Keaton Bedell, Director of Marketing at The Corp, highlights The Corp IT+Marketing department’s strategies for encouraging creativity.

Creativity has become a buzzword in the business world. Companies like Facebook, Google and LivingSocial pride themselves on their creative office spaces that feature mounds of beanbags, ping-pong tables and a well-stocked fridge. Sounds pretty awesome. Unfortunately most companies and student groups don’t have the capital or justification to invest in these creative wonderlands. The Corp IT+Marketing (IT+M) department tries its best to foster a creative and collaborative culture, even without a glitzy office space.

Here’s what we do:

1. Create Communal Collaboration Areas (excuse the alliteration)

We have two massive white boards in our office that we use for sketching, brainstorming, critiquing and linear algebra. Greta, the Marketing General Manager, loves making elaborate mind maps for campaigns. Additionally, we use this space to post up ads for department critique before they are finished. Digitally, we use a private Facebook group to share inspiration and ideas. Members of the team post daily, creating a healthy environment for the development of new ideas and fostering a sense of collaborative knowledge. While, white boards and Facebook groups can be great for a team that’s constantly on the move, it’s important to meet regularly and brainstorm in person. We follow IDEO’s brainstorm rules and always set a goal so brainstorms don’t stagnate.

2. Seek Inspiration and Save For Later

Get Gimme Bar. It allows you to save your favorite pictures, videos, articles, and quotes from the web in a clean visual gallery. You can also follow other people’s Gimme Bars to see what your friends and colleagues are looking at. We print out our favorite pieces of inspiration and put them on our creative wall. Here’s peek at my Gimme Bar to get you started– I try to collect at least one thing a day, but it gets addicting.

3. Organize to Focus and Grow Creativity

New ideas are like a stick; they’re fun to throw around, but they need form and structure to become a usable foundation. The IT+M team comes up with a lot of great ideas, but we can’t accomplish them all at once. We use Trello, a free project management tool, to save, collaborate, and build ideas all in one place. A team member can post an idea, manage their projects and see the rest of the team’s comments and suggestions with just one click. We also use it to view other ongoing projects, see drafts of designs, and post suggestions and comments.

4. Engage in New Environments

Get out of the office and go off-campus. Visit local museums, unique restaurants, and unusual concerts. See who can capture the coolest photo or video with their smartphone. Exploring different places as a team breaks the typical bounds of where collaboration can occur. Our team has already marked our calendars to visit the Movable Type Truck, a 1982 Chevy step van loaded with a letterpress and printing materials, coming to DC in November.

Building a creative workplace doesn’t require a bulging budget; a little time and creativity can push your team to the next level with the simple philosophy that creativity counts. Besides, beanbags are overrated anyway.

Keaton Bedell (COL ’13) is co-founder of Behind the Counter and Director of Marketing at The Corp.