How a Pen Friend can Boost Creativity and Innovation

Recently I caught up with Stephen Wales, KPMG Head of Hospitality/Workplace Experience. Stephen and I get on well outside of work and have a number of similarities. One similarity (or what others might deem more an oddity), is our obsession with using different coloured pens.

I use 3 different colours and my pen of choice is Uniball Micro. Black ink is work-related (sales meetings, taking notes, internal discussions); blue ink is more for future projects and creativity (upcoming articles/blogs/media appearances, keynotes, content/ideas for future books) and red ink is my correction tool of choice. In fact, when I set up and sold my first business in Hobart, Ricky Langford and our employees use to call me ‘Mr Red Pen’.

Steve took my 3 colours to a whole new level, a level I didn’t know existed. At the start of our meeting Steve whipped out 9, that’s right, 9 different coloured pens.

“When we embarked on the move to agile, I decided to go pen-less, the principle being if you don’t have a pen you don’t need paper. I’ve since devolved (the opposite to evolved) and rekindled my relationship with my long lost pen, the Uniball. 

There are many reasons why I love these pens, write well with a smooth action, have clear ink on page properties, but mostly it’s the colour range. I use them when I want to think creatively and strategically, I use different colours to reflect my mood and allocate tasks. It has unearthed a small obsession I admit, but I’m comfortable with that. I have found my effectiveness strategic planning has improved.

I predominately use blue and black for making notes, the red pen comes out for tasks that require urgency. Orange, pink, light blue and green help me separate roles and actions during strategic thinking and I often reflect on my colour choice later as an expression of mood or emotional attachment to the task. When design thinking principles of white boarding are in play, all the colours are used marking up ideas and driving inspiration, the orange pen always used for the light bulb icon and great ideas. Purple pen comes out as an alternative to the blue and black, I’m not sure why, after all, it is not an exact science….”

It appears Stephen and I (really) are onto something…

Before you accuse us of being two outdated pen merchants, doing our best to bolster sales for Uniball (we have no commercial ties), get off your digital device (umm, keep reading this online though, get off after you’ve finished) and embrace the joys of going back to old school. Here are 5 compelling reasons.

1. Fires up learning

Patricia Anne Wade, a learning specialist with Indiana’s University School of Medicine, ran an experiment in 2013 asking the question: “Do students learn better by typing or writing with a pen and paper?” The result? “Ultimately, when it comes to learning and remembering course material, the pen is mightier than the keyboard”.

University of Wisconsin psychologist Virginia Berninger notes “study after study suggests that handwriting is important for brain development and cognition”. Berninger has assessed school-age children and found they generate more ideas when writing essays by hand, rather than on the computer. “Writing entails using the hand and fingers to form letters ... the sequential finger movements activate multiple regions of the brain associated with processing and remembering information”.

2. Drives Innovation

I’ve noticed the majority of meetings in the world of the white collar commence with participants sitting down and immediately pulling out their digital devices. When you are brainstorming, get rid of your weapons of mass distraction and grab a pen, or a whiteboard marker.

BJ Novak (actor and executive producer of The Office) talks about the difference between brainstorming and coming up with ideas (ideation) and sticking to timelines and implementing the actual work (execution). "I carry around a notebook, but I divide my creative work into two distinct phases, which is the idea phase, and the execution phase. And I do not let either interrupt the other”. Try ‘innovating’ and generating fresh approaches with a blank piece of paper or whiteboard, and get away from your technology until you are ready to move to the execution stage.

3. Sharpens Attention

A recent article in Times Magazine outlines a survey by Microsoft showing since the year 2000, the average attention span of an adult has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds, one second less than that of a goldfish (the little fishies can focus for 9 seconds). The researchers hypothesised the incoming streams of information from multiple screens and your phone causes a fragmenting of attention. We may be able to consume more knowledge, and multitask slightly better, but at the cost of diminishing attention span. OK, so where was I? My phone just rang and I totally lost…. Focus.

Get away from the buzzing and binging, the pulling and pinging, and watch your output soar.

4. Sparks Creativity

Nathan Baird, KPMG Partner and author On Design Thinking says “there are 5 big blockers to creativity - our beliefs, behaviours, brains, state and environment. The environment (how our workspaces are designed) have evolved from the traditional world of doing business based on the old sweatshops, working fast and efficiently, dealing with admin and working in open plan offices filled with constant interruptions”.

Nathan espouses to increase creative thinking, you need the right environment and clear space. “Creativity starts with a clear workspace and a clear space on a piece of paper or board”.

“It is easier to enhance creativity by changing the conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Author of Flow.

5. Builds Connections

Not in relation to WiFi or Bluetooth, the human type of connection. You know, the genuine connections we use to foster at work and at home before the bots took over our lives, our minds and our attention.

The Waldorf School of the Peninsula in California is an example of the growing number of alternate schools who are actively rejecting the notion that technology must play a central role in all 21st century learning.

Research has highlighted students who only use screens periodically are able to focus on tasks for prolonged periods of time, as opposed to their counterparts who are constantly toggling on screens. Studies have found there is an increased connection between teachers and pupils, as well as a strengthened sense of community among students. Interesting to note a growing number of Silicon Valley employees are sending their children to The Waldorf School. Do they know something we don’t?

Pen Friends and things that were different in the ‘old days’:

I was reading a draft of this post earlier this week and my 9 year old daughter, Mikaela, saw the heading and asked “dad, what is a pen friend?” After explaining to Miki that when I was her age we use to write a letter to someone on the other side of the world, post it at the local Post Office and then wait up to a month or two to receive a reply. Miki responded with “wow dad, things were different in the olden days, huh?” Ouch.

There is a lot of truth in my 9 year olds synopsis, however – things really were different in the old days, and it is not all bad. Periodically building in periods of time where we get off the grid and pull out coloured pens to reflect, ruminate, think, ponder and plan could be exactly what you need to tap into your inner reservoir of creativity and innovation.

Now log off, grab a coloured pen and a blank piece of paper, and give it a crack.

Write to me, and let me know how it goes…