The Rock Tribune

You’ll find musician/producer/innovator DAVE STEWART where the sparks fly.  His mind is an anything-goes funhouse–a place where traditional thinking is turned on its head and the dice are rolled so that intriguing new possibilities are fully explored.

This was colorfully illustrated in his acclaimed book The Business Playground:  Where Creativity and Commerce Collide (2010, New Riders in the U.S.; Financial Times Prentice Hall in the UK), written with branding expert Mark Simmons.  Now they’ve launched CREATIVITY, a revolutionary new iPad app that further helps people unleash their creative mojo.

As with the book (now available in seven additional languages), CREATIVITY is an inspirational and entertaining guide to innovation and creativity that includes a foreword by Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson; interviews with creative thinkers such as Mick Jagger and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen; and a host of stories, techniques and tools like“Idea Spaghetti” and the “Wheel of Distraction.”

The multi-media experience app includes not only the full-color book (complete with photographs and illustrations) and numerous interactive features, but also a complete audio version of the book, narrated by Voice Actor Lin Gallagher, and can be switched on at any place in the book. Notably, CREATIVITY includes a revolutionary new tool called F* which allows users to highlight any word or phrase to access related media, news and products.  It provides a depth of information and social connectivity never before seen on the published page. F* was developed by famos* (www.famos.com) in partnership with Dave Stewart and Mick Jagger. This is the first time it has ever been used in an app, providing a new level that hasn’t been possible until now. CREATIVITY was built by Dave Levi and his company Double-Apps.

“The whole process from writing the book to creating this interactive app has been thrilling and an eye opener into the world of possibilities where new technologies marry the printed page,” Stewart says.  “I’m excited to use F* because it means this is the first business book ever written that literally is a business within itself. My co-writer Mark is an inspiration to work with and as you’ll see by the book we have a wealth of other business ideas up our sleeves.”

“Creativity is often about combining things that don’t usually go together,” Simmons says.  “And so in that spirit our CREATIVITY app is a hybrid book-audiobook-game multimedia mashup that defies categorization. With amazing devices like the iPad redefining how content is consumed, doing something expected would have been such a wasted opportunity.”

The CREATIVITY app is being sold through the Apple App store for just $9.99. Most digital books being sold through services like Amazon or Apple’s iBooks cost at least this amount, and most audio books cost significantly more. So to have the two rolled into one, together with all of the games and other interactive features included in the app, make the CREATIVITY app an incredible value for money.

Here are some of the CREATIVITY app’s features:

• The app includes a live RSS feed of new ideas and information about creativity that is curated by Dave and Mark.
• There are also 13 fully interactive original games that app users can play alone or with others, to help them to come up with ideas and enhance their creativity.
• The games were created by Dave and Mark and include ones on: framing problems in the right way to get the best ideas; using visuals  to simulate the creative process; choosing between different ideas; and putting yourself in the best frame of mind to be creative.
• Each one is fun to play, but teaches a valuable lesson about creativity and innovation.

As Sir Richard Branson writes in the foreword: “Dave and Mark’s enthusiasm for creativity and how it can be applied in business leaps off every page. The Business Playground will bring out the creative child inside all of us and I can’t imagine many readers being left uninspired to try it out for themselves. Their mix of insights about creativity, revealing examples, anecdotes, interviews with creative thinkers, and games make for an entertaining and informative read. If you get half as much out of this book as I did, you’re in for quite a treat.”

About DAVE STEWART:

Described by Bob Dylan as a “fearless innovator,” Dave Stewart is a musician, music producer, author, entrepreneur, filmmaker and philanthropist. The British artist’s music career alone spans three decades and more than 100 million album sales, highlighted by his collaboration with Annie Lennox in the groundbreaking pop-rock group Eurythmics (“Sweet Dreams [Are Made of This],”“Would I Lie to You?” and dozens more). Behind the scenes, he’s produced albums and co-written songs for Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Bono, Sinead O’Connor, Mick Jagger, Katy Perry, Jon Bon Jovi and a host of others, racking up numerous Producer, Songwriter and Grammy Awards along the way. In 2011, he released a solo album The Blackbird Diaries, as well as the self-titled debut album by Super Heavy, a new band he created along with Mick Jagger, Joss Stone, Damian Marley and A.R. Rahman. Also in 2011, he co-produced and co-wrote the Joss Stone album LP1 and the Stevie Nicks album In Your Dreams. With Glen Ballard, Stewart wrote songs for the musical “Ghost” (based on the movie), which opened in London in 2011, and will premiere on Broadway in 2012. Stewart’s work outside of the music world is just as impressive. He has written two comic books (one of which, Zombie Broadway, is being developed into a full length feature film); directed a number of short films and movies (including 2000’s Honest, which debuted at Cannes); produced an award-winning documentary that reflected his early musical passions (1991’s Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads); and created the television series, Malibu Country, starring Reba McEntire which was recently acquired by ABC. As an entrepreneur, Stewart founded a multimedia creative hub along with Paul Allen called “The Hospital”; developed his own media company (Weapons of Mass Entertainment); and participated in a number of philanthropic and non-profit projects, from Greenpeace to Stand Up to Cancer. As a philanthropist, Stewart also worked personally with Nelson Mandela and helped launch his 46664 campaign using his innovative thinking.

About MARK SIMMONS:

Mark Simmons is a branding expert, innovator and the co-author of Punk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution. Over the past twenty years he has been a senior global marketer at Coca-Cola, run advertising agencies in the UK and US, been an advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, and is the co-founder of useless.org, a social enterprise dedicated to helping people use less and give more. Mark frequently speaks at conferences about creativity, marketing and branding. He passionately believes in the power of ideas to make a positive difference in business and society and works with organisations around the world to put this into practice.