Fredrik Härén's Blog
November 26, 2025
Creativity Companion (Episode 268)
”Accountability buddy” is a great concept, but ”creativity companion” is even better.
A few months earlier this year I sat at Rönneberga hotel and wrote my (soon to be released) book “The World of Creativity”.
In a chair a few meters from me sat Magnus Lindkvist and wrote his book, “How to make AI useful”.
We would write for 45 minutes and then take a five minute break to chat about our writing, or whatever topic came to mind. Or we would just play a game of Shuffle Board.
Writing a book is a wonderful creative practice, but it is (or can be) a very lonely practice.
Magnus had a co-author, Bryan Reimer from MIT, and they had a great co-creation process.
But what me and Magnus had was something else: a space to just vent ideas, thoughts and reflections without any expectations of a result or outcome.
It created a wonderful, creative space for us to write our respective books.
I know for sure my book became better from it.
Who is your Creativity Companion?
Ps. Last night I attended their book launch, and I will do the launch of my book soon. Message me if you want an invite to my launch event 🙂
Their book: https://lnkd.in/dBWKmYg8
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The World of Creativity: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1907312897
The post Creativity Companion (Episode 268) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
November 9, 2025
A lesson in not adapting (Episode 267)
I continue to share my observations from traveling to make observations on how companies find it hard to change.
This time a USB observation.
In 2014 the specifications for USB-C were released.
In 2022 the EU passed legislation requiring USB-C as the standard charging port.
(Finnair’s OLDEST A350 was delivered in late 2015.)
Yet in late 2025, the planes of Finnair only (!) have old USB chargers. There are also no regular power plugs.
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That means someone flying with standard electronic equipment cannot charge their devices.
Even more annoying: it would be so easy to fix: just buy a couple of USB to USB-C adapters and offer them to anyone asking the crew why there is no way to charge their device. (They are, like 15 Euro each or less). Or sell them for a profit if you want.
When I asked the crew onboard Finnair how I am going to charge my device now, they reply ”perhaps it is the policy of the airline to not offer charging possibilities…”
The post A lesson in not adapting (Episode 267) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
October 23, 2025
The Creator Process (Episode 266)
In Cancun, Mexico, I met Felix Hernandez, a photographer / digital and miniature artist who has worked with brands like Top Gear and Gucci and other clients around the world.
We talked about creativity from the perspective of a person who works with his hands.
He told me that while the creative process of having a great idea and working on it in your head is great – the TRUE magic happens when you start “the creator process”.
The Creator Process is the part of the creative process that happens outside of your mind.
A creator is a person who brings something into existence.
Working with miniature objects, his camera and other things, his vision is brought to life.
And according to Felix, that part of the creative process is what gives his life meaning.
It’s great to have an idea for a book, but the creator process starts when you put the first word on the page.
It’s great to have an idea for a dish, but the creator process starts when you start chopping up the first ingredient.
And so on.
A lot of people seem to think that creativity happens in your mind.
But creativity is not just having ideas – it’s giving birth to those ideas. It’s about making them come to life.
And that is what the creator process is all about.
What are you going to make come alive?
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The post The Creator Process (Episode 266) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
October 16, 2025
Silence your ego (Episode 265)
“I picked up painting because I wanted to be really bad at something.” That is what the journalist interviewing me told me today.
I love that.
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Picking up something you suck at, is a great way of silencing the ego – and less ego is good for creativity.
It echoes one of the messages I delivered in my speech at LEAP today: that creativity is not about “creating stuff” but about the joy of the creative process.
How do you silence your ego?
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The post Silence your ego (Episode 265) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
October 3, 2025
Curiosity comes before Knowledge. (Episode 264)
1100 Icelandic HR leaders meeting for an HR conference is the equivalent of a HR conference with 25,000 (!) people in Sweden – or a whopping 825,000 (!) attendees for an HR conference in the USA.
It’s mind-blowing that such a small country as Iceland can create such a big local HR conference.
And to have it start with the moderator singing a rock ballad with a HR theme is just epic.
I love EVERYTHING about Iceland.
In my speech I mentioned how interesting I found it that the Icelandic word for ”curious” is ”forvitinn” – made up of the word for ”before” and the word for ”knowing”.
In other words: in Icelandic, the word for curious reminds us that before someone can learn something, their curiosity has to be awoken!
Curiosity comes before knowledge.
My message to the HR community was that their most important role is to awaken the curiosity in their people so that they want to learn more.
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The post Curiosity comes before Knowledge. (Episode 264) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
September 24, 2025
”Much more creative”! (Episode 263)
How can an airport be so uninviting?
That was the thought that went through my mind as I walked through the arrival process of Nice airport. (Please do look at these photos to see how utterly depressing the arrival is!)
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How is it even possible to have humans build something so uninspiring? Especially for such a tourism centered destination.
(And while we are at it: how can the airport designer be so uncreative that they do not understand that women want to use the restroom after they land? – just look at that queue!)
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For 25 years I have been speaking and writing about how we need to become more creative – but recently this message has started to resonate more strongly with me.
I now feel we have to become MUCH (!) MORE CREATIVE!
The world is filled with problems and opportunities- and creativity is the tool we use to solve these problems and harnessing those opportunities.
From big problems like giving humanity access to clean drinking water – to ”small” problems like designing airports that do not make you depressed as you use them.
Come on humanity!
We can do much better than this.
Would love to hear your thoughts on LinkedIn.
The post ”Much more creative”! (Episode 263) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
September 17, 2025
DaaH – Data as a Human. (Episode 262)
What happens if you take all the vast amounts of data and feed it to an AI that analyses it and communicates insights as a human?
Those are questions that Mark Krebs, Chief Product Officer at advertising and media giant Publicis, is experimenting with.
Hearing him speak about what they are trying to create makes you think of the character Data, self-aware, sapient, sentient and anatomically fully functional male android in Star Trek.
Having a lot of data is more or less meaningless if you cannot make sense of it.
In its rawest form, it is just numbers in a database.
For us to make sense of it, we need to make it accessible for humans.
The simplest form of that is graphs, or dashboards that makes information more visually easy to understand.
But imagine pulling all the information about markets, consumers, media consumption, media behaviour, advertising results etc and feeding that to an LLM that in turn is prompted to reply as a real-life animated character who speaks back to you!
Suddenly you can have a discussion with the data as if you were speaking to a human.
The technology is still in development, but it’s getting better by the day.
What is the benefit of “Data as a Human (DaaH)?
According to Mark, advertisers are getting “BBQ”, which stands for “Better, Bigger and Quicker”.
Better insights
Bigger ideas
Quicker response
Advertisers are essentially trying to understand humans. What makes them tick, how do they behave, what do they want?
The digital world we are living in now is giving advertisers all this data, but the problem has been to make sense of it.
With synthetic audiences or synthetic consumers, they can now test ads before incurring media exposure costs.
And – as mentioned above – they can soon have a conversation with the data itself to get insights in the format that humans learn from the best: as stories created by an AI.
All the advertising data in the world funnelled down to one human conversation between the advertiser and Data – sorry, I mean “the data” itself in the form of an AI.
Real life Star Trek – to “go where no ad-man has gone before.”
The ability to turn raw information into colourful conversations that help you get new insights is a potentially huge creativity booster for anyone with access to data.
Time to start thinking about how to build a Data as a Human (DaaH) solution for yourself?
ps. If you could have a conversation with data, which data would you like to talk to?
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The post DaaH – Data as a Human. (Episode 262) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
September 2, 2025
In defense of the comfort zone. (Episode 261)
The word “comfort” has gotten a bad rep.
As someone interested in creativity, I often meet people who say, “To be creative, you have to go out of your comfort zone.”
It’s like comfort now means “complacency, laziness, or lack of ambition.”
But the etymology of the word “comfort” is “com” (meaning “with”) and “fortis” (meaning “strong”)
So originally, “comfortable” was about strength and encouragement.
After all, when we “comfort” someone, we are trying to strengthen them.
So, in these uncertain times when many are stressed and confused, why are we telling people to go to a place outside of where they feel comfortable?
Outside of where they feel strength and encouragement?
Do not “go out of” your comfort zone.
Instead, “expand your comfort zone.”
One of the most important professional decisions I have made was when I, in 2005, decided to stop being “a Swedish speaker”, and instead chose to become “a global speaker” – which had me move to China (and then Singapore).
At that time, I did not focus on all the things that could make me uncomfortable with moving to China and starting a new career.
I focused on how it would help me grow as a speaker and as a person.
That was not me going out of my comfort zone.
That was me expanding my comfort zone.
How do you plan to expand your comfort zone to increase the space where you feel strength and encouragement?
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Picture of me in my rowing boat that I upgraded with an electric engine a few years back and which I, this week, upgraded again with a soft, comfortable pillow with a back-rest. A different way of expanding my comfort zone for my daily commute. 🙂
The post In defense of the comfort zone. (Episode 261) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
August 29, 2025
The Creativity Suite. Episode 161: Focused Innovation.
Interview with Thomas Shilvock, Director of Strategic Development at Specsavers.
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Some people, sloppily, think of innovation as just “imagining the unknown”, but innovation, for companies, is the balance between three aspects:
– The Art of the Possible – i.e. what can be created
– The Art of the Practical – i.e. what will be realistic to push through
– The Art of the Meaningful – i.e. what people actually want as well as what is in-line with your company’s mission and purpose
Balance the Possible with the Practical and the Meaningful and you have the sweet spot of innovation – the point of convergence between imagination, practicality and meaning.
The word for “a point of convergence” is: “focus”.
And here is an interesting insight: Many people think of the wrong thing when they hear: “focus”!
They think that you should concentrate and pay attention to one specific point. Like to just stare at a specific place.
They think of focus as static.
But the true meaning of focus as a “point of convergence” is that this space is constantly changing.
To focus is not static. It’s dynamic.
You should focus on that one point, but the key is to be aware that that point might soon change.
Some aspects might not change, some might change slowly, while others might change quickly and to focus is to constantly pay attention to what is changing and what is not.
And to then have the ability to change your behaviour accordingly.
To innovate, a lot of people will suggest the creativity trigger “What if…?” to help imagine what is possible.
And that can work great.
But an even better creativity trigger is “How can we…?” because this focuses both on the potential of the unthought as well as the current circumstances of a company, a situation, a team or a market. And it focuses on the current team coming up with ways of changing.
It incorporates both the art of the possible (“how”), the art of the practical (“can”) and the art of the meaningful (“we”).
How are you using the focus to innovate and if you think “How can we..?” what will you create?
This text was inspired by a conversation around creativity and innovation with Thomas Shilvock , Director of Strategic Development at Specsavers, a company dedicated to developing and innovating around their purpose to “change lives through better sight and hearing.”
The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 161: Focused Innovation. first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
August 25, 2025
Inspiration has expiration. (Episode 260)
“Inspiration has expiration.”
I was recently on a podcast and I said that sentence. (Yes, I am quoting myself)
But my point with that quote (and this post) was to send out a reminder that when inspiration fades, so too does the creative energy.
I said it as a reflection about how I, as I was writing my latest book, had noticed that texts that I wrote JUST after I had finished an interview were much better than the texts I wrote based on interviews I had done days, weeks, or even months earlier.
The texts I wrote while I was still high on inspiration from the interview had more edge, had more emotions. They were just better.
It made me make a promise to myself to never again go to sleep if I still had notes from an interview that had not yet been turned into a text.
To never let the creative inspiration from an interview expire before I have turned it into a meaningful text. To write while my mind is still in the sun, so to speak.
What are you doing to make sure your creative process harnesses inspiration to its fullest?
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The post Inspiration has expiration. (Episode 260) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
