Unit 3. Creativity in marketing thinking

Warm-up

Are You Left or Right Brained?

Tick whichever answer applies most to you in the following 23 questions and work out your score. Then answer question 23, ticking as many answers as you want. Look at the results on page 91

1. You are confronted with a problem. Do you:

a) go for a walk and mull solutions over, then discuss them?

b) write down all the options, arrange priorities, and pick the best answer?

c) recall past experiences that were successful and implement them?

d) wait to see if things get better?

2. Daydreaming is:

a) just a waste of time;

b) amusing and relaxing;

c) very helpful in problem solving and creative thinking;

d) a viable tool for planning the future.

3. About hunches:

a) I often have strong ones and follow them.

b) I have strong hunches but don't consciously follow them.

c) 1 occasionally have hunches but don't place much faith in them.

d) I wouldn't rely on them to help me make important decisions.

4. How do you plan your day?

a) I make a list of all the things I need to do and the people 1 need to see.

b) I picture all the places I will go, people I'll see, things I'll do.

c) I just let it happen.

d) I make a schedule, blocking out appropriate times for each activity.

5. Do you have a systematic approach to doing things and organizing information?

a) yes. b) no.

6. Do you frequently change the decor of your home?

a) yes;

b) no.

7. Do you learn athletics and dancing by:

a) imitating, getting the feel of the game or the music?

b) learning the theory and repeating the steps mentally?

8. In sports or public performance do you tend to do better when people

are watching you?

a) yes;

b) no.

9. Do you express yourself well when speaking?

a) yes;

b) no.

10. Are you goal-oriented?

a) yes;

b) no.

11. When you want to remember things do you:

a) visualize the information?

b) write notes?

c) repeat it to yourself?

d) associate it with previous information?

12. Do you remember faces easily?

a) yes;

b) no.

13. When you're talking do you:

a) make up words?

b) devise rhymes and incorporate metaphors?

c) choose your words carefully?

14. Are you more comfortable being:

a) a talker?

b) a listener?

15. When you are asked to speak at a meeting without having the chance to prepare do you:

a) make a quick outline?

b) find an authority to support your point?

c) become withdrawn?

d) bang the table and raise your voice?

16. Can you tell accurately how much time has passed without looking at the clock?

a) yes;

b) no.

17. Do you prefer social situations that are:

a) planned in advance?

b) spontaneous?

18. Would you rather work:

a) alone?

b) in a group?

19. Which did you prefer at school?

a) algebra;

b) geometry.

20. Which handwriting position most closely resembles yours?

a) regular right-handed position;

b) hooked right-handed position (fingers pointing towards your chest);

c) regular left-handed position;

d) hooked left-handed position.

21. When taking notes, do you print?

a) never;

b) regularly.

22. Do you enjoy taking risks?

a) yes;

b) no.

23. Hold a pencil perpendicularly to the ground at arm's length, centred in your line of vision and lined up with a door or a frame. Holding that position, close your left eye. Did the pencil appear to move?

a) yes.

Close your right eye. Did your pencil appear to move?

b) yes.

Reading

Read the text and render it.

Creativity has always been an important business skill, but in our turbulent economy it is essential. The current economic realities have placed us all beyond what is known. The only way to meet this challenge of operating in this unknown terrain is to make it up as we go. It follows then, that building a creatively agile company will not only help us survive but give us a powerful competitive advantage (Juanita Weaver, How to Incorporate Creativity into Your Business Practice).

The work that women do has always been fundamental to the global economy. For thousands of years, and all over the world, women have been traders, farmers, entrepreneurs.

Women now make up more than 40 percent of the work force in every G8 country except Italy. Women are part of a seismic shift taking place in the global economy. The best word for the change is womenomics. The huge growth of the female labor force has coincided with the rise of the service sector. New industries like computer technology are also a godsend. It's easy for women to break in, and performance measures tend to be more objective. Financial services have a similar gender-neutral air as well: you either make money or you don't. But women are not equal to men yet. The United Nations estimated in 1993 that economic equality between the sexes would take, at the pace then prevailing, 1,000 years to achieve.

Corporate life can be tough; nobody ever said it was easy to find the balance between work and family. In the United States and Britain, a lack of affordable child care is the top of concern for many women. Only 2 percent of employers offer workplace nurseries. A year of daily care for two children in the United Kingdom costs nearly $10,000, about 28 percent of an average full-time working parent's income. American families easily spend the same amount for a five-day-a-week nanny. Continental Europe, by contrast, has sought to balance work and family, but the results have often been perverse. In Germany, laws requiring employers to provide up to three years of maternity leave cement gender roles - the women leave work and inevitably fall behind on the career track. Though the laws also allow for paternity leave, few fathers take advantage of them. Since women are inevitably the ones to leave work and use tax breaks, employers are reluctant to hire married or even worse - pregnant women. Hiring a 26-year-old just-married woman is almost prohibitive for a small company. Recruiters routinely ask candidates their age, marital status and whether or not they have children.