Crossover Creativity

Ideas don’t just happen, they don’t spring from nowhere.

Ideas come to life from everything that’s already inside our brains.

Because new ideas are actually a new reaction between existing ideas.

This means creativity is about finding ways to put unrelated, disconnected things together.

When two unrelated things come together, something new springs into existence, they form a third thing, and that becomes a new idea.

That’s Crossover Creativity.

The more you read, watch, observe and consume, the more fuel for ideas you have in your brain, the more crossover creativity will happen for you.

In this latest collection of stories about creativity in real-life situations, Dave Trott presents examples of crossover creativity in action – as a guide for those who have to generate ideas in advertising, business, sport, or anywhere in the wider world.

The Power of Ignorance
How creative solutions emerge when we admit what we don’t know

‘The wise man knows he doesn’t know. The fool doesn t know he doesn’t know’ – Lao Tzu. ‘In the West they only respect experts. But the expert mind is the closed mind.’ – Shunryu Suzuki

What’s the most important step in fixing a puncture? It isn’t jacking up the car, or taking the wheel off, or finding the puncture. There’s something more fundamental than any of those.

Something without which you can’t even begin to fix a puncture. The most important step is finding out you’ve got a puncture. Without that you can’t do anything. Instead of saying, ‘It’s just a bit bumpy, must be the road,’ and carrying on, you must acknowledge that something has changed and you don’t know what that is.

If you don’t admit you don’t know what’s happening, you can never find out. If you don’t find out, you can never change it. The most important step, always, is admitting you don’t know.

That’s the power of ignorance.

In this latest collection of real-life stories, Dave Trott provides lessons about problem solving and creative thinking that can be applied in advertising, business, and the wider world.

With his trademark wit, wisdom and critical eye, he shows how great problem solvers and creative thinkers are those who are not afraid to say ‘I don’t know’.

CREATIVE BLINDNESS.

Creativity is all around us. Not in art galleries. But on the train, at work, in the street outside, and in schools, hospitals and restaurants. Creative vision exists wherever people are.

In this entertaining collection of real-life stories, Dave Trott applies his crystal clear lens to define what genuine creative vision looks like. It is problem solving, clarity of thought, seeing what others do not see, and removing complexity to make things as simple as you can.

One Plus One Equals Three
A Masterclass in Creative Thinking

Up your game with this masterclass in creative thinking. Combining Dave Trott’s distinctive, almost Zen-like storytelling, humour and practical advice, One Plus One Equals Three is a collection of provocative anecdotes and thought experiments designed to light a fire under your own creative ambitions.

From the First World War sailor who survived being sunk three times in one day to the one-time ‘merchant of death’ who made his name a byword for peace, and the gypsy who lost two fingers and then reinvented jazz. From boardroom to battlefield, these stories of unconventional wisdom from one of the world’s true advertising greats are a rallying cry for anyone who wants to think differently, stand out and truly innovate.

Predatory Thinking
A Masterclass in Outwitting the Competition

Two explorers are walking through the jungle. Suddenly they hear a tiger roar. One explorer sits down and takes a pair of running shoes out of his backpack. ‘You’re crazy, you’ll never out-run a tiger,’ says the other explorer. ‘I don’t have to out-run the tiger,’ he replies. ‘I just have to out-run you.’

Predatory Thinking involves looking at a challenge you can’t solve and getting upstream of it – changing it into a challenge you can solve. Written in the form of engaging, brilliantly lean anecdotes and stories, it is the philosophy that has underpinned Dave Trott’s distinguished career as a copywriter, creative director, and founder of some of London’s most high-profile advertising agencies.

Drawing on Eastern and Western philosophy, and colourful characters that range from Second World War fighter pilots to Picasso, Plutarch and Warren Beatty, this book represents the distilled wisdom of a lifetime at the creative cutting edge.

Creative Mischief

Creative Mischief collects together all the highlights from Dave Trott s online blog about advertising. Part autobiography, part short story, part how-to advice, each of the entries will refresh your thinking about any creative process, whether it belongs to advertising, writing a book, or managing a team of employees. Published for the first time in book form, Creative Mischief, is a perfect prompt for anyone looking for new ideas, or for readers who simply enjoy the kind of funny story that, as Dave says, he would normally tell over a drink or three .