The ranks of the Business Builders of St. Petersburg weekly networking luncheon grew yesterday when R-Design’s own Raffi Darrow gave a her interactive workshop about staying creative in the workplace.

“In my position as creative catalyst for R-Design, it’s obvious that I need to stay creative everyday,” said Darrow, “what most people don’t realize is that creativity goes beyond just sculpting or painting or drawing. Creativity is about thinking outside the box and coming up with innovative solutions to everyday challenges in the workplace. Being creative is important in any profession.”

Raffi’s workshop included several activities that even got the bankers, accountants and lawyers of the group flexing their creative muscles. In one portion of the program, attendees were given pages from a child’s coloring book. They were then encouraged to color outside the lines, in the “negative space”. In another activity, attendees were given 1 minute to doodle on a blank sheet of paper. Then, they passed their sheet two people to the left. Those attendees were given another minute to finish the doodle.

“I’ve seen a lot of presentations at networking meetings,” said Dave Harden of Ataraxy, Florida, “and I give that one an 11 out of 10. It was absolutely stunning.”

After the workshop, Raffi presented each member of Business Builders with a small bit of “homework”. These activities ranged from performing karate kicks in their living room while yelling “Hyah!” as loud as possible to getting down on all fours and seeing things from a dog’s perspective.

“The point of these activities is to get people out of their ‘typical’ routine,” says Darrow, “If you’ve got a sticky note on your computer that reminds you to do something, it’s typically only effective for a little while. Eventually, that sticky note just becomes a regular part of your computer and suddenly you’re forgetting to do whatever it was you were reminding yourself to do. In the same way, sometimes we need to get out of our daily routine so that we can see things from a new perspective and come up with new ideas.”