Keynote Speaker on Creative Strategic Thinking
How to use creativity to produce clear, confident strategy that delivers success
Unleash the creative thinking power of your team…virtually.
The virtual stage is the perfect environment to engage your audience.
Put creative thinking practices to the test. Solve problems and seize opportunities. Challenge conventional wisdom. Brainstorm. Ideate. Evaluate. Execute.
I have a series of thought-provoking talks, virtual workshops and online courses with practical tools and exercises to help your team.
Check them out below.
Creative Workshops
Inspire creativity, innovation, problem-solving and team-working with one of our specially-designed virtual creative workshops
Speaking Topics
Every speaking engagement is different and I tailor each talk to suit your audience.
Three of the most popular are detailed below.
Why this Workshop?
Creative thinking is the ultimate human advantage – it’s how we use brainpower to think differently, create or innovate new from old, solve complex problems, challenge the status quo, deliver continuous improvement and develop ideas to deal with change and uncertainty. It is an essential business tool without which advancement is impossible.
BUT…too often our educational systems, our business structures, our social and political cultures stifle creativity. Have you ever experienced rote learning? or boring, repetitive tasks? a don’t-rock-the-boat or make waves culture? Or double-guessing to please bosses or clients? Or an environment where only narrow-focused thinking is encouraged in ‘locked boxes’?
ALSO…many people think they’re not creative because they don’t paint or write or act or sing…when, in fact, they are just not accessing the creative thinking capabilities they have to unleash the power of creativity in their world.
Who this workshop is for
Everybody who values the power of creative thinking and that wishes to improve their creative thinking capability. It’s of tremendous value for those in creative industries to remind, reconfirm and enhance their skills. It’s of even greater value to those industries where creativity is being stifled and where simple creative thinking practices can deliver transformational change.
Learning Objectives
Understand creativity and its application to your business
Build confidence and ability to think creatively
Recognize and overcome obstacles to creativity
Provide creative tools to help address everyday business challenges
Practical application of these tools to solve your business problems
Content
Understanding creativity
All about ideas
Understanding how creative people work
A selection of tried and tested creative thinking tools
Practice sessions and live cases
Timing and Logistics
Either:
i) A two-day workshop held over two dedicated days
ii) Three or four sequential morning/afternoon sessions held over 2-4 weeks
iii) 60-90 minute ‘chunks’ to fit within participants’ work schedules
Ideally 8-12 participants, workable 6-16.
Theme – Rebel Spaceship
Transformational change through creative thinking typically occurs not through large, structured leadership committees at the center of organizations, but by individuals, or outliers at the periphery. Typically, these are small teams, with diverse backgrounds, skills, and talents, bound together by shared values and beliefs – and evangelical alignment to a cause or mission. They may not conform to the rules – indeed, they actively seek to free themselves from the gravitational pull of the ‘mother spaceship’ and may even be seen to be outcasts or rebels. Think Hans Sol and the crew of the Millennium Falcon.
Creative Thinking
Why this Workshop?
Everyone talks about strategy and brands…. strategic thinking, strategic planning, branding and rebranding….but the reality is many organizations find it difficult to articulate their strategy or clearly communicate their brand positioning. Complexity, change and uncertainty are often seen as threats more than opportunity.
ALSO…clients want the simplicity that strategic tools can provide…and everyone wants to sell you their business model as the solution…but the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach rarely works when every situation and challenge is different.
Who this workshop is for
Decision-makers and influencers within your organization; C-Officers, Managers, thought-leaders and influencers.
Learning Objectives
Understand the importance of creative strategic thinking to business decision-making
Understand what a brand is and principles of building strong brands
Provide a proven, effective stepwise process
Share a practical strategic framework for strategic development
Practical application and actionable next steps
Content
What makes great brands great and why it’s important
Why it’s important to know who you are, what you stand for and why
What is strategy and why strategies need to be creative
The Dim Sum Strategy approach and 4D’s process
How to develop your Brand DNA
Practical application and actionable first steps
Timing and Logistics
A two-day workshop, or 3-4 sequential morning/afternoon sessions , or 60-90 minute ‘chunks’ tailored to suit participants work schedules and availability over a 2-3 week period.
Ideally 8-12 participants, workable 6-16.
Theme – Dim Sum Strategy and the 4D’s Process
The theme is based on the book “Dim Sum Strategy. Bite-sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands’ by Peter Wilken.
It shares a selection of the most successful, tried and tested creative thinking tools from working with some of the world’s top brands and top creative agencies.
Creative Strategy & Brand-Building
How to Build a Distinctive Personal Brand DNA
Why this Workshop?
Defining your own unique Brand DNA can help you understand your strengths, your differentiators and the attributes that will orient you now and in the future. We are all unique. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘know thyself’ but we rarely invest time in doing that. Often, people don’t know where to start.
Times of change and uncertainty can be unsettling, or scary – but they can be exciting too. None more so than setting a course on the journey of life, early in a young person’s life. Would it help to have a simple but robust tool to help us do that? Something that you could boil down to one page but that would be rich enough and distinctive enough to guide you for a lifetime?
Your personal Brand DNA acts as a compass or guiding star to help navigate your path throughout your business and personal life.
Who this workshop is for
Grade 10-12 students looking to find their ‘True North’ to guide them forward, and the parents helping them.
Undergraduate or post-graduate students looking to find their path.
Anybody feeling they are at a professional or personal crossroads and looking for illumination to guide them forward.
Learning Objectives
A clear understanding of self that can be used in practical ways
A better understanding of thinking preferences and how they might be applied
An appreciation of creative thinking, stretching possibilities beyond existing boundaries
Identification of personal strengths and opportunities
Defining your unique purpose and positioning (DNA)
Better questions and continuous feedback
Content
Why it’s important to know who you are, what you stand for, and why
The 4D’s process
Discovery: semi-structured qualitative research, internet research
Insights and your Three Truths
Definition: Development of your unique Brand DNA, including mission
Direction: Goal setting
Practical application and actionable first steps
What this is NOT
Student counseling
Course selection
University admissions or counseling
Time management
Timing and Logistics
Three or four 1-hour face-to-face virtual consultations over a 3-week period, with a little homework each week.
This is a facilitated process best done collaboratively with the student and parents working together. It is an engaging and effective program, designed with busy lives in mind to provide the maximum value in the minimum time, but it does require some commitment – outcomes are only as good as the input.
Theme – Finding your True North
The theme plays on the metaphor of a guiding True North star, using selected strategic tools from the book “Dim Sum Strategy. Bite-sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands by Peter Wilken. It shares a selection of the most successful, tried and tested creative thinking tools from working with some of the world’s top brands and top creative agencies.
Finding Your True North
How to Build a more Distinctive Brand using Dim Sum Strategy & the 4 Ds Process.
A curated selection of over 40 bite-sized creative thinking tools to help you build a stronger, purpose-driven brand
Would you like to know what strategic models top agencies and consultants use with their clients?
Are you frustrated by the ‘one size fits all’ approach some models take?
Dim Sum Strategy is a different approach.
It recognises that the challenges you face may be similar, but the situations and stages of development are unique. Most successful transformational change requires multiple strategies.
Peter describes the Dim Sum Strategy approach and the tried and tested 4Ds process to develop your unique Brand DNA. It will help you refresh your brand strategy and build a stronger, purpose-driven brand.
If you’re looking for creative ways to build or strengthen your brand, this is for you.
Constructive Disruption
Activate your creative assets and make meaningful transformations through Constructive Disruption
Entrepreneur or start-up Company? SME? Large established organization?
Stuck in a rut? Frustrated by bureaucracy? Worried that short-sightedness is blocking the bigger picture? Or that risk-aversion is leading to lost opportunity? Need solutions to deal with change, uncertainty and complexity?
You likely already have good ideas and want to look beyond your current boundaries. You may be looking for ways to maintain or stimulate growth or manage change in your market.
Constructive Disruption takes your existing processes and injects them with bold and fresh strategies that will have you thinking and implementing plans differently:
Transform the way you and your organization approach change, opportunity and challenges
Facilitate positive change in your team
Instill innovation within your organizational culture
Learn how to break through bureaucracy and obstacles to progress
Generate fresh ideas to reorient or reconfirm your future direction
Learn to ‘Zig’
Think Like a Dolphin
How to Become a Creative Master of Your Own Universe
Do you feel you can make a difference in this world?
Do you want to take more control of your own destiny whilst respecting the need for others to do the same? Do you believe we can do better than win-lose solutions? Are you a creative thinker?
Peter illustrates how thinking through the lens of dolphins can change perceptions and lead to dramatic transformations to help you build a better world for yourself and for others. He shares experiences from the world of advertising, brand-building and change management to demonstrate the power of creative thinking to effect change.
If you’re looking to change your world in your own unique way, this is for you.
“Highly recommended!”
— Don Anderson, President, Legato Wealth Management Inc.
"From testing our knowledge of successful campaigns like Volvo's 'safest car money can buy' to challenging us to consider the alignment of our own marketing strategies, Peter kept us engaged, entertained, and learning throughout his presentation."
– Don Anderson, President, Legato Wealth Management Inc.
"Peter brilliantly explains strategic models and shares proven tools that can be used in today’s business world to help transform your brand."
- Wendy Hartley, Principal, Hartley PR
