Author Archive for Derek Cheshire

It’s easy to be creative. Think out of the box! But have you imagined how difficult it must be to be UNcreative?

This sounds like a pretty wild claim but I never have trouble sticking to my New Year resolutions because I never make them! This sounds like a cop out but just think about it for a moment.

What on earth are ‘Business Burps’ you may be asking? It was a phrase I thought of whilst … burping. Can you remember as a child when you first let out a burp after gulping a fizzy drink? Wasn’t it a bit exciting (as well as a little bit rude)? Weren’t your parents just a tiny bit embarrassed?

A few months ago, a series of questions were posted on Tickled By Life which was given the title ‘The God Interview’. I found both the questions and the various sets of answers very illuminating as well as the comments that were posted on the individual articles. In my case I received a series of [...]

To find out how other Ticklers and readers responded to these questions click here. If you would like to take this interview as well, mail us your answers at interview@tickledbylife.com. (we will publish only the best responses) What is God? Derek: Just a belief system, not a real entity. This is good in that each [...]

Around two years ago I wrote a manifesto for ‘Change This’ on the topic of slow innovation. This was inspired by the founding of the ‘slow food’ movement by Italian journalist Carlo Petrini. After strolling past a new MacDonald’s franchise in the centre of Rome he paused and said: If this is fast food, why [...]

You, your staff or even your boss have been on a course or bought a self help book that described some creative techniques. You have tried one or two and they sort of worked, but not as you had hoped. Or maybe they did not work at all. Why could this be? Sometimes Creativity just [...]

When you have a bright idea there is always someone who takes the wind out of your sails by asking “What about …?” Why not preempt them by doing a little homework first? Below are 50 questions, variations on the usual who, what, why, when, where. Think your idea through using these as prompts and [...]

  Most readers will be familiar with, or have heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s best selling business book ‘The Tipping Point’. The author suggests that there is a point at which you need apply only a small effort to create an effect. This is rather like giving the final push to topple a large boulder or [...]