an inspiring, action-oriented course that will help you discover your next brilliant idea and solve a current challenging problem in your business - even, and especially, in the face of change.
How do you keep moving with imagination and innovation when things are changing, in the economy, in the world, and/or in your industry and field? How do you navigate overwhelm, doubt, and unanswerable questions as you find new solutions for your beloved self, clients, customers, and other people who matter?
Hint: it’s about putting on your creative director hat. Come learn concrete innovation skills while crafting your next imaginative idea - one that responds to right-now priorities and conditions.
Nimble delivers 5 sets of tools that leverage the best insights of design thinking and artistic/creative tools for micro-and solo-entrepreneurs. You can use these tools any time you need to inject your work with fresh, unique strategic ideas.
What’s more, these methods and tools automatically build your creative confidence, so you can shift from overwhelm, avoidance or resistance into inspired imaginative action.
The difference between a cookie-cutter solution, a fear-shaped answer, and your next groundbreaking solution is Nimble.
Use Nimble to:
Design a new offer or product
In Nimble, you’ll learn how to ask the right generative questions, and conduct smart, informal research, so you can prioritize your top criteria as you design and plan your new thing.
Then you’ll use easy creative processes that will open your mind to more innovative, imaginative ways to execute and brand your offer, so your new thing stands out from the pack and responds to the moment with both sensitivity and vision.
Boost your brand
Your brand is an alive, unique voice that shows up everywhere you do. To make your brand something that continually evolves and responds to the moment while still being coherent takes not only good ideas, but the skills of a creative director.
This course is packed with those skills, in the form of low-lift prompts you can use again and again so you can keep making courageous moves with your original brand.
Meet a sticky challenge
You will be guided to place your challenging problem at the center of your creative inquiry; and be led through prompts that slow you down, give you new perspective, and allow you to experiment your way towards the unique solution you seek.
We’ve all heard the wisdom that you can’t solve a new problem with old tools. In Nimble, you’ll let go of habits of thinking, and use fun tools to help you innovate towards a fresh solution.
Your big idea is waiting for you. Come and get it!
The syllabus
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Orientation to the course - not only the materials, but tips for cultivating the mindset you need to succeed.
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The art of asking the right questions can unlock massive creative potential. You’ll move through 5 short assignments that unpack your challenges and opportunities, and help you formulate the central generative question that will focus and inspire your experiments and choices.
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With your generative question in hand, you’ll explore simple methods of creative research that allow you to listen both strategically and intuitively to your audience, so your solutions will be tuned in to who they are right now. You’ll bring the new insights you glean back into your creative process, to make sure your solutions are strategically sound and most likely to deliver big results.
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Once you have your generative question, fresh insights, and criteria for experimenting. You’ll receive 5 “playstorm” assignments - low-pressure, high-enjoyment prompts that will open your mind to every possibility at hand for addressing your challenge or opportunity. You can do them all in an afternoon, or sign up to have one prompt sent to your email each day for a week. This section will dissipate any stuckness you have been feeling and get your creative juices flowing!
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After the freewheeling playstorm, you’ll be ready to glean the most interesting ideas that are emerging, and test them out in low-stakes, simple ways. And you’ll learn how to evaluate if, and how, they are working to address your guiding question and criteria.
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You’ll choose your final idea and plan for its execution! And just as importantly, you’ll journal on a series of questions that will help you internalize the creative director’s tools you have gathered, so you can remember to use them every time you need them.
“In Nimble, I’m finding that my work is actually larger and more expansive than I thought it was. There are opportunities I was missing, and now I’m meeting them.”
The supports
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Our course is held in Mighty Networks, in which I have designed a social feed just for Nimble students, along with all course materials and events. You can post, comment, and share your work all along the way (and you will be prompted to in your lessons). Amy will be moderating the space, where you can find co-working buddies, feedback partners, and share your work and challenges with each section.
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Amy will be present moderating our Community Feed and answering questions as they come up. If further help is desired 1:1 with Amy, her schedule will be open at a reduced student rate ($100 per 30 minutes).
Register for Nimble
Nimble is $280.
Upon payment, you will immediately receive an email inviting you to log in to the community space where you will find the course and the activity feed where you can share your work and ask for help from your fellow students.
Once you are in, the course materials are yours for a full year.
More details
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As soon as you sign up! I’ll immediately send you the access invite to the community and course materials, and you can begin enjoying it whenever you want.
Nimble is asynchronous, so you go at your own pace - and drop in for live support and community input when needed.
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That depends on your schedule - but for most people, the whole process will take one week to one month. Each of the 5 sections will take 1-2 hours.
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A whole year! In January of 2024 I will decide if Nimble will keep going, get folded into something else, or change shape. But your 2023 year is guaranteed.
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The live Q+A calls are drop-in, so you can come to the ones that work for your schedule and watch the replays of the others if interested.
Wednesday, Jan 11, 10am
Thursday, Jan 26, 4pm
Tuesday, February 7, 12pm
Friday, Feb 24, 2pm
(all times Eastern Standard Time, US/NY)
After February, the live calls will drop to once per month and will be posted in our community events section.
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Yes. You may email me at amy@amywalsh.net, or message me on Instagram at @tacticalimagination.
About your teacher:
Amy Walsh is a visual artist (working in sculpture, installation, and earth repair), an educator (with 17 years of teaching and facilitating experience from universities and colleges to the business world), and a branding specialist (with design and branding projects spanning hundreds of organizations).
In 2016 Amy founded the Bureau of Tactical Imagination, where she helps other creators of all kinds build brilliant brands. Amy sees a brand as an opportunity to make a powerful cultural contribution all on its own, as well as a way to get your work seen, loved and engaged with.
She started Nimble because too often small business owners get stuck in figuring our WHAT do do, WHAT to make, WHAT to offer…
But we forget that the HOW is where all the magic is. In this wild forest of HOW, the answers to all of those what? questions have more room to reveal themselves.
Amy first taught Nimble at the beginning of pandemic lockdown, when we all needed to change with the times, but without the maps we always used. Nimble buoyed the students, and offered them ways to lead while uncertain - even to embrace the uncertainty as a rich creative inquiry - rather than staying stuck in the doubt. Many of her students were surprised by the innovations they were able to make as many around them floundered.