Hill+Knowlton Strategies

If you have a spare few hours you may want to read this excellent (albeit long) article by Tim Rogers on his experiences in Japan. In it he tells the story behind the creation of popular video game Gran Turismo.

On his first day at Sony Computer Entertainment, Kazunori Yamauchi wrote a game design idea consisting of nothing more than the words, “I want to drive my car on my television”.

How fantastic is that?

No lengthy, over-elaborate proposals or in-depth strategic thought process. Just a simple premise that reflected exactly what he wanted to achieve. Now, I’m not saying everyone should start creating client proposals in single-sentence form on the back of beer mats but the Japanese approach to coming up with an idea is one we should adopt more often.

Stop and think – what do you ultimately want to achieve? Now remove all the marketing words and clunky business speak and write it again – make it so simple a 5 year old could understand it. Then go from there.

Taken from http://danleach.posterous.com.