BOSTON \u2013 First it was \u201cReach out and touch someone\u201d for AT&T and now the ubiquitous \u201cGreen Line\u201d for Fidelity Investments. Jim Speros had a hand in both creative endeavors, along the way refining his definition of creativity.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo create disruption, you have to start by being a curious person,\u201d Speros, EVP of Corporate Communications at Fidelity, says in an interview with Beet.TV.<\/p>\n

Beyond simple curiosity, he believes there are three pillars to creativity, which Speros defines as \u201cdrawing upon your eclectic thinking and experiences and putting it together in a surprising way.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be intellectually curious, \u201cYou have to look at music, art, science, technology, fashion, trends, news events and study other categories in other companies,\u201d Speros says. \u201cYou have to put something in that repository before you can draw from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second on the list is having varied personal relationships. \u201cIf all you do is hang out with people that are exactly like you, all you\u2019re going to be doing is reinforcing the same things that you already know,\u201d Speros says. \u201cI like to put it as inhaling your own fumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lastly, he thinks more people should learn how to \u201cadopt more of a risk-taking attitude, because out of great risk taking comes great creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

While at AT&T, Speros<\/a> was credited with placing the first Internet banner ad in 1994\u2014when Mark Zuckerberg was in grade school and social media consisted of bulletin board systems. Now he is all too aware of the impact of platforms like Facebook and Twitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cA bad string of social media commentary can absolutely destroy a brand very quickly,\u201d Speros notes. \u201cWere in control of the experience that we serve up, but the interpretation of that experience is defined by the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He takes a dim view of the term “mass media” but thinks it can be achieved through a different approach than that traditionally taken.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is some element of reaching people in mass, but the way you get to mass might be through a series of highly personalized interactions enabled by addressable television, mobile technology and so on,\u201d Speros says.<\/p>\n

We interviewed him last month at the Progress Partners Connect conference<\/a>. Our coverage of the conference is sponsored by Simpli.fi<\/a>. More videos from the series can be found on this page<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOSTON \u2013 First it was \u201cReach out and touch someone\u201d for AT&T and now the ubiquitous \u201cGreen Line\u201d for Fidelity Investments. Jim Speros had a hand in both creative endeavors, along the way refining his definition of creativity. \u201cTo create disruption, you have to start by being a curious person,\u201d Speros, EVP of Corporate Communications […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[5875],"tags":[3064,3269,3826,5894,5895],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}