Below are a few of the session topics that I lead. Many of the workshops can be tailored to meet time and audience needs, and all of them can be packaged to fill half and full day outings when desired:

Creative Boot Camp

Talk: 18-minute TED-style. Workshop: 1.5-hour, 2-hour, 3-hour

We typically think of creativity as an external force that we don’t control or an artistic talent that we don’t have. The reality is that creativity is a procedural, programmable characteristic of problem solving. It is a habit, and as such, creativity can be trained. We can improve creatively. All of us generate ideas and we do it every day. Some of us generate design or headline ideas for a client or maybe concept ideas for a new program or even activity ideas for our kids. If creativity truly is a habit, if it’s a skill that we can perform, that means we can control our own creative improvement. And Creative Boot Camp author Stefan Mumaw is going to prove it to you. He’ll not only show you what makes us all creative and what simple changes in our creative lives can have the greatest effect, he’ll run you through a series of creativity exercises that will prove that a few small creative steps will have you generating ideas in greater quantity and quality.
 
Stefan will elaborate on the key characteristics of daily creative output, identifying the obstacles to effective creative training and breaking down ideation into digestible steps, all the while using short, in-their-seats creative exercises to illuminate key points about behavior, experience and perspective. From serious creative inflection to comedy improv techniques, the audience is taken on a creative journey through practice, philosophy and application. Audience members will see, once and for all, that they were able to generate ideas in greater quantity and quality. The session is lively and fun, with Stefan’s trademark humor and wit on display. Creative Boot Camp will give audiences all of the speed of its military counterpart with none of the chow time remorse.

Storybuilding: Using Story to Connect Brands with Humans

Talk: 1-hour, 2-hour.  Workshop: 3-hour

The term ‘storytelling’ has become an agency buzzword of late. From creative shops to marketers, it seems everyone is a storyteller these days. And the fact is, they’re right. We are all storytellers. But few of us are storybuilders, capable of not only understanding the structure of story but able to use it to connect the character of a brand to the people that consume it. Story has a form, one that Stefan Mumaw, the Director of Narrative Strategy at famed story shop First Person, is going to break down for you. He’ll lay out the structure of story and use real-world examples to show how each story component is used to build an emotional bridge between brand and consumer. Bring a few tissues, story has a knack for producing both tears of laughter and empathy and Stefan will use both to show just how powerful story can be.

Anatomy of a Brainstorm

Talk: 1.5-hour

Brainstorming is the process of bringing multiple people together to generate ideas. The hope is that the collective experience and perspective in the room will help everyone generate more and better ideas. But bringing people together doesn't guarantee they'll solve the problem relevantly and novelly, you need a strategy for your idea sessions. So Creative Boot Camp author Stefan Mumaw has a suggestion: story. Humanity has been using story to connect intrinsically with one another since the dawn of time which makes story a crazy-strong foundation on which to run effective brainstorms.

Stefan will break down the basic brainstorming process into usable techniques, including the use of story to take wild-eyed concepts and turn them into tangible, actionable ideas. To do so, he'll run you through an actual campaign brainstorm from his agency, everything from ideation to finished product, a process he filmed live while it was happening. Experience three separate creative teams taken through the creative process, all reaching different but equally compelling solutions. You’ll get to imagine what you would have contributed, and what ideas you think were the strongest. From this example and the deep dive into his process, you'll see how you can use story in your next brainstorm and get the most out of your ideation sessions.

Rapid Ideation: Generate Ideas Faster

Workshop: 1-hour

Generating ideas is hard enough when you have plenty of time, but what do you do when your time runs short? To be successful, your team needs to generate ideas quickly if it wants to deliver effective solutions and consistent results. Join Stefan Mumaw as he explores the key differences between traditional ideation and rapid ideation, with proven tips you can put to use to maximize results. Learn to ideate rapidly like a pro using tried-and-tested techniques to solve common collaborative problems. Stefan illustrates how to overcome complex challenges by inventing, iterating, and inflating throughout the ideation process. Whether you’re an individual brainstorming a new direction for your life, or an organization trying to develop a new product or process, there’s a tool to meet the ideation needs of every occasion. By the end of this course, you’ll know more about which tool would work best for you, so you can generate new ideas faster and more effectively every time.

(work)Shoppe of Curiosities

Workshop: 1.5-hour

How curious are you? For most adults, curiosity takes a back seat to knowledge, but should it? As children, everything was new to us so curiosity and learning were innate. As adults, we typically only learn to accomplish goals. Curiosity wanes. But as creatives, curiosity is what fuels novelty in our problem solving. When it’s absent, we fall back on the expected and the experienced. So Creative Boot Camp author Stefan Mumaw is going to show you how to get your curiosity mojo back in a fun, exercise-filled workshop. He’ll break down the role curiosity plays in the creative process, lay out the trouble with “knowing enough,” and use creative exercises to illustrate the Five Shoppe Stops that reengage your curiosity muscles as you peruse the conceptual (work)Shoppe of Curiosity.

Noise: Learning to Deal with Chaos to Drive Creativity

Workshop: 1-hour

Creativity needs two conditions to thrive: time and participation. As creatives, we need the time to problem solve iteratively, and we need the energy to participate fully. But life and work and emails and expectations and meetings and kids and responsibilities and calendars and tools and STUFF creates an increasing volume of noise that drowns out your ability to give either time or participation to creative tasks. You just want to turn it off so you can focus creatively, right? Well… you can’t. But you can learn to turn it down and Creative Boot Camp author Stefan Mumaw can show you how. Stefan will break down the source of the noise, how to adjust frequencies to create space, and how to do the last thing anyone thought possible: actually use the noise as creative fuel. In a light-hearted session, you’ll leave energized and ready to turn it down.

Creative Domination Through Villainy

Talk: 1-hour

Dissidents. Rule breakers. Black hatters. If you really think about it, some of the most creative people on the planet are villains. They’re driven towards a goal, they fend off opposing forces with planning and cunning, and they find intensely alternative paths to win. As creatives, isn’t that what we want, too? There’s a lot we can learn from the villainous… if we’re willing to learn to cheat. And Chasing the Monster Idea author Stefan Mumaw is going to show you how. Stefan will break down the creative value of cheating (here’s a hint: successful villains don’t break the rules, they circumvent them), he’ll show you how knowing the rules is the only way to breaking them well, and he’ll use a series of diabolical creative exercises to show you the power of the dark side. Learn to generate ideas that no one saw coming through nefariousness and feloniousity and be the name the other creatives cry in the night with clenched fists and jealous hearts.

Stand Up and Slay

Talk: 1-hour

It’s the stuff of introvert nightmares: standing up in front of a group of people and presenting… anything. Generating ideas is easy, selling those ideas is…terrifying. But First Person Director of Narrative Strategy Stefan Mumaw has you covered. He’ll break down the formula for building powerful presentations, from planning through visual support. A presentation is so much more than a slide deck, and Stefan will show you how to build the type of presentation strategies that lead to those BOOM moments we all covet as presenters. If you want your presentations to be more than a Powerpoint file and a tall glass of hope, Stefan can show you how anyone, introvert or extrovert, can spin a yarn worth hearing. Here’s a hint: great presentations always have something unexpected, and you can expect nothing less from Stefan's lively, humorous, and perhaps even informative session.

Fire It Back Up: Breaking Out of a Creative Rut

Talk: 1-hour

We all create for a living. And as such, you either have been, are, or will find yourself, at one time or another, in a creative rut. They are the inevitable downs to your inspiring ups, the times when your creative energy, ideation, and flow seem to taper off. The good news is… it’s completely normal. The act of creation expends energy, and Creative Boot Camp author Stefan Mumaw will show you how to get it back. He’ll break down the causes of creative ruts, normalizing them into a natural, systematic part of the creative process. After this session, you’ll understand exactly the type of creative rut you might be in, and exactly what to do to get out of it. And along the way, Stefan will bring a little of his trademark humor and fun to the proceedings. If you’ve ever experienced a creative rut, come find out how to shake it off and get the fire back.

Designing Emotion: How to Use Design to Move People

Talk: 1-hour

There is a misconception in the industry that creatives are first and foremost communicators. While communication is the method of transfer, a creative is first and foremost an empath, someone who not only understands the emotions of others but manifests those same emotions in their work. This is the primary design objective of marketing: to make someone feel something. Without feeling, information is just data. First Person Narrative Strategist Stefan Mumaw will show you how design can be used to elicit authentic emotions in your audiences through process, technique, and most of all, empathy. If you struggle to connect your message to your audience’s hearts as much as their heads, this session will give you tools to move people.