As a team leader in the Creative Department, you run bi-monthly strategy and brainstorming sessions with all agency employees. Your boss sat in on the last session and expressed mild disappointment in the general lack of groundbreaking innovation by the team (though you still managed to shine individually). Consequently, your boss has directed all agency employees to complete a unique exercise in creative thinking.

Your boss presented it this way: “All employees must submit an electronic portfolio of photographs and explanations.” When the team expressed confusion, he clarified this way: “There should be a significant number of photographs in your portfolio, and the photographs should be of your real workplace items.” As final enlightenment, he offered the following: “Placing workplace items into unique environments and arrangements will prompt you to reconsider and repurpose the familiar and mundane.”

Following your boss’s instructions, you went to your workspace and started thinking. As you pondered the tricky task ahead, you identified some elements that you considered essential to demonstrate as part of your portfolio submission:

• How technology can aid in repurposing everyday items.
• How innovative repurposings can solve problems in the workplace.
• How everyday items can be repurposed as forms of logos or branding.
• How Apollonian and Dionysian perspectives can expand creativity in the repurposing of everyday items.

With those elements in mind, you feel ready to get to work. As you pull out your camera, you remind yourself that explanations are a key part of this project. With clever pictures and clear analysis, you can be sure that your submission will reflect your guiding principle: My portfolio should reveal plainly that I gave real thought and consideration to how workplace items can be refashioned into something different or better. You believe that everyone has natural creativity, and you’re excited to tap into yours for this endeavor.