I recently gave a presentation at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design on a topic entitled "Is creativity management an oxymoron?"
The essential confusion to people resistant to the idea of "creativity management" was the word "management." Replace it with the word "optimization" and the resistance disappears; all we're really trying to do is optimize the quality of the idea pool and optimize the implementation process.
Then you can suggest that most people already implicitly accept the idea of creativity management: if you ask them to solve a problem or engage in a particular endeavour, one of the things they're likely to do is herd people into a room with a flip chart and conduct some sort of brainstorming session and implicit in that action is the acceptance that certain methods, processes and procedures enhance creative output.
Then you can begin discussing how to improve the enormous amount of creative output people generate, from problem solving in everyday business life right up to the level or art.
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TIP OF THE DAY: There's nothing new under the sun
There is a concept that creativity is the invention of something original. This is misleading:
a) Originality implies a break from the past. In fact, all ideas are evolutions of previous concepts.
b) Creativity is cumulative and incremental. Newton said he "stood on the shoulder of giants."
c) Creativity can be defined as recombination. It is the creation of something new post the combination of elements that have previously existed.
d) Creativity can be defined as involving novel but useful solutions. Therefore it is a relative term. And has practical dimensions.
e) Creativity can have degrees – the expression of unusual thoughts, the experience of the world in novel ways, the affecting of significant change. All are grounded to that which exists.
Moving away from the concept of "originality" is important. It causes people to believe that they must create with a break from the past as opposed to building incrementally upon it.
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If you haven't already done so, you can buy the MBA Research Project on Managing Creativity and Innovation, DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator software and the 50 slide Powerpoint Presentation from http://www.managing-creativity.com
Best
http://www.managing-creativity.com
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