Open Your Eyes to AI's Creative Potential

I’ve been thinking about blind squirrels a lot recently. And it’s college football season, so that’s on my mind as well (Go Bucks!). This will all make sense, I promise… 😵‍💫

My beloved Buckeyes played Iowa this past Saturday. The good guys won, 35-7. Iowa used to be coached by the legendary Hayden Fry, and I found myself thinking about a quote I once heard attributed to him (no idea if he’s the original author). When commenting on how sometimes upsets or unexpected things happen in college football, Fry said (I’m paraphrasing), “even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.”

In our fast-paced digital environment, creative capacity is often reduced by repetitive administrative tasks, endless meetings and chaotic project timelines. It’s short-circuited by murky objectives, poorly written briefs and personal biases. The secret to expanding creative capacity lies in optimizing workflows to reduce friction, streamline processes, enhance clarity and free up mental energy for the tasks that matter most.

AI is your friend in this regard. Your very powerful friend.

In honor of Coach Fry, let’s use some of his colorful quotes to break down how you can implement AI to increase creative capacity and therefore improve the impact your ideas can deliver.

“Plow up some snakes and kill ’em.”

Time spent on menial, repetitive tasks like scheduling, data entry, or reporting could be reallocated to creative ideation and strategic thinking. A McKinsey report found that up to 45% of current work activities can be automated with present-day technology. (Wait ‘til you hear how many actual workers they think can be automated… I’m kidding. Sorta. 😬)

Leverage AI-powered tools to automate task management. Integrate Slack bots or Zapier to handle routine communications or status updates. The goal is to offload anything that doesn’t require direct creative input. Automating these tasks reduces mental clutter, freeing you up to focus on the core of what drives innovation—your ideas.

“Scratch where it itches.”

We waste too much time in meetings that should have been emails and in email threads that should have been Slack messages. And if I may — and I may because this is my newsletter, after all — a quick rant on email and Slack: email is garbage. It’s not productive to blast through hundreds of emails a day. You’re just pushing digital bits back across your desk to someone else’s. Slack is not much better, btw. People think firing off a bunch of messages in Slack shows engagement. No, it shows you’re not actually doing work, you’re trying to demonstrate that you’re doing work. There’s a difference. I value employee productivity inversely to the amount of emails and ‘time spent in inbox.’ OK, glad I could get that out…

A study from Atlassian showed that the average worker spends 31 hours per month in unproductive meetings (I mean, WTF). Thirty one! That’s almost a week of every month that’s just blabber building nothing. Do better.

AI platforms can help centralize collaboration and communication in one space. With AI-driven summarization tools like Otter.ai or Zoom’s AI recap feature, you can cut down the time spent in meetings and still stay on track. There’s no excuse for a meeting not to have a clear agenda and action-oriented notes coming out of it. If you find yourself invited to a meeting lacking either of the components I just mentioned, decline it. Now. I don’t care if it’s your peer, your boss or the freakin’ company founder. They’re wasting your time.

Centralizing communication and using AI summaries ensures information flows more efficiently, preventing bottlenecks that slow down creativity. I beg of you, join me in the quest to send email into the void. It’s time.

“The main thing is, be sure you put me high enough on the foundation that the dogs can’t urinate on my shoes.”

I love this quote — mostly because it’s awesome when taken completely out of context. Like I just did. Fry said this when the University of Iowa commissioned a statue of him on campus. He could’ve been talking about setting a marketing team up for creative success.

AI can accelerate the ideation process by providing frameworks, generating variations, and even delivering first drafts. This frees up time for you to refine and craft more nuanced, strategic ideas. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 50% of all content creation will be assisted by AI. 2025 is less than four months away. Tick tock… ⏰

Tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, or Copy.ai can help generate initial content or campaign ideas. Use these tools for brainstorming, generating headlines, or outlining new project concepts. This doesn’t replace creativity—it enhances it by giving you a head start. AI can help you break through the blank-page syndrome and speed up ideation, allowing more room for high-level, strategic work.

“Three things can happen (when you pass), and two of ‘em are bad.”

OK, this wasn’t a quote by Fry. It was actually Woody Hayes, the legendary Ohio State coach who uttered this nugget. You didn’t seriously think I would complete an entire newsletter with college football references and NOT include my Buckeyes… right? 🤣

Woody had a point. Passing is arguably more risky than running the football. A quarterback should definitely not just chuck it up and pray his man catches it.

Being creative doesn’t mean you should fly blind. Data can offer crucial insights that help shape more effective campaigns. Yet, crunching numbers and making sense of analytics can often feel like it’s draining your creative energy. AI tools leverage machine learning to provide real-time, actionable insights. By automating reporting and using AI to identify patterns, you can make data-driven decisions faster without manually sifting through data points. AI-powered analytics take the guesswork (and a ****load of time) out of decision-making, allowing you to focus on the strategic use of insights rather than on the grunt work of gathering them.

“Nothing’s better than a high-porch picnic right here in California.”

Fry uttered this gem upon arriving in LA for the 1981 Rose Bowl. It spoke to the heightened importance of the bowl game. Fry knew that some games matter more than others. When you’re Iowa and you have the rare season where you end up earning the opportunity to play “the Granddaddy of them all”, it’s a big deal.

Ever been stuck waiting on approvals? Overcomplicated review processes are often a significant roadblock to getting work done. More time gets wasted in waited or unnecessary back-and-forth than just about anything According to a study by Smartsheet, teams spend 18 hours per week on project management tasks like approvals. Automation tools like Airtable or Smartsheet, paired with AI-based project management tools, can streamline approval workflows, sending automatic reminders and routing work to the right person at the right time. This means fewer bottlenecks and faster project turnaround. Automating review and approval workflows allows your team to spend less time chasing down signatures and more time executing ideas.

“We have to have an equal opportunity. Our stick has to be as long as the sticks being used by those we play.”

Creative professionals are often overwhelmed by tasks that feel far removed from the actual work of creating. But with the right technology, particularly AI, you can eliminate those distractions, shorten timelines, and give yourself the mental space needed to think critically, strategically, and creatively. The tools are out there, and they’re not just for automation—they can to free you to innovate. In a world where the best ideas win, isn’t that the ultimate goal?

By using these steps, you’re not just improving efficiency—you’re laying the groundwork for more innovative, high-impact work that sets you apart. Time is ticking. Pretty soon, this is going to be as standard as… well, email or Slack. The time to experiment, learn and adopt is now. Otherwise, you and your company might be on the wrong end of the scoreboard when the fat lady hits the high notes.