Lockdown Economy Talk with Christof Zürn

In this interview, we meet Christof Zürn, the founder of Creative Companion, a business that helps organizations use creative thinking to create sustainable business innovation. The COVID-19 pandemic has made flexibility one of the most important resources in any business, as companies have been forced to alter their strategy and switch-up their goals. Christof spoke about the importance of creative thinking in ensuring that businesses can stay on top of developments in their sector and described how his methodology, ‘Music Thinking’, can help companies connect their different priorities and develop better, more sustainable business designs.

Christof was forced to utilise flexibility himself by moving his consultancies online and experimenting with new platforms. When business began to slow down for Creative Companion due to the pandemic Christof used this quiet period to develop and strengthen his ‘Music Thinking’ methodology and to network with other members of his sector to develop new concepts aimed to help boost business creativity and connectedness. Christof’s key message was one of progression. He emphasised that although the pandemic has encouraged everyone to wish for things to return to how they were before, Christof believes businesses will gain more value from building on this experience and progressing with it. To do this, creative thinking is fundamental.

What 3 things does the guest need help with? Christof would like help in finding companies who are open to making a fundamental change in their business thinking. He is also looking for a publisher for his book regarding ‘Music Thinking’. Please support the Lockdown Economy with your donation on our GoFundMe page https://www.gofundme.com/f/lets-help-…​ In the Lockdown Economy interviews, small business owners and self-employed professionals share their insights, challenges and successes during the COVID-19 global pandemic to inspire, motivate and encourage other entrepreneurs around the world.

About the Guest As ‘Creative Companion’ Christof is accompanying individuals, teams and organisations to make the step from iteration to innovation to transformation. He does this with decades of experience in branding, digitalisation, service design, design thinking and developed a fresh methodology he calls ‘Music Thinking’. “Website: https://creative-companion.com/​

Send Christof a message with why you want to connect on LinkedIn: https://nl.linkedin.com/in/creativeco…​

About the Host Rosie Allison is a master student of Media and the Creative Industries at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She aspires to work in the creative industries in the sphere of communications, using her interpersonal abilities to help drive innovation in the workplace. #lockdowneconomy_local​ #SDGAction36773​ #entrepreneurship​ #restart​ #SDGs​ #lockdowneconomy​ #creativity​ #creativethinking​ #designthinking​ #musicthinking

#GenerationCo#brandswithaconscience#lockdowneconomy​ #creativity​ #creativethinking​ #designthinking​ #musicthinking

Connecting Business, People and Technology from ‘Best of Dutch Design’ in Discover Benelux Magazine September 2015

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to give an interview about my company CREATIVE COMPANION. You can find the results of this talk in the September Issue of Discover Benelux in the section ‘Best of Dutch Design’.

CREATIVE COMPANION  on page 29:

Quote:
I work like a jazz musician: great music comes from great collaboration! Christof Zürn

Thank you 2013

Last year I had the pleasure to work on interesting projects with nice people.

• As Creative Companion I worked for Vlisco on several projects with the focus on ‘Vlisco Stories‘, prototyping ‘iPad in the flagship store’ and a personas / brand related intranet platform.
• For the fashion brand DEPT I worked on the development of aspirational and reality persona to sharpen their customer centered and brand related strategy.
• We could present our new product ‘Pfitz – wall object and baking dish‘ at Fuori Salone during Milan Design Week and we found a new manufacturer in Germany. So it will be ‘Dutch Design – handmade in Germany’ very soon. And Pfitz is available in the heart of Amsterdam at Dutch Design Year.
• Finally the Executive App of NIBE-SVV was launched together with the top of the dutch financial world.
• The 1PLACE.ME iPhone and Android App was launched and I did the initial social media activation.
• Working together with Design Thinkers at Bosch in Germany on a Service Design project.
• During Dutch Design Week I teamed up with FRD and gave a lecture on ‘Persona in the HR field’. I also launched  The Company Real Score – a Music Thinking approach to Business Innovation. My daughter and I designed a prototype of a lamp inspired by Mart van Schijndel’s ‘Delta Vase’. The exhibition was shown at Design Perron during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven and in the Amersfoort Rietveld Pavilion in December and January.
• Became Member of the Faculty at Witten School of Management in Witten Germany.
• Started a persona development project for ‘the dutch love brand’ de Efteling.
• End of the year I developed the online strategy based on The Company Real Score for Hekwerk Theaterprodukties, the management (impressariaat) of dutch cabaret stars like Youp van ’t Hek, Jochem Myjer, Droog Brood and more.

Thank you all for working together and the nice time we spent. Curious what 2014 will bring.

Brand Patterns and Leitmotives – Music Thinking Inspirations for Branding and Design

When designing a brand it is necessary to have a shared understanding about the why, what and how of a brand. This can be written down and visualized in a manifesto together with the brand DNA, vision, mission, ambition and the brand values, personality, promis and expressions. But this is just like the musical score. To really ‘live the brand’ it has to be performed and adapted everyday together with  your audience.

Music Thinking:
Here are two musical concepts that could inspire and engage brand professionals to think about the brand consumer relation to add value to both sides: first to the consumer, then it will pay back to the brand.

Pattern

Marc Shillum is approaching the filed of branding from a pattern thinking perspective:  Brand as Patterns. He states the most important feature of a successful brand is not just consistency, but rather the ability to continually reinvent the brand image according to what is most relevant at the time. In short, a successful brand must have a long term goal, but the short term strategy of how to get there must be continually reworked to remain coherent and relevant in a contemporary context.

Besides patterns there are more concepts that can bring context and meaning. In the Wagner Year it is worth to have a look on the contextual building blocks Wagner is using in his compositions: ‘das Leitmotiv’.

Leitmotiv

Leitmotives are musical phrases like story elements that does not imitate the sound of – for example – ‘crackling logs’, but make you feel the heat, thread and magic of fire. If you want to enjoy the music you don’t have to necessarily know everything about it, but ‘the more you know, the more beautiful it gets’.

Watch a great ‘musical introduction’ to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung with Kurt Masur and Jessy Norman and learn everything about the coding and decoding with Leitmotivs in film music like star wars and Wagner’s music.

From a branding point of view many different elements should make a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ so that the consumer can enjoy, be engaged and get an emotional bond with the brand without knowing exactly every detail.

But to create a brand it takes a lot of listening skills and contextual vision. Maybe the most importing thing: the music is not ready when the score is written. It has to be performed with real people for real people – again and again.

‘There is joy in repetition’ Prince

What the economy could learn from Richard Wagner – the man, the work, the brand

The world will celebrate the 200th anniversary of composer Richard Wagner, this makes 2013 ‘the Wagnerjahr’. In their last edition of the year german financial newspaper “Handelsblatt’ is also focussing on ‘all the things to come’ and dedicated the cover story to Richard Wagner.

The story illustrates the many perspectives of Wagner: the innovator, the storyteller, the free spirit, the entrepreneur, the marketing strategist and I would like to add the ‘Music Thinker’ (more on music thinking see below).

The visionary Wagner was driven by his mission to change the world with his idea of the innovative music drama into a unique ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’.
To realize his goal he was able to ‘think as a musician and act as a designer and entrepreneur’. He used his many skills without any compromise against all odds and struggles along the way like a 19th century Steve Jobs. He designed the interior of his music hall in Bayreuth with the focus on acoustics above comfort: the simple chairs are made from wood (fabrics would absorb the sound), the musicians are hidden in a deep orchestra pit so the audience would not be distracted, there is no heating and no climate control.

When Wagner began to write his masterpiece – the 16 hour lasting ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen” – he was 34, at the world premiere in Bayreuth he was 63. The story is about love, power, leadership, greed, betrayal, ruin and destruction; or as conductor Christian Thielemann put it ‘what happens when modern man is losing sight of himself while striving for property and wealth’.

There are many connections possible with our modern world and politics. Every year captains of industry and politicians like Angela Merkel sit side by side to experience the man, the music and the brand Richard Wagner –  hope they get inspired to hear, see and do the right things in the context of  our Gesamtkunstwerk.

Trending in 2013

For inspiration and speculation I put 4 terms into Google Trends (2012 view):

• Richard Wagner
• Financial Crisis
• Service Design
• Music Thinking

Interesting that the Financial Crisis is on it’s decline (at least in search volume nota bene), Service Design and Richard Wagner are meandering through the year with two peaks for Richard Wagner; Music Thinking is still a ‘hidden secret’.

You can help to change this in 2013 with tweeting #musicthinking for inspiring ideas in music and beyond!

Music Thinking

“Music Thinking is the use of thoughts, learnings, ideas and inspirations that are derived from all kinds of music, sonic phenomena, sounds, musical instruments, tools, techniques, metaphors, patterns, brands, behaviours and music business to inspire and motivate in a new way of thinking to reach goals, solve problems or just to have fun.”

Christof Zürn  (www.musicthinking.com)

More than 10.000 views on SlideShare

Just got a mail from slideshare that my presentations & documents have been viewed more than 10.000 times,  wow that’s cool –  a moment to celebrate!

Here are the Top three:

and there are some more: http://www.slideshare.net/creacomp

 

Milano Design Week 2012 – Salone e Fuorisalone

I spent two days  in Milan at salone and fuorisalone to see, get inspired, have talks, drinks meet friends and to see the family at Lago Maggiore.

It is impossible to see everything. There are so many shows, events,  shops, pop-up spaces, …  but what you see you can ‘catch’ (WYSYCC) and I have never seen so many iPhones, smartphones and real cameras in one place – people have fun to take pictures or take it ‘really serious’ and give you some order to step back.

Here are a few pictures  sorted by the following findings:
showing the process  (form idea and material to product); patterns everywhere; laser cut metal; books as decoration; playing with colour; light and nature; ceramic; ‘from handicraft to digicraft‘;  creative food; analog 3D modeling; Rossana Orlandi; Luceplan, …

… and here a video from Luceplan’s new lamp Nothing, by Francisco Gomez Paz

Nothing from Luceplan on Vimeo.

Personas and Female Mindstyles

This year I did one of my biggest projects on how to compile and communicate user insights from consumer research together with quantitative research on women. It was a challenging project with international, interdisciplinary teams and one goal: to bring it all together – aspirational personas (the brand point of view) and reality personas (based on quantitative and qualitative research).
To communicatie this inside the company to have a better understanding “for whom we work” there were 100 copies shared internally at my client Veldhoven Group with the brands Sandwich, Stills, Turnover and NoNo. I facilitated all the workshops (including the seasonal briefings), did consulting on personas and the overall design of the persona posters, the female mindstyle posters and this little booklet including tips and tricks why and how to use it. Here a short impression of the work (iPhone video).

The research on female mindsyles was done by Senta: www.senta.com
More info on VeldhovenGroup and their brands: www.veldhovengroup.com

Need help with your persona project?
From time to time I am organizing an open workshop: 
Data storytelling with personas (here the dutch info, but it can also be held in english or german)
 Storytelling mit Daten ganztägiger Zielgruppen Workshop mit Persona