The Proximity Paradox: How to Create Distance from Business as Usual and Do Something Truly Innovative

by Kiirsten May, Alex Varricchio

Overview

The Proximity Paradox will show you how to step back from your business to focus your creativity and meet your clients’ needs

“Innovative … It’s a much-needed perspective on how to escape inside-the-box thinking.” — Publishers Weekly

Traditional business structures love stability and predictability. Yet many organizations believe the two essential ingredients for long-term success are creativity and innovation. Kiirsten May and Alex Varricchio, founders of the marketing agency UpHouse, call the relationship between these two opposing expectations the Proximity Paradox™ — the belief that those who are closest to a subject are best qualified to innovate for it when, in reality, intense proximity limits creativity. Instead, people need to create distance from challenges in order to see the best way forward. May and Varricchio believe that until we can separate innovation and execution within ourselves, we will only innovate to the level at which we can execute the idea. To be effective, we need to create distance between our innovation brain and our execution brain.

Unpacking ten common examples of the Proximity Paradox that affect a company’s people, processes, and industry, the authors share some practical ideas to create the distance necessary for your next great idea. An especially valuable book for creatives, and non-creatives in creative industries, but equally applicable to all businesses that depend on innovation, The Proximity Paradox encourages us to ask hard questions about how we work, how our businesses are structured, and why we routinely find our creativity at odds with what’s asked of us as executors and stewards of the bottom line.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770415324
Publisher:	ECW Press
Publication date:	03/24/2020
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Alex Varricchio worked with one of the largest advertising agencies on the Canadian Prairies for 10 years, and eventually led the creative department as creative director. He has always had an entrepreneurial spirit and pursued his first business venture at the age of four. Kiirsten May has always had a passion for storytelling and creative expression. She’s channeled that passion into helping brands and individuals influence their communities through well-told stories. Together, they are the co-owners of UpHouse, a marketing agency, and Crainstorm, a crowd- sourced brainstorming web app.

Read an Excerpt

A graphic designer is invited to paint a mural on the side of an old building in a rough end of town. She collaborates with a group of artists to turn four storeys of tired brick into a contemporary work of art. When the mural is complete, the neighborhood throws a party to celebrate the first of what they hope will be many rejuvenations to the area. The graphic designer’s boss reads about the mural in the news and asks her, “Why can’t you create something like that around here?”

We’ve seen things like this happen again and again for more than ten years. As advertising agency people, we have the opportunity to work with a lot of creative types. We’re not just talking about designers and artists; we’re talking about people with the ability to solve old problems in new, imaginative ways. Advertising agencies and marketing departments attract thousands of these types. Yet it’s rare to see a creative person unleash his or her full potential at work.

We call this effect the Proximity Paradox, and that’s what this book is all about. Proximity is the effect that shackles creativity, dilutes innovation, steers brave people down safe roads, and pushes leading-edge companies to the back of the pack. It’s what was blocking your view when a competitor blindsided you. It’s what eventually wore down your bold, inventive younger self, and it’s what is still wearing you down today.

Table of Contents

• Foreword


• Preface


• Introduction
  
  
  
  
  • i. Recognizing the Proximity Paradox
  
  
  • ii. The Birth of Proximity
  
  
  • iii. Managing Proximity
  
  
  
  
  
  


• Part One: Create Distance for People
  
  
  
  
  • 1. Be an Innovator, Not an Executor: Skunk Works, Innovation Colonies, and creating distance from responsibilities
  
  
  • 2. Listen to the New Blood: Diamond Shreddies and creating distance from your experience
  
  
  • 3. Stop Trying to Be So Efficient: Havas and creating distance from workday monotony 
  
  
  
  
  
  


• Part Two: Create Distance from Process
  
  
  
  
  • 4. Trust Yourself Before Data: Apple and creating distance from the data
  
  
  • 5. Don’t Be Precious with Ideas: Pebble and creating distance from your products and ideas
  
  
  • 6. Come Up with Ideas to Plan: Shutterstock and creating distance from your plans
  
  
  • 7. Invert the Org Chart: Gore and creating distance from org chart responsibilities 
  
  
  
  
  
• Part Three: Distance from Industry
  
  
  
  
  • 8. Create for Future Customers: Nintendo and creating distance from your existing customers
  
  
  
  
  
  

Editorial Reviews

04/27/2020

In this invigorating debut business guide, Varricchio and May, co-owners of the UpHouse marketing agency, propose that “proximity” to a challenge can often directly interfere with one’s ability to solve it. At a time of intense competition for customers and pressure to innovate, the authors find that the kind of long-held and intimate experience with a market that many consider an asset is actually killing the original thinking needed in business. The authors go on to discuss how an outside perspective can jump-start ideas insiders would never have conceived. They explore the downside of efficiency (namely the monotony it nurtures), and the benefit of shaking things up to create “distance,” or a fresh perspective. Varricchio and May discuss how to create distance from the org chart, to avoid the rigid stratification of responsibilities they experienced firsthand while working at big ad agencies. On a similar note, they urge businesspeople to gain a perspective independent from the industry they operate in, with “its... code of accepted activities and behaviors” dictating what ideas are and aren’t acceptable. Marketers and those tasked with innovation will find this work full of food for thought. It’s a much-needed perspective on how to escape inside-the-box thinking. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Innovative . . . Marketers and those tasked with innovation will find this work full of food for thought. It’s a much-needed perspective on how to escape inside-the-box thinking.” — Publishers Weekly

“The Proximity Paradox is both provocative and prescriptive. It will challenge your industry experience, best practices, and team alignment. In our digital economy, where creativity and innovation are in constant demand, business leaders need a new approach for meeting their client needs. The Proximity Paradox helps you see what you are doing wrong and how to fix it. A must-read for all agency and marketing executives.” — MK Marsden, 3-time global CMO, Managing Partner at Touchpoint Strategies and Board Practice Leader at Avasta

“The Proximity Paradox isn’t just a must-read for anyone in business today, it should be your manual for continually unleashing innovation in your teams and within yourself. Their approach is pragmatic, challenging, and, most importantly, hopeful.” — Matt Johnston, Johnston Group

“On almost every page of this book, I found myself nodding my head in agreement, taking notes, or dog-earring the edge. It brings up so many points that I will now be putting in to practice in my own business. Big thank you to Kiirsten and Alex for putting this together. It’s a must-read for creatives and entrepreneurs.” — Phoebe Cornog, Co-owner/Founder, Pandr Design Co.

“I read The Proximity Paradox as a neuroscientist, psychologist, and business owner and from all three perspectives feel like it’s great! It’s like applied neuroscience without all the jargon of how the brain works. Instead it’s a practical guide to taking a step back from some of the biases our brain naturally makes when we are too close or experienced in an area. I felt inspired to try these strategies with my own company and at other times affirmed with some of the strategies I already use. The examples throughout were poignant and I even caught myself laughing out loud on the streetcar. This book is a must-have for any creatives, business owners, or academics who want to stay relevant in their field for years to come.” — Mandy Wintink, PhD, RYT, Life Coach/Director, Centre for Applied Neuroscience Inc.

From the Publisher

12/13/2019

Since Alex Faickney Osborn introduced the notion of brainstorming in his 1953 book Applied Imagination, the concept has been applied to many fields. In their first book, May and Varricchio, co-owners of the marketing agency UpHouse, follow in the tradition of Osborn. Here, the premise is that those closest to a product are generally the preservationists of the status quo rather than the inventors of a new design. The authors cite several examples of classic innovation, including descriptions of skunkworks projects, along with the genius of manufacturing company W.L. Gore and Associates. The authors are less adept at explaining the longevity of modern companies; they also place importance on garnering new customers instead of focusing on retention, which should give pause to technology-based companies. For the more academically oriented, the endnotes provide plenty of recent research and online resources, which should have strong appeal. VERDICT A respectable business work recasting vintage techniques that may be compelling to a more scholarly audience.—Steven Silkunas, Fernandina Beach, FL

Library Journal

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