Experience The Medici Effect.

As a recent advertising graduate, I can honestly say that one of the most influential books that I’ve read in the past year was not a textbook on advertising but instead, The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation by Frans Johansson.  Those who have heard of this book or had the pleasure to have read it understand why I believe this book reinforces the basic reason why most of us enter the field of advertising.  We all have ideas, perspectives, creative minds, or experience that has led us to believe that we would best be suited in an innovative and always evolving atmosphere.

In the Medici Effect, Johansson discusses how merging two completely unrelated fields produces breakthrough innovations that come together when old ideas intersect to create entirely new thoughts and perceptions.  This book not only discusses how to find such intersections but also gives real life examples of how some of the biggest ideas have come from some of the most unexpected places.

In the advertising world, generating new ideas for our clients and thinking of innovative ways to get a message across are consistently things we are trying to improve and conceptualize.  As Johansson points out, “creation comes from a combination of different concepts in a unique fashion and it is difficult to trace the origin of insight,” (p.67).  I think that as a person in advertising, I need to be open to new ideas no matter where or whom they come from in order to continue to grow and succeed in my profession.  After a while, people tend to build up associative barriers that can hinder their willingness to keep an open mind.  For example, this book has pushed me to be more open to experiencing new things when choosing what I eat, how I spend my free time, the places I visit, and even the acquaintances that I make along the way.  The Medici Effect urges people to interact with the unfamiliar. It is about breaking down old barriers and becoming submersed in new atmospheres, diverse people, and assorted occupations to come up with a truly new idea.