For someone who regularly suffers from short term memory loss, I am surprised by the many things I remember from my childhood. I remember crying like mad in the road as my mother carried me to pre-school when I realised that I had forgotten my lunch at home. I candidly recall my primary school classmates and I panicking and ducking below our desks when we heard a police siren passing loudly near our school in Couva during the 1970 Black Power Movement. I can neither forget my teddy bear, “Teddy Ted Teds”, nor the water fountain in the shape of a lion on the Promenade in San Fernando so many moons ago. There are a number of “ordinary” moments that for whatever reason have stayed fresh in my mind. These memories belong to yesteryear and that’s where they have stayed. There is, however, a memory that transcends the initiating moment and is relevant to my world of advertising today.
Glimpse at a Revolutionary Workspace Experiment
When I attended evening shift at Couva Junior Secondary School, I would have my fill of television in the morning before leaving home. Back then in the late 70’s, Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) was the nation’s only television station, so I looked at whatever was on. I enjoyed a smorgasboard of programmes. Among these were those 30 minute magazine shows on the culture and developments in Japan, Germany, England and the like. There was a particular episode from the United Kingdom on a company that was conducting an experiment in the work place. This experiment allowed employees to arrive at work at whatever time they wished, leave the office whenever they wanted or do their work at home. Vividly I remember a female saying that it was good for her to work from home as she could take care of her baby and still do her job. At the office building, there was even a game room with a pool table for the staff to relax their mind when needed. The one condition – each person’s job must meet its deadline.
So what was the purpose of this exercise? If memory serves, this company was an advertising agency (or some other endeavour dealing with creativity) and the idea was to have an environment that would encourage creative minds to flourish. I do not know the outcome of the experiment, but the idea of such a working space always stayed in my mind. Now that I work in the creative field of advertising, I have always wondered if such a similar condition could exist in Trinidad and Tobago. I doubt it because our employers’ view of work is incongruous to the mind of the creative worker.
The Workstation for the Creative Person is the Mind
According to freedictionary.com, work is “Physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something.” Our employers are partially blind to the mental effort and primarily see the physical. We are being paid to work from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. so we have to be sweating behind the computer otherwise we are not working. Truth be told, I have had many an instance when a good idea came to me while meditating over the toilet bowl, walking in the road, talking shit with friends, when asleep and even drinking at the bar. The point is that the workstation for the creative person is the mind. We are always working, beyond the rigid confines of the clock, however, from the outside looking in, we would appear to be loafing. So what we are faced with are square pegs and round holes. In other words, there is a distinct difference between manual labour and mental labour.
Advertising boasts of being a high-pressure industry, but does pressure and creativity go hand in hand? Yes, some wonderful work has been produced under pressure, however, when at ease, the intuitive power of the brain erupts, creating great work. Take 3M for example, the company that built a reputation for being an outstanding corporate innovator. They did this through its corporate policy of encouraging risk-taking and tolerating failure. In 2000 when the company became sluggish and profits were erratic, Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney brought much-needed managerial discipline to the company. Some critics, however, argue that the Six Sigma mindset he inculcated had an unintended side-effect: crowding out the creative culture needed to innovate.
Practicality of the Creative Office
Internet giant Google is a good example of corporate policy that positively affects creativity. Here, the bosses paid close attention to creating a workspace that is a creative space: . Google is riding high because of it.
O.K. There is another side of the coin. We must think practically in regards to our circumstances in sweet TnT. The idea of telling staff to come to and go from work whenever they please is inviting disaster. Certainly this would provide opportunities to work PH for half day, go to Macqueripe Bay with the outside woman or manage the cottage industry at home to earn some extra cash. This being said, for all the ten years that I have been working as a Copywriter in advertising, we the Creative, have always been asked to think outside the box. The problem is that we are placed inside the box. I believe for us to start doing that creative magic that everyone hopes for, the creative space has to be redefined. Of course, this will have to be within our context as “Trinbagonians” and what can work for us.
Maybe I would live to see the day when there is a realisation that creative people are not clerical staff. What’s the difference between them and us? Left brain and right brain. Those members of staff who punch in the figures, file and so on use the left side of the brain. They are orderly, logical and analytical. We, on the other hand, use the right side of the brain and are impulsive, free flowing and creative. So the work space requirements are different for each. Maybe if more attention is placed on the needs of the right brain thinkers, as radical as they may seem, then we may experience an avalanche of brilliance.
