Creative Meetings the Black Tie Digital Marketing Way

Your team at Black Tie Digital Marketing met last week to celebrate the opening of our new Melbourne office and to hold a creative session on how to build a productive work space that inspires creativity to better serve our Melbourne FL web design clients.

It’s not difficult to get the Black Tie team spinning ideas. One of the earliest thoughts on the new space: we need bigger whiteboards to capture the possibilities! If you’d like to avoid boring, quiet meetings in your workplace, follow some Black Tie creative meeting tips:

• Only yes answers! If someone spins an idea and they’re met with a “no, we can’t do that,” it shuts down creativity. “No” is the biggest idea-killer. Instead, answer a far-fetched idea with “yes, and…” Example: “Let’s get gold-plated signage and a platinum front door!” Response: “Yes, and we can probably find a less expensive material to achieve that look.”
• Keep it casual: kinesthetics matter to some people more than others. If one your team members needs to walk around to think, let him go for it. Nobody’s locked in: grab a drink, walk the room, move! Ideas aren’t always produced sitting around a conference table.
• Check your job titles at the door: at Black Tie meetings, everybody’s a designer, everybody’s a writer, everybody’s an artist (though we’re keeping those rudimentary sketches under lock and key). If you’ve done your part as a business owner and hired awesome people (and not just filled “positions”), then your people are more than capable of thinking beyond their area of expertise.
• Lead!: even creative meetings need a purpose and parameters. It’s important to start off with a clear goal for what the time should produce. It’s okay to veer off topic, but an effective meeting leader will bring things back into focus.

In a Black Tie Digital Marketing meeting, everyone contributes. Try hosting a creative meeting in your work space and see what your team can do!