THE JOURNAL
Illustration by Mr Paul Reid
New book Creative Superpowers explains how to be the ultimate Ideas Man.
Hacking isn’t limited to computers and US presidential elections. According to the book Creative Superpowers, which includes contributions from an Avengers-like assembly of real-life Tony Starks, anything and everything can be hacked: growth, culture, cost efficiency, profitability, productivity, innovation, brains, wellbeing, life.
Hence why the book’s compilers – a team of editors from Creative Social, a club for leaders from the worlds of agencies, brands and startups – identify hacking as one of four special abilities that will make you a “creative superhero” in the frenetically updating 21st-century workplace. (The other three are making, teaching and thieving.) Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Ideas Man, here to rescue yet another stultified meeting. Plus, you can learn how to repel the evil robots when they try to steal your job in a few years’ time, assuming it still exists by then.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “hack” as to “cut with rough and heavy blows”, which is effectively what hackers do. They’re always looking for ways to improve, incrementally and often innovatively, which is how we arrive at “life hack”, a term that, according to the book, was coined at a 2004 technology conference to describe shortcuts taken by time-crunched IT professionals. The editors write: “Hacking is a continuous process and ultimately reflects a state of mind.”
To help you think like a hacker, MR PORTER has compressed and downloaded a few key points from Creative Superpowers – hacking hacks, if you will. Black hats at the ready.
Uninstall your security
Having hacked culture at technology companies Tandberg Data and Cisco, Ms Annicken R Day, founder of consultancy Corporate Spring, advocates removing all those cyber restrictions. By not implementing cost control at Tandberg, for example, employees felt trusted and even competed with each other to find the cheapest travel and accommodation. Similarly, Netflix instructs staff to act responsibly in the company’s “best interests” and leaves it at that. Its exemplary 125-slide PowerPoint presentation on culture has been read by more than 18 million people. Ms Day also cites the policy, common in Silicon Valley, of unlimited holiday, which doesn’t tend to result in more time being taken off but does increase employees’ sense of empowerment and, counterintuitively, productivity.
Don’t clear your cache
Hackers are resourceful, but not resource heavy. Mr Ravi Deshpande, founder and chairman of communications agency Whyness Worldwide, equates hacking to the Indian practice of jugaad or frugal innovation. Examples range from MacGyver-esque small-town tailors who incorporate measuring tape onto their scissors so they don’t waste time measuring the fabric first, to the Narayana Hrudayalaya Heart Hospital in Bangalore, where cutting open patients’ chests costs a tenth what it does in the US but rivals US results, thanks to economies of scale. India’s 2014 Mars Orbiter Mission cost $74m, which as prime minister Mr Nerandra Modi mischievously noted, was less than the film Gravity. If you don’t have the budget, what can you afford? What can you do that doesn’t cost anything?
Reroute your server
To decrypt real creativity, hack your mind. The best, most outside-the-box ideas come not on demand during scheduled brainstorms but when you’re showering or bathing, walking or running. As Mr Hugh Garry, director at Brighton-based content studio Storythings explains, that’s because your pre-frontal cortex, which normally focuses attention and filters out random thoughts, sleeps on the unengaging job, allowing your unconscious mind to wander and make previously unseen connections. Apart from doing something boring, Mr Garry recommends mess and noise. Studies show that visual stimulation and a moderate level of ambient sound, such as the low hum of a coffee shop, help to summon the muse.
