How D&AD’s Ideas Gym inspired a seasoned creative team

Firm believers in creativity as a force for good, Glimpse Collective are reworking the agency model, one cat on the tube at a time. What began as a volunteer-led organisation in 2016 (known for covering the underground in Cats, Not Ads), is now an agile network of creative producers and strategists armed with that ever illusive and intangible thing — the killer idea.

Any creative thinker knows that when ideas are your lifeblood, having tools in your arsenal that help you reach more of them, and do so faster, is crucial. Which is where D&AD’s Ideas Gym workshop comes in.

“We’re trying to get away from this idea of a traditional agency, “Glimpse is more a group of creative producers who share a belief in the power of creativity for good” explains Founder James Turner.

“We have a core team of eight, bringing in freelancers or volunteers, and trying to promote a culture where everyone gets a chance to chuck in ideas, attend brainstorms, and to feel involved.”

“The most common role is a Creative Producer, which means ideation, developing production plans, and making creative decisions throughout the production process”. Traditionally, this might be the cumulative efforts of a team of six or seven, but at Glimpse, it’s a team of one or two.

In this new agency model, creativity is democratised, so Turner was hoping that the workshop would equip the team with specific techniques and build creative confidence.

That all important confidence boost provides fertile ground for the seed of ideas to germinate. “For those who have it is a wonderful thing. It's really easy when you've got more experience, to assume that everyone can do it. And you forget how intimidating it can be for juniors”. However, with the right tools and the right environment, the rest will follow.

Lastly, Turner wanted to introduce the idea of “play without any pressure”. Though all of us are creative and playful as children, it’s easy for that to get lost as we head into the workforce. “In a work environment, we often try to make everything logical and rational. Play is by its very nature, irrational and wild and often nonsensical. And that's where often really good creative connections, or leaps come from”.

Ideas Gym is a short, sharp three hours of creative ideation, led by Arif Haq, who describes it as “a creative workout, the greatest hits of tried and tested techniques”all compressed into a short window.

Three hours may seem like the blink of an eye, but for such an intense creative session, Turner describes it as more than enough. “It feels great being bombarded with all these incredibly useful tips. Equally, it's really important to get the deck afterwards and spend some time absorbing it. Also, it's hard to gather a team for more than three hours at a time”.

“I think there's sort of a difference maybe between the ones you really enjoy and the ones that are really useful in the long term. There were several methods, including Ideas From Things, that stood out as both. Something that was super simple, but great for giving a team a start”.

Coming up with ideas can leave you feeling out in the open, a little vulnerable, so it’s important to be in safe hands. Luckily, that’s Haq all over. “He’s very amenable, and easy to like. But he's also very confident, and you feel very looked after in his company. You can tell that he's very experienced, he knows what he's talking about and he makes you feel at ease. But at the same time, he's got a great and a very generous sense of humour”.

This is no accident, humour is a key part of the ideation process for Haq, he even devotes a slide to point out that “if you're smiling in a creative session, then things are going right, you'll have a better atmosphere, and the ideas will be better for it”.

“Anecdotally, people have said they found it incredibly useful. There were whole new ways of looking at creativity that they'd never considered before. And they really appreciated the opportunity to learn on the job as it were.”

“Even as an experienced creative, there were new ideas in there. But it was also a reminder that this is a process that if you follow properly, you get good results. It requires time and intention, and a kind of conscious attitude. I think the biggest danger in any organisation that needs to come up with ideas is rushing things or pretending that you can skip steps”.

“I've noticed some of the techniques and approaches being used, which is great. Off the back of the workshop, I'm actually rewriting our creative process, reshaping it. For example, before, we always tried to be inclusive and have seven or eight people in one session. But now, there are no more than four people at once”.

“We brought in Ideas From Things as part of our process, and that was used in the last session we ran. We're running a session with an external partner coming up, where we're using both Ideas From Things and another technique, Fresh Eyes, which is where you swap someone out, and get them to look at the ideas halfway through”.

“It's much more in terms of process than results at this point. But that will lead to results. Changing the creative process at an organisation is a fairly substantial impact. But hopefully it will have a substantial impact too.”

If you’re looking to rework the way you work, boost your ideation process and supercharge your team, why not consider Team Training. Get in touch to see what we can do for you.