spontaneity

Innovation series: Nick Parker on creativity and improvisation at work

Writing consultant Nick Parker

In the first of our new podcast series on innovation, Kamala talks to Nick Parker about improvisation and creativity at work. From autobiographical haiku to design thinking, they discuss the freedom in limits and the business case for spontaneity. Oh, and why your creative career probably shouldn't begin with naming your first born.

Nick Parker is a writer who works with brands and businesses. He helps them pin things down, and shake things up. That usually means helping them tell their stories, helping them find their tone of voice, and helping them to use writing to think more clearly and creatively.

He’s a speechwriter for Fortune 10 CEOs, has trained government ministers and radio DJs, and once wrote a paragraph that saved ten million quid. (Or thereabouts.)

Before all that, he was a journalist, magazine editor and author. His collection of short stories, The Exploding Boy, was published to critical acclaim in 2011. (‘Astonishing, proof the short story is still a public good,’ said The Guardian, which was nice of them.) And once upon a time, he was a cartoonist for Viz.