Category: General/Culture

No matter what our age or profession, there are no rules when it comes to creativity. Creativity is a form of self-expression that gives us the opportunity and freedom to explore crazy ideas that pop into our heads. Being creative opens our minds to new ways of thinking and problem-solving. As children, we were encouraged to turn off technology and play, whether we were coloring with crayons, molding with Play-Doh, building forts out of sticks or just spending the day outside, we were having experiences, building memories and developing our character.

One of our favorite hands-on, creative projects for A. Bright Idea currently is a series called “Today’s A.” Initially conceptualized by several members of the A. Bright Idea team, it was Graphic Design Specialist, Robyn Koenig, who has overseen the growth of the project. “Today’s A” is an example of one of the creative agency’s many bright ideas, allowing members of the Visual team to break from their creative pursuits with a computer and mouse and let their imagination run free to fuel productivity and creativity in the workplace. Team members take turns creating different “A’s,” exploring various forms of lowercase or uppercase A’s and using different materials and techniques to create something physical instead of digital.

History of “Today’s A”

Two of the most recognizable brand elements of A. Bright Idea are the lightbulb and the “A.” Over the years, a lot has been done with the lightbulb. When the team was looking for something fun and creative for future content, they chose to focus on the “A,” which stands for the first initial of Founder and CEO, Anita Brightman. “Today’s A” allows members of the Visual team to dig deep into their creative minds to conjure up beautiful, inspiring and fun creative interpretations of the agency’s “A” logo.

“We’re always looking for new ways to show off our creativity,” said Koenig. “At the time when this was started, we were looking to develop some new social media content. We went outside and picked a bunch of flowers and leaves and nature-type things, came back inside, sketched a very loose, kind of handwritten calligraphic “A” and just had fun with it. We laid the flowers and the leaves out on the outline of the “A,” and that was it! Everyone really loved it and now it’s a hanging print inside of our Burbank office.”

Making an A

The idea for a “Today’s A” usually comes from inspiration on social media, in an industry publication or just from brainstorming with our team of creatives. A select team meets monthly to discuss and plan upcoming content strictly for the agency. It’s from those meetings the “Today’s A” ideas flow.

“One of my favorites is the Pinata A,” Koenig said. “We built it like a real, miniature piñata, but without the candy inside. Then there’s the one we recently created for Halloween – the Jack-O-Lantern carved ‘A.’ We have made them out of Play-Doh, wine corks, marshmallow Peeps and various other materials.”

Benefits of Creative Play

While it may seem like the team just likes playing with Play Doh and craft materials, the team has identified some solid benefits to the “Today’s A” creative exercise.

1. Exercise – Using different creative muscles to have the freedom to do something in your way instead of trying to fitting within the confines of a brand style.
2. Tactile – Working with your hands is beneficial for the creative process. For Koenig and others at the agency, joy comes from creating by hand, without the use of a computer. It’s satisfying to create something physical and then share your creation with others.
3. Practice – “Today’s A” isn’t just a fun, creative exercise, it’s practice for when it’s time to really think creatively to hit deadlines and make a big impact with client work. It also helps the teamwork through problems and grow as creators. One of the biggest skills needed for being a creative, whether it’s a designer or filmmaker or writer, is problem-solving and finding a good creative solution.

The “Today’s A” creative has allowed for creative expression, as well as personal and professional growth. While “Today’s A” is specific to A. Bright Idea, the concept is one any creative individual or organization can attempt to help build culture at a company, work through a creative block, spark new ideas and exercise known skills and tap into new ones.

Do you see a benefit in our “Today’s A” that we missed? Is this something you might try? Send us an email or DM on social. We’d love to hear from you.

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Don’t miss another Today’s A on the ‘gram at @abrightidea.

When I came across the above quote, I felt a strong connection to how much it relates to my working in a fast-paced creative agency. Every day you get thrown various situations, but how you choose to react to those situations serves as the catalyst for your success.

When approaching new tasks, we inherently seek guidance from others to layout step-by-step directions because creating a sense of familiarity makes us comfortable. The sense of accomplishment, however, feels much stronger when it stems from pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. Your ability to get comfortable starts with recognizing the point at which you transition from uncomfortable to stressed.

Many mistakenly identify feeling uncomfortable with feeling stressed. Stress, real stress, comes from situations beyond our control, often involving family, health or livelihood. When I experienced a significant earthquake while waiting for a plane in Los Angeles – that was real stress. Similar to what I witnessed during the 2017 California wildfires in Sonoma and the devastating fires in Los Angeles County, in a moment’s notice people became displaced, injured and left with a real sense of raw vulnerability. Despite practicing emergency preparedness drills and thinking I knew what to do in these situations, I realized I was far less in control than imagined.

While stressful situations reach beyond our control, everyone can take ownership of an uncomfortable situation and set their own path forward. Stay focused on the big picture and tackle the project one step at a time to easily identify where you feel most uncomfortable, so you can move toward a stronger level of comfort for future tasks. Tackling uncomfortable situations brings personal/professional growth to help you become comfortable with the uncomfortable.

I knew I wanted to explore the concept of “getting comfortable being uncomfortable” with the rest of the ABI team, so I made it the theme of our annual employee summit. Each team member wrote down one thing that makes them comfortable at work and one that makes them uncomfortable. Through an open group discussion, we found similarities among our answers, and in a few instances, discovered what one person identifies as comfortable, another found uncomfortable. Some answers on both ends of the spectrum included public speaking, multitasking and working under pressure.

 
During our discussions, I shared another story of feeling uncomfortable – when A. Bright Idea received its first government contract as prime contractor. For many years prior, we executed public affairs support for our commercial clients and got comfortable serving as a sub-contractor for larger government accounts. Our hesitation to apply as a prime contractor stemmed from a feeling of uncertainty in not knowing all of the answers and we did not feel fully prepared to navigate the entire process ourselves. Though we faced many new and uncomfortable tasks to take on this new challenge, we pulled our resources, asked a lot of questions and figured it out. The risk was worth the reward.

That singular experience allowed A. Bright Idea to evolve into the 23-year-old, full-service agency we are today with over 45 employees serving clients coast to coast.

Life brings unknown obstacles to navigate, but how you choose to move forward determines the confidence and knowledge you’ll bring to future tasks. Change can be uncomfortable, but real opportunities for transformation rise from the unknown.

Creativity doesn’t have to be elaborate or flashy, and it doesn’t have to be reserved for the “creatives” alone. Low-key creativity is the effortless, no-pressure strategy to get your brain working in an imaginative way with others.

Creativity doesn’t start in an email
Get those creative juices flowing with face-to-face interaction! The key to a collaborative environment is getting to know your coworkers on a personal level, away from the computer screen. Try kicking off a meeting with a quick creative exercise and have everyone share their piece with the team. Not only will this bring everyone some laughs, but it will start the meeting with high energy, ready to jump into a productive meeting.

Here’s an exercise our team tried in a recent meeting:
Each participant has a piece of paper with 30 blank circles on it and a pencil. Team members are challenged to fill in as many circles as possible in only three minutes. The aim being quantity, not quality.

Culture of creativity
Give every team member every creative opportunity and constantly promote a positive work environment and culture. Providing a creative and unique work space can improve company morale, and science shows that positive moods tend to promote those “a-ha” moments. So, bring a whiteboard and handful of candy to your next meeting (this always works for us).

Encouraging creativity doesn’t stop with our Bright Lights – we challenge you to complete the 30 circles exercise with your team and tag us on Facebook or Twitter with the photos. We can’t wait to see where their imagination takes them!

With another spectacular Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Best in Maryland event in the history books, we continue to bask in the glory of achieving top honors for two of our creative campaigns.

The PRSA Maryland Chapter awarded our agency “Best in Show” for our work with the U.S. Army National Guard’s Action Events Program – a national, integrated communications campaign developed to share the National Guard’s core values with high school students across the country and increase leads for local recruiters. To support the effort, we provided oversight and coordination for the Bring Your ‘A Game’ to School program, which included more than 350 BMX shows at high schools across the United States throughout the 2015-16 school year.

The program provided local recruiters with direct access and engagement with school leadership, as well as students with a potential interest in enlistment. The Bring Your ‘A Game’ to School BMX performances featured high-flying stunts from professional talent, custom designed materials and promotional items geared towards collecting student leads.

The highest honor presented by the PRSA Maryland Chapter, the “Best in Show” recognition acknowledges the campaign with the highest total number of points from the judges in all submission categories. Just to recap, that means, our campaign scored the most amount of points of any submission this year.

The elite award came just after a special recognition of our Brightest Light Anita A. Brightman, for her innumerable contributions to the Maryland PRSA chapter throughout her career. The presentation set the tone for a night of success for our lights.
In addition to “Best in Show,” the National Guard Bring Your ‘A Game’ to School campaign also received the Best in Maryland Award for the Integrated Communications category. We received the Award of Excellence for the development and execution of a television commercial for Stella Maris – a nonprofit, long-term care facility located in Timonium, Maryland. The 30-second video, developed by our talented in-house audio/visual production team for Stella Maris’ Simply Loving Life campaign, captures the spirit of life at the facility.
We couldn’t think of a better way to round out our 20th year of serving a unique client base on the local, regional and national level. These awards are a true reflection of our team’s diverse expertise, coupled with their unending passion, from the design of a logo to the execution of events nationwide, making our agency a valuable asset to our clients. The real honor for our team comes from helping our clients achieve their goals and realize their dreams.

As one chapter closes on A. Bright Idea’s first 20 years of service, we welcome with open arms the next two decades – full of opportunity, promise and challenges for our team to conquer, together.

Often in life, we spend so much time working on the next project we forget to stop and take stock of our achievements. A 20th anniversary seems a good time to take pause and reflect. As I look around me, I see the walls of my Bel Air office and the hallways of the building covered in the national, regional and local awards we’ve won at A. Bright Idea. More important to me, however, remains the continued trust clients freely offer us to help them continue to succeed. I take pride in the achievements of A. Bright Idea over the past 20 years and the bright future ahead. I started alone.

In August 1996, I began A. Bright Idea with the simple desire to use my talents creatively and to their fullest potential. I decided to leave the corporate world behind and create my own business. It was not the safe choice with a newborn daughter, an uncertain economic situation and no prior experience as an entrepreneur.

With confidence in my abilities and a desire to approach things differently than in the corporate world, I flipped their contracting business model. Instead of hiring people to meet contract requirements only to eliminate positions when contracts ended, I decided to build a talented team and find multiple clients we could support.

During this journey, several key people played a role in building our success. My thankfulness to them remains everlasting. Here are just a few who helped along the way:

• TJ, my husband, for planting the seed of starting my own business and always serving as my biggest supporter and cheerleader. He brought considerable marketing and management experience (as well as his best friend, Chad Mitchell, as our CFO) when they joined the team a decade ago.
• Gary McCormick, APR, Fellow PRSA, for hiring me out of college, exposing me to the Public Relations Society of America, and the government contracting arena and the PageMaker design software.
• Dan Simmons, owner of Continental Search and Outplacement Inc., trusted me to help his business, and as I know from personal experience, a business represents more than just where we work – it represents our dreams and our time. Twenty years later, I still appreciate the trust and advice he bestowed.
• The late Miguel “Mickey” Morales, then the public affairs officer for the former Soldier Biological Chemical Defense Command, pushed me to apply for the federal 8(a) certification program. I listened and was accepted into the business development program in 2006 and graduated last year.
• John O’Brien and Jacob Cheiffo from the Office of Small Business Programs at Aberdeen Proving Ground for helping us get in front of government clients and demonstrate our capabilities.
• Rosita Carosella, small business program associate director for the Defense Logistics Agency, for supporting us in the transition from a subcontractor to a prime contractor, which helped propel us in the right direction at the right time to allow us to grow at a sustainable rate.

This list above doesn’t even begin to capture the level of support I’ve received throughout the years from numerous professionals, clients, partners and friends.

The spark that began in my spare-bedroom-turned-office now serves as a beacon to draw others eager to perform to their fullest potential as creative verbal and visual communicators.

Nearly 40 people – Bright Lights as we call them – make up the A. Bright Idea team today. A. Bright Idea operates with team members in three states and maintains offices on the East and West Coast. I take pride in creating a space where they can do good work and find creative solutions for our clients. The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.” As we mark the 20^th anniversary milestone of A. Bright Idea, our team uplifts each other and uplifts me. We work closely together, taking advantage of the diversity of our talents and experience to push our work to the next level. We’re supportive. We provide assistance to our clients and to each other, offering help, guidance and advice in areas critical to their success. We’re proactive. We take risks and look for opportunities to support the end goal, solving problems and building creative solutions without fear.

I look forward to the next 20 years with the same excitement and desire as I did that August morning in 1996 when the future lay brightly before me.