Bridging Culture and Innovation

At the intersection of creativity, culture, and innovation stands Nicole Wyche -- Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Notorious 111. With roots in Baltimore and a creative studio thriving in Washington, D.C., Nicole is redefining how brands connect with communities. In this conversation, she unpacks what it really means to be “in culture,” why creativity is the medium for innovation, and how AI can shrink the gap between idea and execution. Grounded, insightful, and unapologetically human, Nicole invites us to embrace play, ease, and intentionality as critical drivers of both personal growth and meaningful brand transformation.

1. What does innovation mean to you, particularly at the intersection of culture and creativity?

There's an inextricable connection between culture and innovation. Culture is often where you find enough friction to understand what the problems are, and innovation is all about being at the forefront of solving problems. The best part about discovering problems in culture is that you have the context, the use case, the audience, and the pilot opportunities. When you're starting from that place and solving for specific issues for specific people with specific interests, you have to fall in love with the problem. Being in culture allows you to fall in love with the problem because it's something that's not just affecting you—it's affecting everything you're trying to do.

2. How does your team generate new ideas through cultural immersion?

You have to be in culture to understand how quickly it changes and your role in it. We see a lot of brands thinking they can dominate or rule a culture—that's not how it works. There are no kings that just jump in; they're made and bred from the inside. We teach the experience of what it means to go in and out of cultural spaces and communities, getting everybody more comfortable with participation rather than domination. When you're solving for specific issues within specific communities, you get multiple perspectives on the problem, which gives you that critical connection between innovative work and creative problem solving.

3. You mentioned that creativity is "the medium" between innovation and execution. How do you help brands close the gap between having an idea and making it real?

Creativity is the act of making something—innovation only happens through the process of creativity. The gap between idea and skill has been a major barrier for creativity in the past, but we're in a new space where there are stronger tools and more curiosity. AI makes everyone who wants it a creator; you can take what you have in your mind and immediately turn it into something you can start to play with. The beautiful thing about today is that it's easy to try—privately, for five minutes, for free. The barrier for just getting started is pretty low, so if you can get over the fear of taking the first step, that act of doing it with low stakes and low effort helps overcome the fear.

4. What specific rituals do you employ to reset creativity and overcome the fear of innovation?

In an age where there's more content, more things to do, more people to talk to, the ritual for connecting with your creativity is space, quiet, and time with your thoughts—unplugging. Before you start creating, you have to use that time to really incubate your thoughts and ideas. Part of that solitude is understanding what you're all about as a brand or person, so that as you're using new tools to quickly come up with stuff, you can quickly evaluate whether "this is me" or not. There's nothing worse than pouring your heart into something that, when it's done, doesn't really represent you.

5. How do you help brands operationalize cultural authenticity in their innovation processes?

Getting brands to operationalize the decisions about who they are requires process and ritual. We've worked with clients who do cheers at the beginning of meetings and read positive stories about company happenings because maintaining that energy is important to them. Others do sports together to build camaraderie and show how they work together—sports are important for people who might only work in a professional environment to get some friction and learn about each other. Finding rituals and moments to integrate who you are as a brand is critical, and remembering that brands are personified by people making decisions about content, partnerships, and public presence.

6. In this AI era, how do you balance technological efficiency with the human elements essential to cultural innovation?

The humanity in technology shows where we are as humans in evolution. When you get a tool that allows you to do stuff easily that you couldn't do before, I don't love the idea that the time you have should be pressurized with constant self-improvement. I think it's very hard to create from a stressed-out place, and more stress doesn't lead to better innovation. The neuroscience tells us people don't think well under tremendous pressure. I'm hopeful that as people get more comfortable with technology and see how it brings ease to their life, they can start to bring ease to their life. The breakthroughs for humans who really care about this will be the fun stuff—we have to make sure we find space for the fun.

7. What makes an innovative culture, especially when balancing the need for results with the space for creative exploration?

You have to have teams with a mix of different people so those more inclined to play can bring that energy to those less inclined. Creating a sandbox where hard players work with more hesitant players helps everyone evolve. Once people understand the guidelines for what they can and can't do from a work perspective, they can be autonomous in how they integrate new tools. It comes back to culture and community—having enough positive, fun, playful influences that start to rub off on the team, making it feel safe to approach innovation that way.

8. Looking to the future, how will Notorious 111 continue to lead innovation in the cultural strategy space?

We'll continue helping brands understand that authentic cultural participation requires going deeper than surface-level engagement. As technology democratizes creativity, our role becomes even more important in helping brands find their genuine voice and place within communities. The future isn't about brands trying to lead culture, but about finding meaningful ways to contribute to and participate in the cultural conversations that matter to their audiences. That requires understanding not just what culture looks like, but how it feels and functions from the inside.