It has always been; long before digitalisation, artificial intelligence, smartphones, Zoom meetings and remote work turned every living room, airport lounge and coffee shop into a potential workplace.
The creative economy does not run strictly from 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Inspiration may come at midnight. A client’s crisis may erupt at 2.00 a.m. A competitor may seize an opportunity while everyone else is still asleep. And sometimes, the difference between winning the assignment and losing it is not who has the most brilliant idea, but who was available when the idea was urgently needed.
If your thinking goes to sleep, your income may go into a coma.
There was a time when some creative people, brimful with genius, and often arrogance, would tell a client:
“Do you want it now, or do you want it creative?”
That line may have sounded clever in another era. Today, it sounds increasingly like a luxury the market can no longer afford.
We now live in an economy that expects creativity with immediacy.
Not rushed thinking. Not careless execution. Not the recycling of yesterday’s ideas. But the capacity to combine imagination with responsiveness.
The market is no longer impressed by creativity that arrives after the moment has passed.
An excellent campaign that misses the opportunity may be less valuable than a good one that arrived at exactly the right time. A brilliant response that comes after the crisis has been managed may be nothing more than an interesting academic contribution to history.
Timing has become part of the creative product.
Creativity is a 24-hour business
This is why I have told clients many times:
“If there is an urgent need, call me at 2.00 a.m. Don’t worry about what I may be busy doing.”
That is not an invitation to professional recklessness or a celebration of burnout. Neither am I suggesting that everyone should live permanently on call.
But there are businesses where availability is part of the value proposition.
If your clients cannot reach you at a crucial moment, someone else may answer the call.
If your team cannot deliver when the market requires it, someone else will deliver.
And if you are not sufficiently responsive to the changing needs of your clients, someone else will eat your lunch, and perhaps ask for dessert.
The truth is that the creative industry has always demanded more than the ability to think. It demands the discipline to think under pressure, create under constraints and deliver within the window of opportunity.
Because opportunity has an expiry date.
The good news is that the future of creativity is not necessarily about working harder or sleeping less. It is about building systems, teams, technology and capabilities that make creativity more responsive. It is about creating an organisation where the best ideas do not have to wait for one exhausted genius to wake up.
The creative professional of the future must, therefore, combine two qualities that were once considered incompatible:
Depth and speed.
Imagination and immediacy.
Originality and responsiveness.
Because today, the client does not merely want to know:
“Can you think?”
They also want to know:
“Can you think, and can you think now?”
And yes, before anyone begins to wonder about my earlier invitation to call at 2.00 a.m., did I tell you that I am happily married?
My wife may have a slightly different interpretation of what constitutes a “crucial creative emergency”.
Tunde Ojo
Learn · Leap · Lead
Thinking on your feet is the game. Even in your sleep the Holy Spirit is at work and when HE nudges you get up and do what HE has just told you.
Good Afternoon Sir, this is such a powerful piece.
Your statement that “creativity is a 24-hour business” immediately made me think of Dolly Parton and her iconic 9 to 5.
There is an interesting irony here: Dolly gave the world a song about working 9 to 5, but her own creativity could never be confined to 9 to 5.
She once said something profound: “I don’t work for money, never did. It was the art, it was the job. I loved the work.”
That, to me, is the difference between simply having a job and carrying a gift.
When your work is connected to your talent, purpose and calling, you don’t switch it off simply because the clock says 5:00 p.m.
https://chatgpt.com/s/m_6a902f3305c881919471c07e9939a049
The idea may come at midnight.
The solution may come while driving.
The insight may come in a conversation.
The opportunity may appear when everyone else is asleep.
And this connects deeply with what I have been reflecting on lately: talent must be developed, positioned and made visible.
Because it is not enough to be gifted.
The world must know what you are gifted at.
People must understand the value you bring.
And when the opportunity comes, you must be ready to respond.
Creativity may not be a 9-to-5 job.
But neither should it become an excuse for burnout.
The real challenge is to build the capacity, systems, visibility and responsiveness that allow your gift to create value consistently.
Perhaps the bigger question is not:
“Do I work beyond 9 to 5?”
It is:
“What have I been given that is too valuable to leave switched off?”
Brilliant piece, Sir. This one made me think. 👏🏽
Thinking.
Thinking now. Thinking on your feet. Thinking in the shower. The last cruises home and for it i could hand my husband a medal of some sort…..passion is the propeller of ideation
Many times I’ve had to consider the question; why is it that we get to have some germane ideas pop up out of our brains while in the shower?
I have come to recognise that the ideas do not come from showering, but the act does remove from the way whatever represents nagative moods. Then in the moments of feeling calmer, great ideas are produced from where they have often resided
Let’s think in the shower. Let the milk of ideation flow more than ever before
Go get in the shower!!! 🏃🏿♀️🏃🏿♀️👁️👁️😎💃🏾👗😴😴
Thinking.
Thinking now. Thinking on your feet. Thinking in the shower. The last cruises home and for it i could hand my husband a medal of some sort.
Many times I’ve had to consider the question; why is it that we get to have some germane ideas pop up out of our brains while in the shower?
I have come to recognise that the ideas do not come from showering, but the act does remove from the way whatever represents nagative moods. Then in the moments of feeling calmer, great ideas are produced from where they have often resided
Let’s think in the shower. Let the milk of ideation flow more than ever before
Go get in the shower!!! 🏃🏿♀️🏃🏿♀️👁️👁️😎💃🏾👗😴😴
Hmm, Uncle, this scares me. Are we to be consumed by creativity or work, leaving other aspects of life unattended? We are in the fast lane, no doubt; how many can catch up? The survival of the fittest, you might say, yet we are afraid to fall by the wayside. What is the solution then? May we not lose our minds in order to keep up? What is the solution? Take one step at a time. Or do your best and leave the rest. Can’t capture the whole market anyway? Can you.
Any professional that can’t think now obviously is not fit for the 21st century and can’t handle the demands of the emerging generations Alpha and Beta!
I totally agree with the line can you think and can you think constructively and creatively now and solve a pressing problem or meet an urgent need sums up the write in a nutshell. It brings to the fore the timeless truth that our world and human life cycle and sphere of knowledge, learning and development is dynamic and cyclical ever evolving and to be static is to automatically self-evict oneself. This sage aphorism is in my submission the rewordings of “who move my Cheese” I beg everyone to watch it once again, Rev. Tunde Ojo thank you sir for this prodding goad to spurs us again to reality that we either evolve or become extinct. Grace
This is very relevant and relatable especially to one like me whose job as a drone pilot is not just to fly but to use the aircraft to solve problems.
As the demand rises so must our exposure. There is a high demand to think on our feet, therefore it is important for us to continually feed our minds with virtually everything – from the place we go, the movies we see, the reels we pay attention to, the article you read, the signboards we see – everything, that we may have a lot of options to play with or manipulate when the demand comes.
Our current times seem to constantly be on the move. Creativity must be at our finger tips. Literally, no time to wash those hands, they must keep learning and gaining mastery in the process.
One thing I have observed, creativity is not perfection. One of the things that has made people loose clients or even opportunities is the desire to be very perfect with their creativity. However, permit me to say, the moment a work is put out, it becomes a past job and trust me, it can only get better.
For creativity, we don’t wash our hands and go to sleep, we keep them dirty (working) and beauty is always perfected after every work.
It can only get better.
Absolutely agree, sir.
We now live in a global economy. A client in Canada could need you at 6 p.m. while it is midnight in Nigeria. Your team may be spread across Africa, Asia, Europe and other continents. Someone has to keep the conversation moving.
And now we are competing with AI systems that don’t sleep.
At Touchstone Limited, we are already experimenting with this through the chatbot being developed on touchstonelimited.com. It can handle client requests 24/7, understand Touchstone’s branding, strategy and design principles, and is being improved to handle increasingly creative requests. When something requires genuine human judgement or empathy, it alerts a human.
I think this is where the 9–5 idea of creativity starts to break down.
The goal isn’t for humans to work 24 hours. The goal is for the business to operate 24 hours.
Let AI handle what machines are good at. Let humans focus on what makes us human.
Humans shouldn’t compete with machines on availability. We should compete on humanity.
A very interesting read! Having the knowledge or a great idea is only part of it; being dependable, responsive and able to deliver when it actually matters is just as important. Some of the opportunities that have helped me grow have come from being willing to step up, adapt quickly and get things done under pressure.
At the same time, I’m learning that sustainability matters too; you can’t constantly pour from an empty cup. For me, the real skill is finding that balance between excellence, responsiveness and knowing when to switch off.
Thank you,sir for the wake up call. It is exactly what we need now to excel in every field of life. Workplace, business ad family. If we have not learnt to think right and now, we will be missing a lot if opportunities. We need to hear this and very clearly too. I salute you, sir.
Mentors like you are remarkable and very needed in times like this.
Thank you.
To me, for one to succeed in today’s highly tech work/business space, those from age 55 and above – should get a good team of young/sharp thinking/high speed tech guys to do the fixing while the CEO who is equally tech based, adequately remunerate them – as they meet the targets set. This is what is tagged as “rest while your momey/team fixes for you”
Thank you sir for this beautiful piece. Opportunity has an expiry date. I agree with you that creative professionals must combine debt & speed, imagination & immediacy, originality and responsiveness.