Yesterday we did our first workshop with Pamela Meyer, creativity consultant and author of From Workplace to Playspace: Innovating, Learning and Changing Through Dynamic Engagement and HR/Business consultant extraordinaire, Carol Semrad.

Pamela and Carol use improv techniques, mind mapping, and their own unique methodologies to help companies tap into their creative strengths, collaborate more effectively, and grow in ways that make sense for both businesses and the people they hire. We spent the majority of our time doing a custom variation of the tried and true SWOT analysis, but with a Pamela spin. Pamela’s take is that the W (weaknesses) and T (threats) in SWOT analysis leave too much room for focusing on negativity, which can undermine potential and get us bogged down trying to fix problems rather than working toward realizing what we are capable of.

A detailed roadmap for engendering creativity and engagement into your business.

Being creative on the fly is tough.

To sustain that creativity over years for a wide variety of clients who may or may not share your vision is even tougher. Every artist wrestles with the concept of art vs. commerce and in many cases the two are often mutually exclusive.

At Mightybytes, we constantly struggle with balancing the needs of project timelines and budgets while still devising great creative solutions on demand. Every creative firm worth their salt does (if they tell you otherwise, they're lying).

Engaging in extracurricular creative activities—brewing beer, playing in rock bands, doing improv and enrolling in writing workshops, to name a few—gives us a leg up, but ultimately this struggle is an ongoing challenge that is especially difficult in trying economic times. This conundrum is both how we thrive and one of the company's biggest continuous tests.

It is with this in mind that I read Pamela Meyer's book From Workplace to Playspace: Innovating, Learning, and Changing through Dynamic Engagement.