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Remember Mother's Day - Sunday,
May 12 (USA)
As you dash through the airport, finish a client meeting
or sell that next project, don't forget that Mother's
Day in the United States is Sunday, May 12.
The annual custom of honoring mothers has been a tradition
for thousands of years. In our time, people all over
the world honor mothers, although it's not always on
the same day or in the same way. Mother's Day is the
second Sunday in May in the U.S. and many other countries.
In Norway, it's in February, and Lebanon celebrates
Mother's Day on the first day of spring. In India, Hindus
have a 10-day festival in early October to honor the
Mother Goddess. Whenever it takes place, Mother's Day
is a special occasion to remember YOUR mother.
And, to quote Mom, CLOSE THE DOOR, you don't live in
a barn!
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 Cracking
Creativity with Michael Michalko
From U.S. Army Officer to creativity expert may not
seem a logical leap. But, Michael Michalko made that
leap. While in the Service, Michalko organized a team
of NATO intelligence specialists and academics to research
and collect all known inventive-thinking methods.
After leaving the Service, Michalko went on to become
the highly acclaimed author of Thinkertoys
(A Handbook of Business Creativity), ThinkPak
(A Brainstorming Card Set), and Cracking Creativity
(The Secrets of Creative Genius).
We asked Michalko to show consultants how to use the
creative-thinking strategies of geniuses. In this interview,
he does just that, and offers innovative solutions to
problems consultants face every day. The entire interview
is posted on the site. Read
the interview
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Meet the MasterMinds - A
MCNews Interview with Mark Brownlow
 If
you're using an email newsletter to reach your market,
Mark Brownlow, the author of the Keeping
the Key Report
and owner of the Email
Marketing Reports website, can help.
He's published, written or edited nearly 1,000 newsletter
issues, and authored almost 200 articles on email publications
and online marketing.
In this exclusive interview with MCNews, Mark reveals
how you can capture the hearts and minds of your readers
more quickly, profitably, and for the long haul. The
entire interview is posted on the site.
Read the interview
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This Month's Featured MasterMind
Words From the Wizard
of Aha's: A Conversation with Jordan Ayan
 Jordan
Ayan, dubbed the "Wizard of Aha's" by Creativity
Guru, Roger von Oech, is not only the founder of Create-It!
Inc., a Chicago-based consulting firm, but he's also
an entrepreneur, speaker and author of the book Aha!
10 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great
Ideas, which is a here's-how guide that every
consultant can use.
Ayan sat down with MCNews and shared his view
that,
in our increasingly complex industry,
"…creativity
will become one of the most important personal
and business
strategies for survival and success."
MCNews: Are there common myths about
creativity?
J. Ayan: One of the most common myths
is that only certain people are creative, while others
are not creative, but are better at execution and the
operational end of things. Nothing is further from the
truth: everyone has far more creative capability than
they realize.
People often think of creativity as artistic, and
not
business-oriented…the soft side of an
organization.
I believe that's another myth, because
creativity is
the area from which the most profitable growth
in any
organization will come.
MCNews: Management Consultants are
often asked to be creative on demand. How do you
tap
your creative side when you have a deadline, and
what
are the most common barriers to creativity under
pressure?
J. Ayan: My creative side is often more
active under deadline pressure than when I've
got plenty
of time. It's certainly nice to have lots of
free time
for thinking, but then you're not necessarily
focused
on achieving something specific. Having a
deadline gives
me an artificial barrier within which I've got
to do
my thinking. I have to step back, and say, Ok,
I've
only got X number of hours, days or weeks to
complete
this work, so how am I going to think about it
differently
so I can create the result the client needs
within the
deadline?
A common barrier to creativity, especially in
consulting, is that we tend to rely on what's
worked
before. While it's easy to rely on a similar
solution to one used before, you're not
necessarily
looking at that problem with a new set of eyes,
but
just going back to something that's worked
before.
You can build on experience, which is a great benefit
when you have a deadline. But, there's an even greater
benefit to be realized if you can take that experience
and explore how you might expand, change or contract
it to take a new direction.
MCNews: Is it possible that some people's
experience…the fact that they've seen it all
before…can
make them lazy?
J. Ayan: I think very much so. For a
time, I accepted some projects to review
proposals from
major consulting companies…to look at them and
ask…how
realistic is this? When I looked at proposals
for two
different clients, they were almost identical in
structure
and design. So, I think it's very easy to take
what's
worked and put a different spin on it…or
sometimes not
even to spin it…and take it in to another
client.
Every problem, even though it looks the same,
is different. If you really want to be
successful
in consulting, you can't just take what you've
learned
and put a new spin on it; you must dig into the
depths
of your knowledge and form it in a new way.
MCNews: How do clients these days evaluate
the ideas contributed by consultants?
J. Ayan: Today, clients are looking for
more than unique solutions and ideas;
increasingly,
they are searching for solutions that add
tangible value
to the organization…ideas that work as well in
reality
as they do on paper. I've said for many years
that an
idea without action is just a thought. So, it's
imperative
these days to help people execute ideas, as
opposed
to just providing ideas.
MCNews: You developed the concept of the
"Idea Journal." What is it, and how can
a
consultant use one?
J. Ayan: There are different methods,
but it is critical to have some process for recording
your ideas. Linus Pauling, one of the great scientists
of the 20th century, found that if you don't capture
an idea within 10 minutes of the point it pops into
your head, your odds of losing that idea skyrocket.
The greatest thinkers, inventors and creators in history
regularly captured their thoughts in some form of journal.
You need to come up with a system that works for
you…recording
on a Dictaphone, entering in a database program,
or
physically writing ideas down in a book. But,
that's
really only the first step. A lot of people are
good
at capturing their ideas, but then they don't go
back
to comb through those ideas, tweak them in
different
ways, take some action on an idea, or apply it
to a
project. Sometimes when you are stuck on a
problem,
just thumbing through your Idea Journal can
provide
a breakthrough.
MCNews: If you're looking at a very
tough problem, and can't see the answer clearly,
what's
your best technique for unlocking your brain?
J. Ayan: I take a shower…I have
my best ideas in the shower. Matter of fact,
I had a second water heater installed in my
house so
I could take longer showers. In the shower, I
use a
waterproof writing device…like scuba divers
use…to capture
my ideas, and then make a copy later in the
office.
Brainstorming with others is a standard, but very
effective
technique I use a lot, including bringing in
outside
people with a totally different perspective.
MCNews: What's on your reading list
right now?
J. Ayan: Four books come to mind:
The
Age of Spiritual Machines, by Ray Kurzweil,
an outstanding book about where we're going next with
computers, and what happens when they exceed human intelligence;
Free
Agent Nation, by Daniel Pink, talks about
independent workers and how they are changing the way
we live; Thriving
in 24/7, by Sally Helgesen, offers strategies
for finding equilibrium in the new world of work; and,
Survival
is Not Enough, by Seth Godin, borrows from
evolutionary biology to develop great new ideas for
business survival.
MCNews: Can you tell us a little about
your most recent venture?
J. Ayan: I've launched a new business
to help clients with the heavy lifting of email marketing.
Our service allows any client to develop and send eye-catching,
content rich email newsletters with ease. Check it out
at www.pointclicksend.com.
MCNews: Thanks for your insightful
comments. You can reach Jordan at Jordan@Create-it.com
.
Comment
about this interview
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A Note to Hotmail and Yahoo
Readers
We've heard that some links on this newsletter (and
others) don't work correctly from Hotmail accounts.
If you have this difficulty, you can easily access all
the information shown here by visiting the site at www.ManagementConsultingNews.com
.
We also know that some of the great newsletter navigation
features we've got don't work well with Yahoo. You can
solve the problem by simply scrolling up and down the
newsletter.
If other readers have any difficulty with formatting
or other problems, please let us know. If you'd prefer
a text version of the newsletter, we'd be happy to send
one along.
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This Month in History
Dr. John S. Pemberton sold the first Coca-Cola
on May 8, 1886, at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta,
Georgia. Bookkeeper Frank Robinson coined the name and
it is his handwriting we recognize as the Coca-Cola
trademark. Until 1905, the drink, marketed as a tonic,
contained extracts of cocaine as well as the caffeine-rich
kola nut.
* * * * *
On May 1, 1931, with the press of a button in Washington,
D.C., President Herbert Hoover turned on the lights
of the Empire State Building. This event officially
opened the edifice, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and
34th Street in New York City, to the public. At 102
stories, it reigned as the world's tallest skyscraper
until 1954.
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Coming Attractions
Next month, the MasterMind series continues with a spotlight
on marketing your consulting services. We'll bring you
exclusive interviews with Jay Conrad Levinson, renowned
author and originator of Guerrilla Marketing,
and Doug Hall, best-selling author of Jump Start
Your Business Brain. Jay and Doug will bring
their marketing know-how to the challenges of marketing
services in this ferocious market.
We'll also continue to explore creativity in an exclusive
interview with Michael Gelb, best-selling author of
Discover Your Genius and How to
Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. Gelb will tell
us what we can learn from Christopher Columbus about
getting projects approved more quickly.
Also, watch for our report on the IMC (Institute of
Management Consultants) Annual Conference that took
place May 2-4, 2002. We had a roving reporter on site
to bring you the highlights from Houston.
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The End Page
"Now this is not the end. It is not
even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the
end of the beginning." - Winston Churchill
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Management Consulting News ISSN 1539-2481,
Washington, DC, USA
Copyright © 2002 Management
Consulting News All rights reserved
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