I had a great time discussing innovation thinking with the creative minds at Wildfire, a full-service advertising agency located in Winston-Salem, NC.

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Joined by design thinking strategists (and sisters) Chelsie and Connyre Corbett, we led a 2-day discussion to a group of established marketing and advertising professionals who you would think already have creativity and innovation thinking skills in spades. But we can always grow, improve, and push ourselves further, right?

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The team at Wildfire really was a perfect fit for this session. Not only do they live and breathe creativity on a daily basis, but the company's mission is to shatter every negative stereotype people have either heard about or experienced firsthand when working with a marketing agency. They're a team of practical, hard-working professionals who want to grow their clients' business while lowering their blood pressure. Specifically, they specialize in strategy, social media, design, art direction, digital, writing, and more. The folks there have a great spirit and energy, so I was excited to brainstorm about innovation with them and get their feedback.

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One of the main goals of my Innovation Thinking Bootcamp is to build a culture of innovation. Given that Wildfire largely already values teamwork and out-of-the-box thinking, I chose to take it a step further by focusing more on the practical toolkit that enables us to be innovative.

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We primarily talked about sensemaking, creating, and iterating. These concepts help us to find our "why," encourage brainstorming and teamwork, and get comfortable with rapid prototyping and experimentation.

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Here are a few images from the event:

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