Driving by the Hyatt over the holidays, I was ticked off by the huge bill board  announcing the impending debut Water Taxi service. 

 I was reading  Seth Goodin's book, Tribe this weekend; this is what he had to say about people who make no excuses, who assume responsibility and who are committed to a vision:

"Leaders challenge the status quo

Leaders have an extraordinary amount of curiosity about the world they are trying to change

Leaders use charisma to attract and motivate followers

Leaders communicate their vision for the future

Leaders commit to a vision and make their decisions based on that commitment

Leaders connect  their followers  to one another

If you consider all the  leaders in your organisation or community, you'll see everyone of them uses some combination of these elements . You don't have to be in charge or powerful or connected to be a leader. You do have to be committed."

Being creative on demand is damned hard work. It can casue you to overeat or not eat at all. It can churn your stomach in knots and cause you to have sleepless nights.

Still, any creative worth his iPod will tell you that the pay-off is worth the price. It comes in the brainstorming session preferably over a large pizza with everything on it, it gets better still when the idea begins to take shape on paper.

But best yet is when the idea flies, when that tiny nugget of information you had in your head one week or one year before adds significantly to your company's bottom line. The sense of satisfaction is sweeter than any chocolate frosted cake.

That's why fostering creativity in your organisation is critical. Uniqueness of an idea can come from anywhere - the idea, the business logic, the accounting process, the culture.

But what it really boils down to is the people. Being different is the key. Creativity is about seeing things differently.

Little happens in the innovation department when a group of 50-something-year-old males from the same culture and background get together to make a decision about bringing a product to market.

Chances are, however, if you take that group and added a mix of cultures, gender, backgrounds and different ways of thinking you will generate a plethora of ideas and a load of energy.

That's why firms need to hire and depend on those who can come up with unique ideas. The ones who are a little different.

But this is where the trouble starts, because uniqueness and difference are often the preserve of people, who judged against the average corporate citizen, often seem a little strange.

They break the rules. They question norms. They are prepared to take risks, sometimes leaving the organisation, which entraps them to set up organisations of their own.

Does this serve the firm any good? My answer would be an emphatic no! Sameness is a direct route to nowhere. If we are all willing to follow conventions, to think like all the rest, we will see the same things, hear the same things, hire the same people and develop identical products and service.

We will create a sea of normality and drown in it. In 2009, Sameness Inc. is bankrupt. But cultivating the creative types takes a special leader who is willing to see things differently. Firstly, creative work is not automated, and definitely not linear.

It stops and it starts. I remember five years ago at the Ernst & amp;Young Entrepreneur of the Year Conference, one speaker said that one of his developers, after creating and bringing to market an innovative software, would often disappear from the company for weeks on end, virtually unreachable by phone to a remote part of India, the country from which he came.

The speaker expressed his frustration at first until, as he recognised, his developer's weirdness was one stream of his company's wealth.

After a while he thought that instead of working against his talent he'd work with him and proceeded to give him six weeks off after a particularly gruelling period of innovation.

The fact is, if you let creative types make the rules, within limits (you don't want utter confusion), if you allow them time for blue sky thinking, protect them from idea killers and add liberal doses of fun to your hopefully non-cubicle environment - pizza after long meetings work every time - you'll be creating streams of revenues that may allow you to overlook personal idiosyncrasies.

So go ahead and cultivate the creative class. The alternative is nightmarish. A company doomed to produce ideas that everyone else has already seen.

Great conversations happen in the most unexpected of spaces. Take on the eve of the New Year, I was trying on the dress I'd ring in 2009 with and as its designer, Claudia Pegus, tugs  on  the elaborate skirt she says; " You know what's going get us through this recession? Productivity." 

Productivity she reasons equates with profit.

 She's right. Working harder. Delivering more. Measuring output and aligning it to the  outcome will matter more than ever.

The problem is that as marketers we've become too complacent. Buoyed  as we were by a thriving economy there was a decided  arrogance in the way we worked, served and communicated the value of our products and services. We forgot that after the boom comes the blast.

Still all it means is that we will have to get more creative. More relevant.  The market will benefit too because  we will be forced  to design better products that are easier to use. We'll have write our material in a way that our audience hears, price in a way that moves our products and services  and present in a manner that our audience  hears. 

I predict that we will be forced to count less on big budget  advertising, employ more cheap media, rely more on great talent (lucky you if you have it),  and build and  leverage skills of our  teams. 

The biggest enemy of profit is indifference. Productivity is simply belief in action. 

  have a tall tale I love to share with my employees. It's about the hoops I had to jump through about ten years ago  in order to get paid from a scampish client, a bakery owner. I relate the part where I was forced to listen to his  rambles about  his philandering  wife.  I dramatise how I  waited  for five hours in his office until I left with my cheque in hand without a hint of the burning rage I felt at the time

The story, I believe, points to my naivete when I first started in business. But it also suggests a certain kind of determination to overcome hurdles. It was my rude awakening about  the survival factor of  cash flows  in a small business, and I  remind my staff of the story whenever client gives us the run around for payment. My staff hollers when I spin my tales, dramatic and over presented to ensure that  it sticks. 

But here is the thing about that story, not only is it a wonderful talking point, it also stands as a signature experience from the early days of the firm. In and of itself, it creates value because it  serves as a powerful and constant symbol of our organisation's culture. It reflects our heritage, and the ethos of our beginning. More importantly the story engages my small staff. 

Truth be told I am counting on this engagement  to see us through the difficult times. I got whiff that everything would be all right (on the employee side) right after a staff meeting I called last week to talk about how our firm was going to adjust to the recession. 

I began by asking the team what they feared most  and addressed those fears in a direct but caring fashion.   I outlined how salaries would be frozen, that we would probably have to work longer hours and be nimble enough to do more for less in order to serve our clients. In response everyone gave their commitment to meeting the challenges ahead and one of the senior employees  who had remained quiet throughout the discussion  said that as long as we stuck together we would be fine. 

Sticking together.  The phrase  reminded me of the importance of employee involvement in good times and bad and  that what  truly makes good, small companies great is their ability to attract and retain the right people who can persevere. Employees who are excited by what they're doing and the environment they're operating in, no matter how challenging/

Together I feel that we will come up with creative and productive solutions to the curent business environment and that our determination, just like when I sat in that client's office for five hours, will be contagious and uplifting

Suddenly, I am no longer afraid.

One of  my  favourite conversations this year was on Blog Radio in New York City at the IABC annual conference. 

Here Wynell Gregorio (marketing manager at CLICO and VP of Professional Development)   and I talk about how we feel about the tremendous success that is IABC T&T, a Chapter I founded along with ten other terrific business communicators. 

Listen in, it's informal and fun, plus we get to jibe   Giselle La Ronde West, our incoming President, who stayed in the background passing  us tips and notes to us to make our interview stronger. 

It was a great IABC T&T team moment!

Cap: Model, Kim See Tai displays one of Claudia Pegus creations at her 'Breeze' Collection launch 2008

I swear most marketers have no clue whatsoever what to do. So we do unoriginal  things, or stall, or fail to deliver on our brand's promise.

Take this weekend for instance, master designer Claudia Pegus launched her resort collection," Breeze" at the picturesque Crews Inn. Her line was stunning, what was in the goodie bag was not.

I imagine that the designer's team  asked the show's   sponsors and corporate partners for stuff that  could be placed into  the bag and guess what they all did? Each (with the exception of one)  gave the exact same thing: flyers, brochures, newsletter, all good stuff, sure, but nothing bold or remarkable.

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Dear Ms Coward-Puglisi,

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IABC Trinidad and Tobago hosted Senator Helen Drayton (a corporate communicator with over 25 years of marketing and HR experience) this morning at Satchmos',  the Woodbrook based jazz bar.  It was wonderful to hear a genuinely knowledgeable and articulate  voice on the  the topic of social investment  in the current  economic climate. Drayton lauded  CLICO, Republic Bank and Guardian Life for their  social investment programmes. She maintained that  now more than ever  was the time for CSR programmes  to be viewed as more than just appendages.

•  
• Make sure CSR values are integrated into the corporate vision 
• Ensure your programmes are CEO sponsored-have your CEO buy into it up front
• Have clear goals; make sure they are long-term 
• Look at employee engagement in the CSR programmes tie it into performance evaluation
• Measure. Measure. Get data to demonstrate the ROI of the programmes
• Make sure your CSR goals are linked to corporate business goals