Nigel Collin - Author of Weekly bits the Early Years.

Famil Club are pleased to bring you the Weekly Bits the early years one item in every edition.  

The idea for this came one sunny day when having a latte at a cafe with my marketing team we stumbled on the fact that ‘Weekly BITS’ was in fact 21 issues old and had finally come of age. Somehow we thought it should be celebrated. So we decided to put together this compilation.

When I first started writing ‘Weekly BITS’ I had no idea if it would be any good or actually make a difference or even if anyone would read it. But now people all over the planet read ‘Weekly BITS’ and I get comments about how it helps and inspires people to see the world more creatively and be more creative themselves, to understand that creativity in business and life is not just important but also accessible and doable, to help people tap into their creative spirit and potential. I’m a big believer that everyone is creative but that we are just very good and banging it out of ourselves and at times need a bit of guidance.

Stories of creative endeavours and great failures that came good have always fascinated me. The creative mind has always captivated me. I love hearing of how things came about and of different perspectives and points of view. The fact that creative thinking can be both a process and a free flowing affair has fascinated me as well.

‘Weekly BITS’ was never meant to be a ‘how to’ of creativity or
a ‘10 steps to a better creative self’ because to me creativity is in fact a state of mind, as well as a process.

The mission of this ‘Weekly BITS’ compilation then, (now that it’s mature and has responsibility), is to look at the world through the creative eyes of others, at what’s gone before us, is hidden amongst us, and to capture the many colours creativity has.

This is a collection of stories, observations, ideas, devices and provocations.

We’ve done a tad of editing, reworked and rearranged some things and added a few new pieces to help give the originals a better flow.

Nigel Collin Creative
ITEM ONE

The hidden opportunity
Ideas have a habit of revealing themselves in the strangest of places and strangest of ways. Quite often what appears to be an insurmountable challenge or unbeatable adversity is in fact great opportunity.  We just need to be open enough, receptive enough and creative enough to see them when they arise.

Take one evening in the dining room of the McViker family for example. The McViker’s owned a small business called Kuto Chemicals, which back in the 1950’s was in a tad of bother. They made a product, a wonderfully ingenious product, a softish, clayish compound which you would roll along the wallpaper in your house and all the grime and dust would stick to it. Clever really. Problem was that the wallpaper industry itself was in turmoil because of fashion trends - more and more people were using paint for their interiors and less and less were using wallpaper. As a result, sales of the ‘Magic Wallpaper Cleaner’ were in drastic decline and with it also the fortunes of the McVikers.

Enter a kindergarten teacher named Kay Zufall, a friend of the McVikers who had other problems. As a teacher of younglings, she was sick and tired of how messy the modelling clay was that kids used. Too wet - and the stuff would just sliny and oozy and never hold its shape, too dry - and it became brittle and just crumbled under the pressure of a two year olds hands. Either way,  there would have been a lot of crying children.

So back to dinner, because one evening, over a dinner one assumes, legend has it that Kay mentioned her frustration to her good friends the McVikers. Following that was an unrecorded conversation which resulted somehow in one of the McVikers saying something like ‘try this’ and then handed Kay Zufall some ‘Magic Wallpaper Cleaner’.  Not too hard, not too soft, it held it’s shape and worked like a charm.

‘PlayDoh’  was born.

Fortunately for us the almost tragedy which was 'Magic Wallpaper Cleaner' became an instant hit and children all over the planet have grown up knowing the joys of ‘Play Doh’, and parents all over the world have spent countless hours pulling the stuff out of carpet.

And here’s the best part, the McViker Family was smart enough to see the evolution of their product and the opportunity it offered them. By being open to possibilities,  the McViker Family turned potential oblivion into enormous success, and became very rich in the process.

Enjoy and please feel free to pass it on, print it out and share it with others.

http://www.nigelcollin.com.ai/early-years.html (for the book directly) Email think@nigelcollin.com.au