Paul shares his expertise in his interview and in the Slideshare he prepared to add even more value to his comments.  

1) Research has proven that people remember far more from images than words. How does that play into today's media-focused marketing?

If you look across the web and especially on the social platforms, you will see that people love sharing pictures and meme-style images! More and more, the platforms are catering to this and the way people like to engage. Platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram are built around visuals, but Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and even LinkedIn are also becoming increasingly more visual! It would be wise for companies to pay attention to this and develop a visual content strategy that capitalizes on it.

2) If a picture tells a thousand words — how does that impact storytelling today?

Telling your brand story, whether you are a company or an independent professional, is key to capturing the hearts and minds of your market, your audience and your online communities. It is a busy, distracted world and people are spending less and less time reading lengthy explanations — they’d rather skim. So if you want to tell your story with impact, you better be using strong visuals! Videos play a part too, of course, but I still think that still visuals together with a powerful, well-designed brand work even better in this world where no one seems to have any time to spare anymore. Videos take time — pictures are a quick grab and there is endless power in a story told through a strong, consistent brand image that is pervasive through all communications and media touchpoints. 

3) What is the biggest misconception about design you encounter in the business world?

I still come across people who seem to think that design is merely a decorative add-on or unnecessary fluff. Nothing could be further from the truth — in fact, I would say that design is the critical component missing from many businesses. Good design is that which serves a business purpose. It clarifies, communicates, unifies, engages and influences to name a few examples. Of course, doing these things well improves the bottom line, but good designers also save money by streamlining communications and processes, as well as preventing unnecessary waste. This is why design should also be considered at the very earliest stages of a project and by the highest levels. From a well-designed brand strategy that communicates clearly and succinctly everything that a business is about to a cohesive marketing program that powerfully accomplishes its business objectives to visual content that helps a business stand out and stimulate engagement on the social web — good design and a strong visual strategy have never been more important.

4) What are the greatest challenges companies need to overcome in order to adopt successful creative strategies that achieve their business goals?

Too many times, a potentially sound business strategy isn’t supported by an equally good creative strategy, allowing the plan to die on the vine. And if a business recognizes how critical the role of good design is to execute the strategy and enable its success, the budget dollars need to be placed there as well, not relegated to another day as something “nice to have” once other expenditures are made.

5) We all know buyers are distracted and overwhelmed with too much information and too many interruptions. How can we use visuals to rise above the noise?

Well-designed communications in this day and age need to get to the meat of the message really quickly. Messaging must be distilled down into “sound-bytes” that even skimmers will catch the meaning of. Visuals transport those messages and drive them through the noise out so they stand apart from the busy streams, enabling the messages to be seen. It amazes me how few companies seem to understand this and do it well — but that presents amazing opportunities for the smart companies that “get it.”

6) What’s the best balance between content and visuals in today's world?

Visuals are also content, but if you mean text, less is more. Just as the most nicely crafted ads have always achieved a fine balance and interplay between text and visual, the same holds true now. Since we are increasingly becoming a visually-oriented society as things constantly zip by us in today’s media from all directions, coming up with strategies that allow the visual to dominate would be prudent. Once someone is hooked, they can then be directed somewhere else where the broader story can be told — but they need to be hooked first.

7) What do you think are the perfect elements of an engaging story?

I like to keep it simple, since again, a complex story will only cause befuddlement and people will move on. At best, you want your single main message to get across. I encourage people not to rush this part of the process — it means introspection and not settling on the obvious. Everyone else is doing the obvious — you or your company needs to set itself apart. A simple example: If you’re a dry cleaner, do you only clean clothes or do you keep people looking great so they can go out into the world and be the best they can be? Or perhaps, a dry cleaner simply makes people’s lives easier, giving them more time to do the things they love. Or maybe they use safe chemicals for a better, healthier, greener environment. Those are all better stories than just cleaning clothes. Marry a simple, compelling story to a strong visual campaign and you’re golden!

The time has come. Little children were shot dead at their elementary school this week. This follows a litany of other horrific acts of senseless violence over the last several years. If we don’t realize now that something is seriously wrong in our society, we never will.

John Lennon, ever the peace activist, sarcastically sang Happiness is a Warm Gun. The ad below ran after he was killed at the hand of one of those warm guns over 30 years ago. I am afraid to know what that ad would look like today.

Our guns are too warm. Our tempers are too hot and the temptation to take sides rages through us like an inferno.

This needs to stop. The time has come to work together and it is up to all of us to make sure this ad looks very different in the next 30 years. 

There is no black and white here. Taking sides means we’re both right and we’re both wrong. As usual, a multi-pronged approach is required when we try to solve complex problems. We need to deliver on smarter, safer gun laws AND we need to place more attention on the mentally ill. We also need to become better educated and more aware as a society of recognizing the warning signs before someone snaps.

Our media needs to take more responsibility too — we cannot deny that it feeds the frenzy by packaging events like this into a numbing cacophony of graphically-hyped violence. The result of that is only a sicker society and promises of fame to the next twisted perpetrator of the next horrific act.

It starts with us, working together to come up with a plan that puts all this together and delivers a solution. We should all demand that our leaders and Congress do the same. Let’s put our energies there.

So many kids these days seem to look elsewhere for fun and excitement. You know what I’m talking about: all those Xbox’s, PlayStations, movies and so many other things, not to mention all the false heroes.

Alone time is considered “boring.” It seems kids just aren’t comfortable in their own skins these days, constantly looking outward for stimulation and gratification. Little time is spent with only themselves, creating the quietness conducive for introspection and true creativity.

When my children were young, I took advantage of the time I had with them before they would be old enough to protest. I knew those days wouldn’t last forever… when they were a lot more open to my way of doing things, instead of everything being “me, me, me.” I thought if I “brainwashed” them young, they’d be good to go when the teen years hit.

Well…

The teenage years hit… and I only met that hunch with limited success. But my wife and I did do a few things right and I think our kids are the better for it. One of the things I always made sure of, was that we look at things together — I mean, really LOOK! I exposed them to beautiful design, wonderful storybooks and “adventure” drives where we would make our fun as we went, being open to serendipity and continuously pointing out everything along the way.

It is also important to nurture dreaming and the imagination — we would make up your own stories together, especially at bedtime beneath the glow-in-the-dark stars covering their bedroom ceilings. Holidays are another great opportunity to dream. For Halloween, we would invent costume ideas and do sketches to plan the pumpkins we would carve later. Everything should be part of the creative/learning process. Even a breakfast with Cheerios was turned into a game. There are so many ways to nurture creativity in kids and a dozen of them are discussed in this other post I contributed to, 12 Most Loving Ways to Spark Creativity in your Child.

Once kids truly show an interest in something, I think it’s extremely important to go with their passions. Rather than dictating what they should like, or pushing certain talents we think they possess but they show no interest in, it is much better to nurture what they naturally gravitate towards instead. And then feed those interests by always having the supplies they need at the ready, from simply having enough drawing paper available to buying the right creative software that fulfills their needs. 

Fight the good fight

Although we can’t determine what it is exactly our kids will show an affinity for, we can still influence them. And while it may be a thankless job many times, I believe our kids are better off in the long run for the encouragement we provide, enabling them to follow their passions. It is the way to a rich, enjoyable life and offers a myriad of alternatives to the ready-made ways of having fun that are always so prevalent. Forming this foundation for creative thinking is important to establish early on, so children grow up with a creative outlook where possibilities are endless. It can even alter the brain itself as the post, Pondering: Brain Overload, discusses so nicely.

There is plenty of time for the world to try and put its own restrictions on things. Most schools do little to encourage individualism and place limits on it by a one-size-fits-all mentality that does little to foster creativity in our children. Companies do the same, where toting the corporate line and appeasing one’s bosses largely keeps the boat from being rocked and provides the best chance for a good review.

But our leaders of tomorrow will be those who see things differently, for innovation never comes from the status quo. Successful companies will depend on them. So will whole societies and the world at large. Bigger populations fighting for a smaller piece of turf will naturally increase competition substantially — successfully navigating this and coming out on top will require even more crafty ways of doing things a little differently and a notch above everybody else. Likewise, the many challenges we face in the world will increasingly require inspired thinking to get us out of trouble. It all begins by raising creative children.

Why is nurturing the creative spirit important to you? I’d love to see what you have to say in the comments section below!

I know when I’m spending too much time online. It’s when my eyes bug out and feel like they’re going to fall out of my head. Everything I see past three feet is blurry.

Intense work, nose to monitor, reviewing thousands of photographs looking for the perfect image, kerning the type for a perfect fit, aligning elements to the grid, creating color palettes, sliding a graphic element over so it “kisses” a hairline rule… the hours fly by. 

While this happens, and well aware of the dangers of multitasking, I check emails and respond promptly. I may look at the news and see what the market is doing. Now throw in some Facebook updates and a lively Twitter chat or two: those never-ending updates and flickering streams of information. Scanning multiple columns in HootSuite — reading from bottom to top, left to right, up down, right left — Grand Blurry Station! I’m sure many of you can relate.

The antidote? My chair

That’s right, my chair — that beautiful, big leather recliner out there in the family room. That’s where the really great things happen. 

It’s where my online self ends and my offline one begins. It’s where I think things through, without the “help” of Google. No alerts vie for my attention when I’m in my chair, telling me I’ve received another email or a new mention on Twitter or Facebook. No links are being pushed at me by well-meaning friends portending to have the answers for this or that (as long as I leave my iPhone behind, that is!). It’s when I get away from those things that the real answers come — the deeper answers to things I may be struggling with. 

My best concepts and design ideas always seem to come from the chair. Admittedly, there are distractions there too: someone may switch on the television, a magazine beckons, sometimes I doze off… I know I eat far too many meals there and the mini-fridge is within arm’s reach. But that’s fine — it’s all good. It’s still where great things happen.

Clout vs. Klout

There’s a social media metric called Klout that aims to measure our online influence. It can be a helpful gauge for one’s online activities, as long as it’s taken in context with all of one’s other endeavors. Although flawed at measuring true influence on many levels, it scores one’s online stature with a number. Being flawed beings ourselves, it plays to our weaknesses and egos — even those who acknowledge its various shortcomings get caught up in the gaming aspect and become obsessed with their Klout scores. Mine stands at a respectable 62 (just checked it this morning!).  

Now, as I sit in my chair (okay… lie in my chair), the ideas keep coming. The cat strolls by and meows. My youngest child jumps on my lap. I can practically hear my Klout score dropping… but so what? Everything is starting to make sense again. Clarity.

Klout be damned.