1/ Tapping into consumer’s values and passions for deeper connections

Just knowing your audience’s age and gender is soooo 2010 – Trendwatching says that today’s marketers use different metrics such as values, convictions and passions to understand consumers.

The result? A more tailored experience – especially when people shop online – and ever-deeper connections between brand and audience. Younger consumers especially are expecting this – they’re also expecting more curated content that is a perfect fit for them.

The slightly astounding example offered up by Trendwatching of this already happening is a collab between Spotify and EasyJet where listeners are given suggestions of where to fly to next based on the songs they like.

2/ There’s a robot for that

Forbes’s resident customer experience futurist Blake Morgan says that 2023 will see more automation and self-service solutions to help take the strain caused by staffing shortages.

It’ll go beyond mere self-checkout tills at the supermarket – think automated contact centres and warehouses. From a consumer POV, it all points to an increasing acceptance of automated services.

3/ ‘Phygital’ experiences will proliferate

Another of Morgan’s hot tips is that ‘Phygital’ – the merging of physical and digital experiences – will expand into multiple industries this year, including banking. She says we should expect “innovative experiences that customers use to make large purchases, including cars and houses.”

If you’re looking for an example of phygital in action today, look no further than your local McDonald’s where you make your order on a digital kiosk. Now think about live video shopping where you could get to see products being tested from your own home. Or video consultations with your bank manager.

The best examples in the coming years will likely merge VR, AR and AI, say the experts.

Bonus tip! Check out the much-loved Trendwatching Consumer Trend Canvas to see how you can apply the trends highlighted here to your own work. We’re massive fans – and you can now do it all online thanks to their recent collaboration with Miro, the virtual whiteboard.

4/ Be serious about your ESG goals

According to Trendwatching, being authentic is no longer a proven way to stand out – you’ve got to try harder. They say that being vulnerable will be valued, but better still is making genuine change when it comes to social issues and environmental impact.

Climate change, of course, and rightly so, is not going to fall off anyone’s radar in 2023. Reassuring messaging about this and other key issues that demonstrate actual results could prove pivotal.

When it comes to brands going the extra mile, they flag up the case of Apple, who are teaming up with policymakers and advocacy groups to help file lawsuits against States with laws that attack gay and transgender people.

5/ Life after death

Well, not quite, but when NBC started the year by asking a posse of experts to look at consumer trends for 2023, one that really stood out for us was a surge in demand for used and second-hand goods.

The secondhand market, they say, is set to rise 127% by 2026 – with Gen Z shoppers among the many consumers driving demand. Good news for charity and discount stores – and, perhaps, a golden opportunity for innovative brands (car dealerships, after all, have been selling second-hand stock for decades). Vinted is a personal favourite of mine for recycling my old clothes and getting a few quid.

6/ Watch out for consumer-creators

With so many digital tools at our disposal these days, consumers, say Trendwatching, have a wealth of ways to create their own markets. That could be creating content, renting out assets or selling goods and services.

Opportunities abound for companies that can help make these things happen. One that caught our eye a few years back was Swimply, which allows pool owners to rent their pools out by the hour.

7/ Spending continues, despite worsening economic conditions

Forrester, the market research heavyweights, say that despite soaring petrol prices and a cost of living crisis that seems to get gloomier by the day, people still have money in the bank left over from the savings they accrued during the pandemic.

And what do consumers with money do? They spend – cautiously, maybe, but Forrester say that “money in the bank will spur them on to greater spending.”

8/ Bring out the FUN!

According to Trendwatching, 2023 sees the return of fun; an antidote to the austerity and gloom of Covid-19. For proof, they cite 72% of Gen Z saying that fun is their number one value.

Expect brands to step up to the plate with a raft of quirky, memorable experiences and humorous messaging.

9/ Quality products will be highly prized

Another Forrester prediction, consumer demands for well-made items will soar in 2023. People will be looking to squeeze “maximum value” out of the things they buy. The good news? Fewer unwanted goods ending up in landfill.

This trend may lead to fewer purchases (fast fashion, anyone?) as people opt for preferred brands (McKinsey say that global luxury fashion sales will rise 10%). They may also embrace the pre-loved market (see #5) and generally be fairly cautious about wasting money on things they don’t need.

There’s a caveat, according to Retail Gazette: consumers may be happy to ‘trade down’ on essential items, buying cheaper brands.

10/ Judgement day for D2C

Not so much a consumer trend as a business/marketing one, this. Retail Gazette say that D2C clothing companies lost a whopping 73% of their value last year. Sadly Made.com, meanwhile, went out of business (modular furniture maker Swyft, by comparison, thrived – thanks in part to a partnership which puts their sofas in John Lewis stores).

D2C brands may need to diversify to different channels in 2023 in order to survive.

We like to refer to trends if we are in an information (thus insight) desert because we know that they can help to trigger ideas. We use Trendwatching’s Trend Canvas to help us unpack trends and figure out what might work for a given brand, product or service. Check out our blog on using the Trendcanvas.

What are your predictions for 2023? Will the rising cost of everyday items/ever growing energy bills stifle spending? Is online shopping going to soar? Will virtual worlds mean we’ll shop in store even less?

Let us know!

The post 10 CONSUMER TRENDS FOR 2023 – EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW first appeared on Now Go Create.

What is it?

Google’s Design Sprint is a process based around six key steps that sees a team of around 5-7 people – often from different departments – working to a set time-frame to try and solve a problem.

When it works, it means that teams can rapidly speed up the thinking/testing/prototyping phases of a new idea.

What is this creativity tool for?

A Design Sprint leans on design thinking principles and a well-defined structure to help find solutions to a problem. You start by understanding the users and defining the goal.

Next you look at possible solutions, decide on the best one and then, after building a simple prototype, you test it on real users.

How does the Design Sprint work?

Participants are assigned specific roles – commonly these include a Facilitator and a Decider, the latter being the person who has final say when a team starts to struggle. Sprints take place:

• At the start of a new project to define a product.
• At an impasse or roadblock when a product team needs to get unstuck.
• Or when you’ve uncovered new insights about your market.

Once you’ve assembled the right team and agreed on a timeframe, the Google Design Sprint website will steer you through the process.

Who is this tool for?

Google describes it like this: “The Design Sprint Kit is an open-source resource for design leaders, product owners, developers or anyone who is learning about or running Design Sprints.”

It’s pretty adaptable, and apparently the United Nations have used Sprints to increase usage of their ShareTheMeal app, while KLM put them to good use to improve their airport experience.

How long does it take?

The recommended time is from 1-5 days, which can vary according to the complexity of the issue, your resources and so on. The main point, though, is that it helps you to race through a problem in a thorough, efficient way, covering all important bases.

One important point: Google state that organisers of the Sprint should expect to spend a day planning for each day it will last.

Difficulty rating

3/5. Definitely not a quick-fix that can be done in a lunch break. A Design Sprint needs plenty of prep and a good team behind it to achieve significant outcomes.

Why we love this creativity tool

We like it because of its clear process, with each section broken down into manageable chunks. Smaller businesses in particular can find themselves running around like headless chickens when trying to solve a problem. A Design Sprint will steer them through the entire process. And, if diligently pursued and applied to the right problem, almost guarantees usable results at the end.

Google make it all pretty straightforward and throw in some top-notch templates for free. Check it out here.

See some of our other tool recommendations include an empathy map and this trend canvas

If you’re interested in finding out about more creativity tools and processes and practicing them, join our Creative Ninja training.

The post The best creativity tools to try today – #4: Google Design Sprint first appeared on Now Go Create.

What is it?

The Evidence Planning tool is one created by the National Endowment for Society, Technology and the Arts – NESTA – the innovation foundation. They describe it as:

“A quick way to help articulate and improve what you are trying to accomplish, especially designed for practitioners to invent, adopt or adapt ideas that can deliver better results.“

What is it for?

Let’s say you’re interested in “improving brand awareness” – this tool will help you to work out exactly why you want to do that and provide you with clear evidence that you want to proceed… or not, in some cases (mass brand awareness may kill a boutique vibe, for example).

How does it work?

You start off in the middle by writing down your key focus. Then you look at the four quadrants to see how that key focus will enhance, replace, re-use or limit what you do. You’re encouraged to think of the questions not just in micro terms, but from the point of view of the wider world.

Who is it for?

Anyone who thinks they have a problem that needs solving, and needs to make sure that they really do. In many cases the tool will give them the validation they need – and will provide a variety of areas on which it would make sense to focus.

If we stick with “improving brand awareness”, for example, the tool might lead to thoughts about how commitment to this path would need you to shake off past values or invest in new talent.

How long does it take?

How long is a piece of string? On a major project, this could help inform the background thinking for weeks – but it could equally help you to approve/kill ideas in a very short time.

Difficulty rating

1/5. Simple and effective.

Why we love it

Due to time pressures we sometimes don’t spend enough time validating what we perceive to be the problem and poking around a bit. Before throwing everything but the kitchen sink at fixing something, the Evidence Planning tool gives you a clear picture of whether or not it needs fixing in the first place.

Pay particular attention, then, to that bottom right-hand quadrant!

If you’re interested in hands-on practice in creativity tools and techniques join our next Open Creative Ninjas training or Creative Strategy Training or book one for your in-house team. Contact lucy@nowgocrate.co.uk

The post The best strategy tools to try: Evidence Planning first appeared on Now Go Create.

What is it?

The Consumer Trend Canvas (CTC) is basically a single-sheet grid which takes you from a current trend on the left-hand side of the page to the innovation of your own at the other.

What is it for?

They suggest it is a way for people to be able to identify what their customers are going to want next. They also say that a consumer trend is more than just pleasant diversions – they are an essential part of uncovering innovation opportunities.

How does it work?

You begin with a trend – the example they give is Beneficial Intelligence – and then work through six more stages before you arrive at the point where you come up with your innovation, each step informing the next.

The stages are:

1. Inspiration
2. Basic Needs
3. Drivers of Change
4. Emerging Expectations
5. Innovation Type
6. Who

If you use it logically, it will help you identify the current state of the market and how it is likely to evolve, what users want from products in that market, what your product will set out to do and who will use it.

Some of their top trends for 2023 are:

Trend: IN-FLUENCER

Flip your brand inside out. Show the heart of your company, literally.

Trend: AI AT YOUR SERVICE

Trend: AGE OF HEALING

Who is the canvas for?

It works for almost anyone who wants their next idea to be on-trend – be that for marketing ideas, product development, niches in a particular kind of service and so on. It’s a way to get real-world stimuli into your thinking and see how your ideas, products and services might play in different contexts and with different consumers/audiences that you may not have considered.

How long does it take?

You could put a week into it, but even a rapid-fire approach would help you to channel your thinking and steer you towards ideas that your customers may actually want.

Difficulty rating

1/5. TrendWatching’s CTC is a brilliantly simple-to-use creativity tool.

Why we love it

CTC is a well-thought-out, uncomplicated tool that is definitely worth trying when you want to catch the zeitgeist. We’re big fans of insight supported by processes at Now Go Create, and this ticks all the boxes.

Where do I get it?

Check out the trends on trendwatching.com and download the free worksheet here.

consumer-trend-canvas

Do you have a favourite creativity tool? Tell us in a tweet @NowGoCreate. And if you want to equip yourself with a wealth of other tools (and supercharge your creativity in the process), check out Now Go Create’s creativity training courses or email lucy@nowgocreate.co.uk.

Mike Peake is a regular collaborator with Now Go Create. He can be found at bymikepeake.com.

The post The best creativity tools to try today – #2 TrendWatching’s Canvas – updated for 2023 first appeared on Now Go Create.

Last week I did an interview for a newspaper with Marek Reichman, Aston Martin’s top man on all things related to design. One part of our chat that wasn’t right for the article turned out to be just the kind of thing we like to write about here: the creative process.

Aston Martin – who are always an extremely nice company to work with – said they would be happy for us to print his thoughts.

Marek is an Aston Martin’s legend when it comes to all things related to design. He’s been with the company for more than a decade and as well as working on such legendary cars as the One-77, the DBS and the Vanquish, he previously helped bring the Rolls-Royce Phantom and several Land Rover models to life.

To brief or not to brief?

When we got onto the subject of whether or not he always worked to a brief, or if, in fact, there was room for free-thinking as well, he explained how both played a key part. It’s well worth a read if you want to know how a top car designer goes about his business – this is what he said:

“There’s always a brief, which is, if you like, your day-to-day bread and butter – at the moment we’re working on what’s called the Second Century Plan which is the reinvention of the marque. It’s us being a 106-year-old start-up and doing seven cars over seven years with one brand new car every year.

“But the freedom part is that there is always opportunity for a one-off car for somebody, or what about flying cars in the future – which is part of the Volante Vision project we did a while ago.

Creative partnerships

“And then of course we have all of the Aston Martin partnerships I control the design of, so apartments, buildings, speedboats, bicycles or whatever it may be, I have the control of those elements as well.

“So it goes from a structure to the free-thinking as well, and effectively if you’re a creative your creative juices have to be flowing, 24/7. It’s not, ‘OK, arrive at work at nine, finish at five and the day is done’ – no, you’re getting input all the time, whether it’s through travel, the people you meet, an exhibition, a presentation, something you watch, a piece of music.

The power of the subconscious

“The creative process is not governed by hours or a brief. The creative process is exactly that within your brain – it’s stimuli. And, you know, some of the greatest discoveries in the world happened through the subconscious.

Einstein would talk about how the theory of relativity came through him composing and playing the violin. He just thought about something completely differently and how to approach it – and that’s where the theory came, or the spark of the theory.

So as a creative, in answer to your question, in short, it’s both. It’s a specific brief – deadline, project, budget, etc. – and it’s the freedom of thought around that as well.”

Our thoughts?

All of the Now Go Create team are huge advocates of the ‘creativity never stops’ concept, and it was great to hear it echoed by Marek. The takeaway? I guess it’s this: keep your eyes open, try something new every day and travel as much as you can. And then one day you might get to design cars for James Bond, too.

• Want to put some rocket fuel into your own creative thinking? Now Go Create has a creativity training course for you! Please email lucy@nowgocreate.co.uk to book a course or for more information.

The post “If you’re a creative, your creative juices have to be flowing 24/7” first appeared on Now Go Create.

“Once you see a campaign in its entirety, you then realise how important it is that it all hangs on something” – Now Go Create’s Anahita Milligan

The importance of strategy in creative campaigns is not lost on Anahita Milligan, a seasoned media planner whose Now Go Create courses leave delegates with a crystal clear picture of how to map out their next campaign. Our interview with a creative strategist reveals her take on how strategy and creativity feed off each other.

What do people often incorrectly think strategy is?
There are so many issues with jargon and people not really being sure what things mean that I think strategy is often confused with tactics/ideas. People think that ideas are strategies, when really the idea or the tactic needs to fall out of the strategy. Sometimes people even think that channels are ideas. You might say, ‘This is the strategy, let’s have an idea for it, and they’ll say, ‘OK, my idea is that we do social media.’ That’s not an idea, that’s a channel.

How do you help to unravel all this?
The first thing I tend to do on any of the Now Go Create courses that I run is spend some time picking the language apart so that everybody is clear on what their personal and also their company’s definitions are. We all need to know what objectives, ideas, strategy, tactics and so on are so that everyone’s working off the same page.

For the record, then, what’s your definition of strategy?
It’s about giving clear and exciting direction and it’s the thing that everything else hinges off. It’s your most effective means of getting from A to B in a way that is articulated so that everybody immediately knows what you’re all striving towards and how you’re going to get there.

Ideally, you should be able to explain it in a sentence, so that everyone knows exactly what the plan is. I think good strategists are people that are clear and jargon-free, and also have vision.

When did you come to learn the importance of strategy?
I spent nearly 10 years with Manning Gottlieb when I had the great privilege of working with some amazing clients, from government agencies to Sony PlayStation, and so much of what we needed to do was to be clear and effective and single-minded and directional. And that meant that devising strategies was absolutely key. We were working with many people, many agencies, many departments within those companies, so we had to make sure that everybody was working together to be greater than the sum of our parts.

“Part of the whole creative process includes that frustrated bit when you’re banging your head against a wall.” 

Are there key steps when it comes to strategic planning?
Yes, there are key elements to what makes a good strategy, but before that there are key steps to getting there.

Like what?
The single biggest thing is defining the problem in the first place. It’s really important to know exactly what it is that you’re trying to solve. And that sounds really easy, but it’s surprising how many clients don’t know what it is that they’re actually trying to solve. If you do enough work in that early stage and really define it properly, then you know where your starting point is, you can see what you need your endpoint to be and therefore you can explore all the different ways of getting there – your strategic options. It’s surprising how often in-depth investigation throws out the thing that you didn’t even know you were looking for.

What about the strategic planning itself?
What makes a really good strategy is having proper focus – focusing all your energy and resources in a way that can accomplish what you need it to do. This then cascades into favourable outcomes for other people – for example the client and the consumer. I think it also needs to be really simple: you need to be able to boil it down into no more than a slide with a core reason for your diagnosis and your solution.

Anything else?
I think it has to be based in insight. It has to be really robust. And it has to be a really clever diagnosis of the situation before you even start. So it’s got to give direction and be empowering – because it has to be actionable – and then it also needs to be agile, because if it’s any good then there’s an element of risk involved and if there is risk, you need to be flexible. A good strategy should allow for that.

How does this all dovetail into creativity and Now Go Create?
In terms of Now Go Create, we’re all about creative problem solving – but that isn’t just at the brainstorm. I think there’s a misnomer that the creative bit all happens when you’re having a brainstorm, but the creativity should all be happening right from the beginning. You should be using tools and techniques to tease out what your problem is and what your solution might be, because there might be many – you should be speaking to different stakeholders, calling on different resources, leveraging different elements of the marketing mix and so on. There are many ways to skin a cat, as they say, so you need to do divergent thinking at every stage – and then convergent thinking at every stage, too. It should be fun, but challenging. Part of the whole creative process includes that frustrated bit when you’re banging your head against a wall, but you really need to go through that. I explain how to keep that interesting, and show people the tools and techniques that can help at every stage.

Are there certain key moments that often seem to resonate with delegates – moments when they suddenly see how strategy works?
I often play a trick on people by asking them to do a word association on something really ubiquitous. And when you get the words back, you see that actually, even though they work in the same company or in the same industry, they have very different starting points, very different brain-banks. And I think that can be quite an ‘Aha!’ moment.

Any others?
We also spend quite a lot of time unpicking really creative strategic campaigns. We might go through the latest Cannes Lions winners and work out where it all came from. We’re lucky enough to work at Cannes every summer and it means we get to ask the winning strategists and creatives how their ideas came to be.

• What do you think the strategy was?
• What’s the insight that has driven the core idea?
• How do you think they employed it?
• What were the tactics?

“We tease it all apart, and once you see a campaign in its entirety, you then realise how important it is that it all hangs on something – that it has direction. Nothing should exist for the sake of it, it should all be there for a reason, and if you’ve done a good strategic job, everything will be. And it will make it all so much more powerful.”

To book a place on Anahita’s open training –  ‘How to Devise Strategy’ training workshops, please email lucy@nowgocreate.com

The post Everything you ever wanted to know about strategy (but were afraid to ask) first appeared on Now Go Create.

What is it?
Candor is a free tool that sets out to “decouple” the generation of ideas from the evaluation of those ideas. It’s a clever way to ensure that you don’t kill an idea before it’s at least had its chance to progress and is also excellent for making sure that everyone’s ideas are heard, as participants are asked to do some thinking in advance.

What is it for?
Massively upping your ideas quotient – and allowing quieter members of the team to have their say.

How does it work?
You start by sending your question or problem out to members of your brainstorming team – making it clear that you want them to come up with ideas that before you all meet up. All of these ideas are submitted via the free Candor app/desktop tool to whoever is organising the session. At the meeting, these ideas are then shown to the rest of the room and the creator of each is asked to quickly explain their thinking. Crucially, there is no evaluation at this stage. Once everyone has had their turn, all of the ideas are up for discussion – they can be eliminated, grouped together or expanded on to make them better. The tool then lets participants vote on their favourites.

It helps to:

• Tackle bias
• Save time
• Encourage participation from all
• Produce more ideas

Who is it for?
Absolutely everyone – especially those whose teams are reluctant brainstorming session participants, or whose creative sessions are often dominated by the same couple of voices.

How long does it take?
Candor works best if people have some prep time – depending on the complexity of the issue and the capabilities of the team, that could be anything from 30 mins to a week or more to allow for that all important incubation phase.

Difficulty rating
1/5. An absolute piece of cake and fun to use. 5/5 for effectiveness!

Why we love it
It’s a clever way to bring some solid and straightforward tech into the brainstorming process, and allows everyone to contribute their ideas without being shot down. It also means that you can generate ideas remotely and share them.

http://usecandor

If you’re interested in finding ways to unleash your creativity for yourself or your teams check out our workshops or contact Lucy@nowgocreate.co.uk

The post The best creativity tools to try today – #1: Candor first appeared on Now Go Create.

So, here it is: the third and final instalment in our list of apps that we think all creative types should try. Naturally, you’ll disagree/think us frankly insane – so tell us what we’re missing!

5/ Minecraft

This is still easily the best game on the market that encourages creativity, and Minecraft – now owned by Microsoft after a $2.5bn buyout – is just the place to lose yourself in a world that you literally have to build yourself.

You must have played (or seen someone playing) it by now, so we’ll save you the tutorial, but by setting yourself a goal (“I’m going to recreate my own house/my dream hotel/a new safe zone for The Walking Dead”) you will ensure that the brain is stimulated far more than it would be watching Gogglebox. We wrote about this in a bit more detail here.

4/ Inkflow

Inkflow comes across of a kind of doodling/mindmapping hybrid, and is just the thing for people who are forever scribbling down their thoughts on bits of paper because you can easily scan these directly into the app and then move the component parts around on screen. Resizing things is a breeze, too.

3/ SimpleMind

Mind mapping tools for smartphones have proliferated – possibly because they look quite easy to make – but there are lots of donkeys out there that will leave you pawing at your screen like an angry panda. SimpleMind is one of the better ones – you’ve seen the basic concept a thousand times before, and people who love this kind of tool get a kick out of the way they can organise their thoughts and get a clear handle on what’s been kicking around in their head. Others worth trying include Mindmeister and Mindly. There’s one called Coggle that we use quite a lot that’s pretty good, too – though you might find yourself distracted and creating a ‘rock family tree’ of your favourite bands.

2/ Paper by FiftyThree

The creative process is usually at its most unrestrained – and best – when you strip away any barriers, so adding a great drawing app like Paper to your phone or iPad means you don’t need to pause when you want to throw down visual ideas featuring little stick men or simple, scribbled charts. It’s a fantastic way to brain-dump, and it’s very easy to use – and also to surprise yourself with your artistic skills. I once spent a few days sketching out the story for a whole video game using this app and – as someone whose artistic skills struggle to rival those of the average four-year-old – I found it really impressive. I’m going to try it on the next Creative Safari that we run to grab info and details on the run.

1/ Yossarian

https://yossarian.co

Yossarian is a creative search engine that can take you off into brilliant unknown territory and creative tangents.  Google shows us the most popular results and as such the results of a search can be cliched (just Google business woman for a depressing selection of stereotypes) but Yossarian helps you visualise concepts and ideas quickly and often laterally, considering metaphors (linked to the brilliant related worlds tool). Demo below – fun, free inspiration. What’s not to love?

And in case you missed part 1 and part 2.

That’s it – please let us know of any awesome apps that you’d like to share with us!

• Need more creativity tools? Sign up for one of our highly-acclaimed creativity training courses and you’ll leave more tooled up than Vin Diesel at a gunfight! Book a place by emailing lucy@nowgocreate.co.uk

The post Our top 15 creativity apps – part 3 first appeared on Now Go Create.

10/ Writing Challenge

Anyone who writes fiction for a living needs a brain that is firing on all cylinders, and you can get a feel for the cerebral wringer such people put themselves through with this clever app.

By forcing you to include certain words, take sudden u-turns and implement new scenarios in your own just-for-fun scribblings, it’s a great way to engage with creative thinking really quickly.

9/ Trello

If you work in a creative team and have not yet tried Trello, you’re missing a trick. It doesn’t take long to get your head around – your smartphone screen basically becomes a board on which a series of cards (that you create) are placed.

Participants on the project can move them around, share them, add notes and images to them. And while that sounds about as boring as watching paint dry, it’s actually not and is just the thing when one or more people are working on an idea and need to stay organised.

8/ Creative Whack Pack

Based on the million-selling Creative Whack Pack card deck, this takes a similar approach to Brainsparker. But it goes into a little more detail to help throw a new slant on whatever problem you’re wrestling with.

No matter what your creative challenge, the Creative Whack Pack is a brilliant way to slam the brakes on the way you are currently thinking and try something new. We have 28 of our own creative hacks free to download if you sign up to our newsletter 😉

7/ Unstuck

Unstuck is the brainchild of San Fransisco-based SYPartners, experts in organisational transformation. And it claims to be a digital coach that’s ready for you every time you’re feeling stuck.

There are questions that will get you thinking in a different way, as well as a variety of tips and tools that will help to prise open a raft of new ideas.

6/ Candor

Candor is awesome! We’ve raved about it before and use it all the time for better brainstorms. Used by Google, IBM and Kellogg, amongst others the developers say:

Candor helps groups generate ideas & make difficult decisions and using it generates more diverse or creative ideas because people don’t get fixated on the first idea that’s put on the table, avoiding the problems of idea anchoring and clustering.

It also helps to tackle the biases and hierarchy that can influence idea generation because it can be anonymous and non-verbal. We’ll do a deep dive into Candor on the next blog and show you how we’ve used it.

Next week: our top 5. And here’s part one if you missed it.

• We have world-class creativity training solutions for individuals, small groups and large companies. Check out our creativity training page or email lucy@nowgocreate.co.uk for details.

The post The 15 best apps for creative thinking – part 2 first appeared on Now Go Create.

15/ Curator

We love a bit of random stim here at Now Go Create, and gathering visual stimuli in one place used to involve a shoebox, a stack of magazines and some scissors; today you can craft your moodboard with a lot less faff using tools like Curator.

It works best on a larger screen, like an iPad, and it’s a doddle to grab images from Pinterest, Instagram and endless other sources (including your own scribbles) and collaborate with other members of your creative team. If you like it old school read our tips on creating a vision board.

14/ Tayasui Sketches

Perhaps not as well known as another drawing app that features a little higher on our list, Tayasui sketches nonetheless comes highly recommended. One of its key features is ‘layers’, which will feel familiar – and useful – to anyone who has lost countless hours tinkering on Photoshop.

13/ Seven

If you want your mind to be in good shape, it follows that your body should be in a reasonable state, too – not least because some of the world’s greatest thinkers did their ruminating while walking.

If you want to get scientific about it, aerobic workouts can stimulate the growth of new brain cells (those involved with thinking skills especially, notes Harvard) – so an easy-to-use app like Seven, which has nothing to do with the Brad Pitt film (meaning no head-shaped cardboard box is required) could be ideal.

The app aims to get you fitter by working out for  just seven minutes a day – and there’s a gamified element to keep you at it. Find an office buddy and a spare meeting room and get cracking.

12/ Brainsparker

When your thinking needs a jolt to get it out of its rut, apps such as Brainsparker can be a big help. It follows a simple and familiar format by offering you a virtual card at random which will hopefully nudge you in a new direction.

Cards say things like, “Step into someone else’s shoes,” or “What does this word (clarity) spark?”, and if the card you are offered doesn’t help to unclog your creative U-bend, just take a new one and see where that leads you. A great creative thinking app. Did you know that we have our own set of free creativity hacks if you sign up to our newsletter 🙂

11/ Curiosity

How often do we hear creative powerhouses extolling the virtues of knowledge? Read more, they say. Immerse yourself in different things.

Curiosity taps into this by presenting you with five different topics each day so that you don’t have to remind yourself to go looking for your fix of “new stuff”, and the makers of the app claim it will make you smarter.

It’s a big boast, but there’s no denying that a daily dose of Curiosity will fill your mind with things you didn’t know yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77r6hCJmCxM

Next week: 10-6!

• Now Go Create’s brilliant creativity training courses include a full range of options that will help with brainstorm training, creative leadership training, general creativity skills, problem solving and more. To book a course or for more information, please email lucy@nowgocreate.co.uk.

The post Our top 15 favourite creativity apps – part 1 first appeared on Now Go Create.