A Stupid Idea?
He had coined the term ‘compound stupidity’ to describe this phenomenon. In February 2007 he completed a speaking tour of Australia, often doing two or three events in one day.
He had earlier literally created a vehicle for his creativity consultancy work, ‘the world’s smallest conference centre’, a two-seater car to cater for 1:1 consultations at conferences and special events. (He once had four Australian girls in the car at one time at a conference in Belfast, a delegate lose their umbrella in it, as well as hosting luminaries such as the government minister Ed Balls and renowned architect Will Alsop.)
In his study and teaching of creativity he believes flexible thinking is at the heart of creative thinking. He was also developing his expertise in word of mouth communications and was sensitive to the need to brand and make any message sticky. He knew from experience that you may need a legitimizer to help sanction an idea which might be regarded as outrageous.
Earlier in 2007 he had delivered a well-received talk at a business network group raising funds for the children’s charity Barnardo’s.
He was also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and had joined the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Like any idea, it is an amalgam of many other ideas orbiting around you, coalescing into a coherent concept.
His idea was to do something about the increase in stupidity by doing a one week tour of the UK, delivering 14 events over five days, travelling in his conference centre, working in partnership with the Institutes of Marketing and Public Relations, with profits from the events going to Barnardo’s, and branding the initiative ‘Stupid Aid – make stupidity history’*.
So, in September 2007 the first Stupid Aid week was launched – and the rest is history.
The idea spawned this book and also the creation of the Flexible Thinking Forum to provide a sustainable vehicle to promote creative thinking skills.
(*Actually, we will never make stupidity history as we believe in the prevalence of 1, 2 and 3 star stupidity. The word of mouth and publicity value of the phrase ‘make stupidity history’ and its resonance with other crusade campaigns was felt to outweigh its technical inaccuracy.)
