The Common Creative

How do you strike the right balance between creativity and profitability?  Joining us this week is the Executive Vice President of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Stephen Basil-Jones, who shares some of the more surprising and challenging aspects behind creativity and how to target markets effectively. Tune in now for an episode full of creative insights and to learn why creativity might best be...

How do you combine the use of stimulus and deprivation to develop new ideas? Remo Giuffré is a fascinating creative strategist who is both an entrepreneur and a brand-builder. He is founder of both the Remo General Store and the General Thinking Network and is also the Licensee and Director of TEDxSydney! Tune in for a wonderful episode all about developing new ideas and designing your own...

How do you come up with new ideas when you feel like you've exhausted all avenues? Meet Dr. Amy Climer - a speaker, trainer, and coach who teaches teams how to innovate on demand. Amy has a Ph. D. in Leadership and Change and developed the Deliberate Creative™ Team Scale to help teams understand how to increase their creativity. She hosts The Deliberate Creative ™ podcast and she is th...

Ever thought about changing your career? After 18 years in the banking industry, Jonathan Brunello decided it was time for a complete career shift and came up with the idea to design and manufacture height adjustable desks with the primary purpose of allowing children the same flexible learning opportunities as adults. And thus amperstand was born... Tune in to this episode for a fantastic convers...

How does absorption in a task contribute to the art itself? As an artist and sculptor, Stephen Hart has always been someone who has "made things" and he has some wonderful insights to share about devoting yourself to a task, developing a craft and the power of divine providence in creativity.  (Part 2 of 2) Links/References Stephen Hart: https://stephenhart.com.au/ The Common Creative Podcast...

How does absorption in a task contribute to the art itself? As an artist and sculptor, Stephen Hart has always been someone who has "made things" and he has some wonderful insights to share about devoting yourself to a task, developing a craft and the power of divine providence in creativity.  (Part 1 of 2) Links/References Stephen Hart: https://stephenhart.com.au/ The Common Creative Podcast...

As CEO of Opera Australia and former Managing Director of Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Rory Jeffes has an intricately wound background in both creativity and business. Tune in for some fantastic insights on mediating competing priorities, how to communicate more effectively and the importance of asking the right questions. Links/References Rory Jeffes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rory-jeffes The Com...

Cameron Schwab became the youngest CEO in AFL history when he was appointed the role for Richmond Football Club at age 24. Having spent the next 25 years as CEO of Richmond, Melbourne and Fremantle, Cameron has an extremely strong background in leadership, team-building, unifying groups and mentoring. He now works as a CEO, leadership coach and strategist in his business designCEO and is also an a...

Shane Hatton is an author, speaker, trainer and coach who works with organisations to develop remarkable leaders. Working to close the leadership gap between mid and senior level leaders, Shane has a multitude of creative insights on ideation, storytelling and "creativity within consistency" that he utilises to bring clarity to his clients and improve the way they communicate and connect. &nb...

Photographer Paul Harris has met the Queen and worked with A-list celebrities… and yet it’s the real people and their stories that stick with him the most. Having worked at The Age where you’re only as good as your last Page 1, Paul has had to deal with all manner of people, situations and surprising circumstances - and as a result has some fantastic creative insights about curi...

Over 8,000 people across Australia sleep rough every night and as a result of being vulnerable and unprotected, hundreds lose their lives each year due to attacks, suicide, overdoses and pneumonia. The average life expectancy of someone who is sleeping rough long-term is just 47 years old.  Having been personally impacted by homelessness, for Norman McGillivray this was unacceptable. He creat...

Join us for a fantastic episode this week as Chris and Paul talk with Mark McGuinness - poet, creative coach and fellow podcaster!  Tune in for a thoughtful discussion on creativity that is jam-packed with insights including the power of building assets in the creative world, taking the time for ideas and just what creative symbiosis involves. Check it out now!  Links/References Mark McG...

Tune in to the second part of a discussion about "The New Normal" as Hosts Chris & Paul dive into the topic of working from home as part of an interspersed miniseries all about the insights and changes that have come about in the midst of a pandemic. This episode features a conversation about shifting power dynamics between employers and employees, a rise in leaders who are facilitators rather...

Hosts Chris & Paul talk THE NEW NORMAL in the first part of an interspersed miniseries all about the insights and changes that have come about in the midst of a pandemic. This episode features a conversation about consumer consciousness and the growing awareness we have towards buying local and prioritising quality. We also dive into a discussion about community and recognising the influence t...

An experienced podcaster and UX Lead for the Banker Experience at ANZ, Greg is at the forefront of connecting ANZ Bank to its customers in a way that feels seamless and intuitive. Greg sees himself as a creative thinker rather than a creative, and admits to blending play, research and story telling to help him collaborate with his community of designers.  Challenged to describe design within...

Welcome back to Season 2 of The Common Creative! We are thrilled to be back and oh do we have a fantastic opening episode for you....  Alicia Olson-Keating has been working in the media industry for over 30 years, 28 of which were spent in Canada. Alicia has strong industry experience in disciplines that span strategy, B2B marketing, qualitative and quantitative research, data, analytics and...

Putting Design in the Bank  As Chief Design Officer at ANZ Bank, Opher Yom-Tov is arguably one of Australia’s most experienced and influential designers – on a mission to help ANZ Bank use design as a strategic capability. With a background in a different bank as well as innovative agencies and startups, Opher is uniquely qualified to understand creativity and design from a variet...

Have you ever had a conversation that changed your life? Meet Glen Boyle, the co-founder of KokoNiu who got the idea for the business after a conversation at a 5th birthday party. KokoNiu is a business that is transforming Global Coconut Replanting to help combat declining productivity rates of existing trees at a time when the demand for coconuts is soaring.  This story is one about curiosit...

This week on The Common Creative we have a very special guest… Paul’s mum! Once told by a boarding school superior that she “had no business playing the piano”, Enid Fairweather has lived a life filled with creativity and at 89 is still creating things daily. (She also left boarding school and continued to play the piano!) From music to crochet, cake icing to porcelain dol...

How “the ripple effect” can deliver a creative impact well beyond a simple decision. Troy Smyth is an award winning Brisbane-based architect and director of Ryall & Smyth Architects. He’s also a personal friend of Paul’s. Troy was invited to join the show to tell a low-key story about a quiet moment of reflection at the side of the street when he’d observed two tu...

Kath Blackham is the founder and CEO of Versa – a digital agency whose mission has ignored tech jargon and instead is all about facilitating conversations between their clients and customers.  Kath appeared on our radar when we spotted an ABC story about her agency moving to a four day week and doubling profits in the process. In this inspirational interview, we discover how Kath has us...

Dani Venn is a three-time Masterchef contestant, founder of Eat It Up Creative (consultancy) and The Wholehearted Cook and the driving force behind a delicious Sri-Lankan style Pineapple Curry, which is available in Coles Supermarkets. In this super-fresh and tasty interview, we learned that even under the pressure of performing as a Masterchef contestant, Dani unleashes her creativity by applying...

Creative Accounting at a Stretch When Chris and Paul challenged Camille Woods (accountancy teacher, yoga teacher and founder of www.mondaymind.com ) to explain how she has managed to combine two such different disciplines into one career, she said “you have to let your creativity come out”. In this powerful interview, Camille reveals a range of deep insights about what drives her and h...

Creativity and risk go hand in hand. New ventures often require a step into unknown territory and this uncertainty can be scary. Sometimes those risks pay off and other times... they don’t. The name elderflower sounds delicate and sweet… so how was it that this flowering plant caused so much trouble for chef Garry Flynn? This week on The Common Creative, Paul and Chris chat to Garry a...

“Frisson" is the feeling you have when you get up on stage for a first performance or the moment when an inner idea goes public. It's the mid-point between fear and excitement and we’ve discovered it's one of the vital fuels for creativity.  In this episode, Paul describes how as a teenager and as an adult various teachers told him ‘you can’t sing’. Driven by a n...