I wrote this post about top creativity speakers because I want to speak at your event. Clearly, my post got your attention, so we’re halfway there. I find a lot of these top XYZ posts to be boring and sometimes not that helpful. So don’t worry, I’ve got a great group of speakers for you here and I highly recommend everyone on this list.
My main creativity keynote talk is The Case For More Bad Ideas (also the title of my creativity book). It’s a counterintuitive guide to creativity, where I break down how to come up with more big ideas, more often. It includes a step-by-step guide to my Bad Idea Method, how to use constraints to improve creativity, the importance of side quests, and why big ideas are more accurately described as happy collisions. I add in personal stories, original research, and real examples from companies like Airbnb, Spotify, and Nintendo. I’ve spoken on hundreds of stages and I know how to engage and entertain your audience (t-shirt launcher included). Plus, they will learn something new!
Reach out if you’d like more info on my availability for your event. There, I just saved you a load of time.
Oh, you’re still here.
Ok fine, let’s do this. I have a bit of an unfair advantage when it comes to recommending top creativity speakers. I founded Social Fresh, the original social media conference. We’ve hosted 30+ conferences and I’ve personally worked with hundreds of top speakers on the topics of creativity, marketing, and digital technology across 15+ years of running events.
I’ve seen everyone on this list speak on stage, most of them multiple times, and I’ve seen audiences respond well to each of their insights and personalities. If you have trouble getting in touch with any of these top creativity speakers, let me know and I can connect you directly.
My list of top creativity speakers for your next event:
Rosie & Faris
Rosie Yakob and Faris Yakob are a dynamic duo, known for their expertise in advertising, marketing strategy, and creative thinking. Together, they founded the consultancy Genius Steals and have spoken on stages worldwide about innovation, creativity, and the evolving nature of media. They bring fresh perspectives on how brands can stay ahead in an ever-changing digital landscape and have deep expertise for agency audiences. Their talks often dive into how creativity intersects with culture and how to steal ideas in ethical, effective ways. Their also one of the best speaker duos I’ve ever seen on stage.
Brian Solis is a digital anthropologist and futurist who specializes in disruptive technology and its impact on business and society. He is a global keynote speaker on topics like customer experience, innovation, and digital transformation. Brian’s background in studying the human behavior behind technology makes his insights particularly valuable for businesses navigating digital change. He has authored several books, including X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, where he explores how experience is the future of brand marketing.
Brandi Rand is a speaker and agency strategist with a focus on social media and TikTok. Her expertise revolves around leveraging platforms like TikTok for business growth, targeting younger audiences, and developing engaging digital content strategies. As a past speaker at industry events, Brandi helps brands understand the creative potential of TikTok and other emerging platforms to connect with Gen Z audiences and stay ahead of social media trends.
Ted is known is one of the smartest video people I know. He ran video marketing at Twitter for years and his team built many of the best brand video ads on that platform. He blends humor with truly unique video marketing insights and knows how to create wonderfully designed decks with lots of great content examples. He now runs his own team at Neumotion, where his content often involves using short, impactful videos to make a brand’s message resonate online. His talks typically cover the power of short-form video in a world dominated by ever-decreasing attention spans, sharing practical tips on creating content that stands out on platforms like Twitter and beyond.
Joseph Gallo is a meme expert. He has a strong perspective on brand storytelling and digital content creation, with a background in advertising and creative direction. And can speak from the successful angel of driving engagement for a federal government agency with a unique style of meme posts he created himself. He speaks on the power of narrative in building brands and fostering audience engagement. His talks often highlight the importance of authenticity and creativity in modern marketing, providing actionable strategies for companies looking to make an impact through storytelling.
Kozza Babumba is recognized as a digital marketing leader. He’s great at blending culture and creativity into his on-stage talks. His expertise is in branding, cultural storytelling, and visual marketing, making him a highly sought-after speaker for those interested in merging art with commerce. Kozza often explores the relationship between creativity and community, providing unique insights into how brands can foster a loyal audience through meaningful, culturally relevant campaigns.
Hayet Rida is an Instagram creator and speaker who focuses on storytelling and personal branding. As a content creator she uses her platform to inspire authenticity and self-confidence, particularly for women of color. Her talks often delve into building an authentic online presence and using social media for empowerment and personal growth. Hayet’s a great speaker and her candid approach to creativity makes her a popular figure for brands wanting to engage unique audiences.
Spike Jones is a veteran of digital and word-of-mouth marketing with a strong focus on community building and advocacy programs. He’s known for his role at Brains on Fire, where he helped grow the company into a recognized leader in word-of-mouth marketing. His speaking engagements often cover topics like customer experience, digital transformation, and community building for brands. He has worked with high-profile clients such as BMW, Best Buy, and General Motors, helping to create standout marketing programs.
Dara Denney is a prominent figure in performance marketing and creative strategy, best known for her work in paid social and video ad campaigns. She frequently speaks on the latest trends in social media advertising, especially around scaling businesses using data-driven creative strategies. Her practical advice on producing effective ads has made her a trusted voice for brands looking to maximize their ROI in digital marketing.
Mark Schaefer has written twelve books and the most recent one, Audacious, is the closest thing to my own argument I have read from someone else. His case is that creative nerve beats algorithmic optimization, which is exactly right and exactly what most marketing teams have stopped believing. He is also one of the most reliably excellent speakers in this industry, and he has been for as long as I have been running conferences. Book him when your audience needs permission to be interesting again.
Cathy Hackl is a tech futurist working at the intersection of AI, spatial computing, and what audiences will expect from brands next. She has spoken at Harvard Business School, MIT, SXSW, CES, and the World Economic Forum, and she shows up on the planner guides for best AI speakers every year now. What makes her work on a creativity lineup rather than a technology one is that she does not stop at describing the tools. She shows people what to make with them.
David Meerman Scott wrote The New Rules of Marketing and PR, which has sold more than half a million copies in 29 languages, and Fanocracy, which is really a book about why people care about anything at all. His next one, The Fandom Playbook, lands late 2026. He sits on HubSpot’s advisory board and still does the work himself, which is rarer at his level than it should be. Book him when your audience needs the strategy behind the creative, not just the spark.
Each of these top creativity speakers are excellent, each bringing something unique to the stage. And most likely your audience has not seen many of them speak before. If you’re looking to add a creative edge to your next event, consider any one of them.
Creativity is unruly and sometimes we need quick brainstorm help.
Occasionally ideas flow easily like a roster of new Hallmark Christmas movies (one year they released 26 new holiday films, that’s just unreal).
Because that’s not usually the case, it mostly feels like ideas run away from you, lock themselves in a treasure chest, and hide at the bottom of the ocean.
On top of this, you’re probably working on creative challenges all day — on a deadline. It’s common to have only a few hours or minutes to come up with creative solutions
Then, what can you do when you’re out of time and asked to deliver the moon?
Here are 3 ways to help speed up your creative process and give yourself some quick brainstorm help.
Editor’s Note: One important point of caution here… Great ideas take time. If a client or employer asks you to create winning ideas regularly with unreasonable timelines, pushback is warranted. Protect your peace.
1. More Bad Ideas
One of the quickest ways to warm up your internal idea engine is to eliminate any feeling of pressure through bad ideas. Requiring bad ideas as a first step improves every creative process.
Bad ideas typically fall into two categories: the obvious and the absurd. Making a list of obvious and absurd solutions to your creative challenge will put you in a much better headspace and better equip you to form new ideas through these connections.
Also, these lists of obvious or absurd ideas will contain your winning solution, and sometimes, they are a great shortcut to jumpstart inspiration.
Time to execute: 5 minutes
2. Constraints as a Canvas
We often have a new assignment, client request, or campaign with very specific constraints. Questioning these limits is at the heart of creativity.
Constraint-led ideation is the process of listing all of a project’s constraints and then questioning each limitation.
Not all constraints are negotiable, but there’s usually something you can question. The process of going through each perceived barrier will do two things: 1) get your creative brain moving in the right direction and 2) define the canvas of what you have to work with.
When I’m speaker prepping for one of my creativity keynote talks, I start with the broad talk I’m going to give like “More Bad Ideas” or “Rethink Brainstorming” and I think through the limitations of the event, the audience, their day jobs, etc. I ask “how can I customize this talk to this audience’s specific limitations, interests, and rules?”
Work through every constraint and ask how to challenge, skip, adapt to, or embrace them. These collective decisions make your canvas. Now create the best solution you can within this new rule set.
Time to execute: 10 minutes
3. Creative Lists For Quick Brainstorm Help
Start making lists of everything you love. This will become a huge resource to pull from when you’re up against a deadline.
Here are some lists I keep (several for over a decade):
Favorite words
Design I love
Great art
Fiction book ideas (these are mostly from dreams)
Non-fiction book ideas
Amazing things my partner says
Stories from my life (collecting personal anecdotes)
Interesting stories I hear (collecting random anecdotes)
Bad ideas (counterintuitive creativity anecdotes)
Engagement templates (social inspo)
My top drawer list (got this from Nicole D’Alonzo, a list of wins and support)
Starting this habit is easy. Pick one list idea that brings you joy and start adding to it today. Add to it the next time you see a good example of that thing. Rinse and repeat.
I update some of these lists every week, some almost daily, and some once a month or less often. Many have years of content. A few over a decade. The longer you keep these lists, the more valuable and special they become.
I started my bad ideas list 10 years ago and it’s been an essential resource while writing my new book, The Case for More Bad Ideas.
If you often have to solve a specific creative challenge on a deadline, consider a list of inspirations or examples that would help you in those moments.
Time to execute: A few minutes each week
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Try these tactics when the world gives you a challenging timeline. You don’t always need quick brainstorm help. Often it makes more sense to spend more time on a creative challenge, but alas that’s not always possible.
Also, don’t feel bad when your ideas are a little less shiny than you’d like. Keep going, take breaks, and when all else fails, revert to joy.
Yes, play feeds creativity. But it also does more than that. When we misplace the act of play in our lives, we put ourselves at a disadvantage.
“The opposite of play isn’t work; it is depression.” – Dr. Stuart Brown
We need to play.
Both in big splashy ways like carnivals and beach days and in smaller sips when we doodle in our notes or tell bad dad jokes to friends (did you hear about the fire at the circus… it was in-tents).
Play also helps us pay attention and remember important information or events. It’s one of the reasons I bring a t-shirt gun on stage with me for my creativity talks, as a memorable touchpoint that helps the audience retain key messages.
No one was better at play than Salvador Dali. When he collaborated with Life Magazine photographer Philippe Halsman in 1948 their ultimate creation would become one of the most iconic photographs ever taken.
The photo, titled Dalí Atomicus, is brought to you by play.
Dali’s first idea for the collaboration was to blow up a duck with dynamite (I kid you not, a real duck), but Halsman refused. Instead, they created a photo where everything would be floating in the air, including three soaring cats and a bucket of water in flight.
It took over 26 attempts to get a shot with the cats, water, and Dali in the right spot, and without the behind-the-scenes helpers accidentally in the frame.
Halsman’s playful approach came from his other celebrity photo shoots. When he struggled to make famous people look natural, he’d ask them to jump. He explained, “When you ask a person to jump, their attention is on the act, and their mask falls, revealing the real person.” This small act of play made them more open to being themselves because play feeds creativity.
In addition to Dalí Atomicus, this playful technique led to a series of mid-air photos by Halsman.
Our sense of Play is a muscle.
Using it in small ways makes embracing bigger, more playful ideas easier. Regular play boosts confidence and helps you respond optimistically to challenges.
Play more games, create more things with your hands, wander, go on side quests, and be curious.
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In my book, The Case for More Bad Ideas, I go deeper into the power of play with real examples, best practices, and more on the research behind it all.
Do you ever feel like all your ideas are boring? It happens to everyone, regardless of creative expertise or the deadlines currently staring you down from your calendar. However, introducing more divergent thinking into our process is a challenge.
When we need new ideas, we usually:
Google how everyone else is solving the problem or search social for inspo
Plan a traditional brainstorm on Zoom (or in a drab conference room)
This gives us something to do but doesn’t inspire creative thinking. When all your ideas feel uninspired, you need divergence—something new to break the mold.
Divergent thinking is exploring unexpected paths. Letting yourself explore unfamiliar places. It’s the opposite of convergent thinking, which seeks a single correct answer.
Divergent thinking is challenging because it requires us to do something new.
I created a resource, the Better Brainstorming Guide, to help you in these moments. It’s a free list of interventions to help you think divergently.
Here are 3 things from the guide you can try today:
1. Don’t Overprepare
Prepare, but don’t overdo it. A brainstorming brief should be one page, max. Over-explaining limits a team’s ability to escape groupthink.
When brainstorming solo, set time limits. For a blog post, I use a quick outline, 30-60 minutes of research, and 1-3 hours of writing.
Minimal prep keeps divergent thinking on the table.
2. Introduce Novelty
In 2005, a study on Broadway musicals showed the power of diverse groups. Teams with a mix of familiar and new members produced the most successful shows. For example, the hit show “West Side Story” combined the experienced pair of composer Leonard Bernstein and director Jerome Robbins, who had worked together before, with fresh talents like the lyricist Stephen Sondheim and playwright Arthur Laurents.
For solo brainstorming, use writing prompts, random word generators, or ask how different people might solve your problem (e.g., a scientist or an abstract painter).
3. The 3 Horse Rule
For every winning idea, generate two strong alternatives (the thoroughbreds) and one “favorite bad idea” (the unicorn). This maintains diversity in your creative process by preventing fixation on a single concept.
For example, imagine you’re redesigning a video agency’s website. Your 3 horses might look like this:
Thoroughbred: A retro site celebrating the history of film
Thoroughbred: Focus on highlighting team expertise using UGC vertical videos
Unicorn: Use a series of linked YouTube videos as the agency’s website
Instead of converging on one winning idea, The 3 Horse Rule keeps each idea in discussion longer, giving you more options and unexpected insights.
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We think of brainstorming as a standard process, but without disrupting how we normally work, divergent thinking typically escapes us.
Break patterns.
These tips and the Better Brainstorming Guide will help you go in new directions. Grab the full guide here.
I also recommend bringing in experienced brainstorm moderators or top creativity speakers when you need help encouraging more divergent thinking for a team retreat, company event, or conference. If you want me to run it, I work as a creativity speaker and workshop facilitator for teams that keep landing on the obvious answer.
It wasn’t a surprise when I noticed a trend among the most successful companies — they all good and incubation and share the same core belief:
Great work takes time.
Making time for great work can be incredibly difficult, and not always in our control, but the benefits are undeniable. Success requires more time for research, incubation, and recovery.
In short, great work requires breaks. Stepping away from work regularly is not only important for our mental health, but one of the keys to unlocking new ideas.
According to a survey, workers who take breaks during the day are 13% more productive than those who don’t. They also have 62% higher scores for work-life balance (aka happiness?).
We’re also seeing a rise in companies around the world testing 4-day work weeks, specifically because it has shown an increase in productivity and quality of life.
The breakfast epiphany
Jerry Seinfeld tells a joke in his standup routine about Pop-Tarts and how unique they were when they launched in the 1960s. This led him to make a movie about the invention of the Pop-Tart, which was just released on Netflix.
Seinfeld writes all of his jokes on yellow legal pads with a blue Bic pen. He has a process, and a big part of his process involves not settling for a joke until it is dialed in perfectly for audience response.
Because of this, he might spend an inordinate amount of time on a single joke. Probably longer than you’d expect. He continually comes back to a joke to replace a bothersome word, adjust the timing, and perfect his delivery.
“I’ve probably been working on [the Pop-Tart joke] for two years… It’s a long time to spend on something that means absolutely nothing. But that’s what I do.” — Seinfeld
He spent two years from idea to completion. For one joke. Before he ever performed it on a stage.
Seinfeld’s process includes intentional incubation: active writing and editing, followed by breaks. Refine, rest, and repeat.
Putting incubation into practice
The best creatives understand the necessity for breaks. They’re willing to work longer on projects, willing to iterate more, and they understand the necessity of stepping away from a project.
Ideas that pop into your head in the shower or right after you wake up are examples of incubation. The ability of our subconscious to shape ideas without our direct attention is an important creative skill.
Our brains prefer larger blocks of time to work on problems.
I’ve been working on my creativity book, The Case for More Bad Idea, for years. Ninety-nine percent of that time was spent thinking, not writing. I researched, contemplated, absorbed the world around me, brushed up against life, and made connections back to the book’s core concepts.
When I work on a new creativity keynote talk, it can take months of iteration, testing, and incubation time for thinking, to dial it in. And even then, when I give the talk to a live audience is when some of the most significant improvements take place.
Time is one of your most powerful creative tools when you can afford it.
Once you understand the broad strokes of a problem, taking a step back and giving your mind space to breathe, leads to great work.
3 tips on taking more breaks and fostering more incubation:
1. No Meeting Days I know it’s not possible to have a no-meeting day at every company, but if you can swing it, the results are tremendous. An MIT Sloan study found a 35% increase with one no-meeting day per week and 71% with two no-meeting days. I find it hard to do this on Mondays or Fridays, but Thursdays have proven successful for us.
2. Take Small Breaks Consider using the Pomodoro technique, named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer (“pomodoro” is Italian for tomato). A Pomodoro is 25 minutes of work time followed by a 5-minute break. Using a timer to break work up enhances focus and creativity while emphasizing mental rest.
3. Take Active Breaks One way to encourage incubation is through using meditative tasks as breaks. These include activities like going for a walk, taking a shower, or driving the long way home. There’s typically repetitive motion and no mental gymnastics, allowing you to relax take a break from active thought, and encourage subconscious reflection.
I’m here for more naps, fewer meetings, and, if we can find a healthy version, more Pop-Tarts.
Consider how you work. Are you intentional about building in breaks and incubation? Do you allow yourself enough time to do great work, truly creative work?
