By Nancy Napier | June 4, 2013
I don’t presume to understand what it’s like to be a refugee, forced out of a homeland to move thousands of miles away and start a new life. But I do have an idea of what it means to be an outsider, in lots of settings. And it’s something that more companies may want to cultivate in the future – this sense of outsiderness.
I grew up as an Army brat – lived in nine towns by age 17, went to eight schools, you’ve heard the routine. But for years, I didn’t tell people I’d grown up in the Army. My dad had been in Vietnam before people knew where it was and before the antiwar movement took off, but still, it just wasn’t the thing to talk about for a long time. So when people asked where I was from, they heard: “all over, moved around a lot as a kid.” (more…)
“Around the late 1930′s, a creative Ad man named James Webb Young had a knock on his door from a manager who shared an epiphany that success in advertising comes from selling ideas not things. Despite the manager’s insight, he had one problem, his team didn’t know how to get ideas; they were stuck. So, they came to the successful James Young for ideas on how to get ideas. This encounter led to Young creating a little book called A Technique for Producing Ideas. I recently came across it and was impressed to find some advice that is as relevant today as 70 years ago.”
