It started 33 years ago with an observation that women wore baggy cashmere sweaters with rolled up sleeves belonging to boyfriends or husbands. And a vivid spectrum beyond beige existed. Now Brunello Cucinelli oversees his eponymous global fashion brand that generated sales of $320 million last year.

His is a story of creativity that imbues every aspect of his life. Ideas rooted in various philosophies about life, business and the individual. Many captured in the GQ article “Un Uomo Nuovo: How I Learned to Look, Act, Eat and Think Like an Italian Gentleman in Just Three Days” written by Michael Paterniti who had the pleasure of experiencing life with Brunello for a few wonderful sounding days.

Beyond the practical, timeless style advice, the article delivers a decidedly philosophical perspective on creativity and passion. Two quotes stand out to me: “Love of knowledge echoes in our hearts and nourishes great thoughts” - Socrates and “When our soul is full of feeling, our words are full of meaning” - Vauvenargues. Brunello delivers the good in life across everything he does.   

IKEA has built an empire on smart design and space maximization. It’s “smallest store in the world” 10.5 cm x 8.8 cm web banner brings this to life in a very smart way by building a store with 2,800 products that are organized and available to buy by hovering a mouse over the various micro images. They’re targeting consumers living in smaller spaces who need space saving solutions without sacrificing the need to “live”.

This is the ultimate example of retail innovation by taking the bricks experience of tens of thousands of square feet into the clicks space and just a few centimetres!

Wisdom at Work was the theme of the recent 99% Conference held in New York City. It focused on the people, processes and practices surrounding idea execution. This article shares key takeaways from a number of the visionary speakers who participated. Here are my top 3 favourites:

1. “It’s not the first impression that counts. It’s the second, third, fourth and fifth impression.” - from Neil Blumenthal (Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Warby Parker) and Jenn Hyman (Co-Founder and CEO, Rent The Runway) relating to building a meaningful customer experience.
2. “Do your ‘One Thing’ better than anyone else.” - from Jason Goldberg (Founder & CEO, Fab.com) about maintaining your focus and owning a niche.
3. “Celebrate your small wins.” - from Teresa Amabile (Professor, Harvard Business School) about stepping back and finding perspective. Incremental progress is the single most powerful motivator in the workplace.

Social media can be the great equalizer for small businesses without a large marketing budget. This article from The Globe and Mail by Ivor Tossell and John Lorinc highlights six Canadian small businesses that have built campaigns with significant impact. A common thread running through them is authenticity.

It boasts a line up of arcade games inspired by the classics. You play and collect tickets to trade in for prizes. The value is tremendous with $1 getting 4 plays and $2 giving a whopping 500 plays. Sure it sounds like any other arcade, but Caine’s Arcade in East Los Angeles is like no other in the world.

9-year old Caine Monroy built his own arcade during the summer out of the back of his father’s auto parts store using old shipping boxes, his own toys and other simple household materials. He built a system of validating the authenticity of the play passes. He created a uniform. And with the help of Nirvan Mullick, a documentary filmmaker, Caine got a ton of paying customers.

The story of Caine’s Arcade is shared in the eponymous film created by Nirvan. It’s 10 minutes of time well spent. You’ll laugh. You’ll say to yourself “that’s amazing”. And you just might shed a tear (of joy).

Caine’s story is important because he embodies the spirit of creativity. There is a clear vision, a bunch of ideas; and relentless focus to bring it all to life. You see entrepreneurial spirit and innovation in it’s purest form…from the mind of a 9-year old. The key is to nurture this spirit because there clearly are no limits to what Caine thinks he can do.

Many inputs feed into the process of innovation. Some are more tangible than others, but all have their place. Especially when it comes to instinct and imagination; which represent inputs that are highly personal and less linear.

This is the perspective that Sarah Robb O’Hagan, Gatorade president, North America, and global chief marketing officer, sports nutrition, for PepsiCo discusses with Jocelyn Hawkes in this interview for Fast Company.

It’s interesting that Robb O’Hagan also refers to some “spectacular failures!” in the conversation. As a senior leader in a global corporation which generally have a litany of checks and balances to mitigate risk, her ability to drive a future-forward agenda and acceptance of a certain level of failure is critical for allowing an innovation culture to thrive.

Have you heard of Major League Baseball Advanced Media? Or “BAM” for short. If not, then read this Fast Company article by Chuck Salter that describes how BAM has been swinging for the fences in the digital and e-commerce space since it’s inception in 2000.

The streaming technology is particularly impressive, delivering a rich media and information experience to fans across a variety of platforms from Xbox to iPhone. But it doesn’t end there. Last year it sold more than 35 million MLB tickets. And Apple has them on speed dial. They shared the stage at the launch of the iPad.

This adds up to over $620 million in revenue and an IPO valuation of $2.5 billion…in 2005. It has 2.2 million subscribers to MLB.tv and the AtBat app, which is growing at 25% each year. The servers work hard managing 270 million live streams and 10 million daily visits to MLB.com during baseball season.

BAM has single-handedly driven greater integration of MLB into the lives of baseball fans in a very relevant way. It’s created stronger ties between fans and their favourite teams and players. And the holistic value of the 30 team brands as well as MLB itself must have increased. BAM has lived up to it’s acronym by consistently hitting home runs, with no sign of slowing down in the near future.

I’m not going to try to summarize a wonderful work of prose that Linds Redding wrote recently for the San Francisco Egotist titled “A Short Lesson in Perspective”. It’s worth your time to find a few quiet minutes for yourself and give it a read. Trust me. I think it doesn’t just apply to people working in advertising, but also marketing and many other industries. He bases it on The Overnight Test, a process he used when he started in advertising, and describes how it evolved to The Over Lunch Test and worse.

The underlying message is really about the value of time and how the world of always available, ready to respond, instant gratification driven by technology has changed the processes of thinking and creativity for the worse. Linds extends his argument to the impact on life itself as time pressure exerts itself in the workplace on a daily basis. In the end he gives a poignant reminder about perspective with a call to “go home and kiss your wife and kids”.

This is a MUST READ post at Fast Company by David Brier with illustrations by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne . It reminds marketers that Twitter, Facebook and the like are all just communication channels. Like TV. Like a fax machine. What’s critical is ensuring that the message is passionate, relevant and true.

Brands that create experiences in the physical space where consumers and brand come together can build stronger emotional bonds and provide a source of competitive advantage. This article from Strategy magazine shows how five Canadian brands designed their own signature experiences: Lululemon, La Vitrine, Red, Pure and Colton’s.

In our hyper-connected culture there are an increasing number of channels to communicate with people. More data for marketers to analyze and draw insight from. More agencies that profess to be experts in different niches. And more products and services that we all surely need given their often heavily researched promises of “new”, “improved”, “mind blowing” and “life altering”. With all of this, why is relevance still an issue? In the past two weeks alone I’ve seen three separate sources cite relevance as a key opportunity area in the marketing community.

There was the AdAge article “Even Sexy Brands Struggle With Low Engagement on Facebook” that shared study results on consumer engagement with the 200 biggest brands on Facebook. When they eliminated likes (essentially deeming them to be meaningless activity) and focused on shares and comments, the result was an average of 0.45% of fans who engaged. If the content was more relevant would there be greater engagement. Or is Facebook just another mass channel to pump impressions through. The majority of posts I see actively ask (beg?) for likes to help get higher prominence in the news feed and thus more eyeballs. Finally, does it need to be asked what the ROI is on 0.45% engagement.

Created by agency SMFB, this promotion for IKEA Norway is fuelled by a brilliantly simple idea. The brief was launch IKEA’s iPad catalogue in Norway. Simple, right? The hitch was it had to be done during winter, complete with freezing weather and gloved fingers that can’t easily do the iPad swipe. Watch the video to see the very “IKEA” solution.