I asked him the question I already had potential answers in mind, but I realize now they were based on my own experience of moving from the US to Singapore. Even though I know how important family connections are in Singaporean culture (and his family ties seem even tighter, probably because it sounds like he has a pretty cool mom), I was looking at things through my own American lens.

As your talent pool grows to include the entire world, you'll have more and more international Creatives coming to work for you. Yours may be the first foreign company for which they've worked, or they may be living in a new country for the first time, and it helps if you try to understand what they're going through when they make that jump. The key is to understand what they are going through, not what you would be going through. When you talk to them about their experiences and learn what their needs are, try to put aside your own perspective and really listen.

This isn't the first time an American has walked in with the wrong perception about what's important. I learned something in London that I wish I'd realized more clearly when I was a professor and had international students of my own. Your Creatives' priorities are likely to be different from your priorities, so even though you might not be thinking of things from their point of view, at least try not to limit yourself to your own POV. The same goes for Creatives from your own country, of course, but I think it's especially important when working with people from others.

Pip Pip, and All That

The LeadingCreatives crew is back from London (though some of us are in Kuala Lumpur today, with a trip to Hong Kong still to come this weekend). While in the UK we met some Creatives (and caught one in the act on a West End stage!) and will be sharing what we learned from them. Until then, have a good weekend!