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: THE VALUE OF FAILURE
Failure is one of the hardest pills to swallow. Commercial failure is obviously not good: a continuous negative cash flow is bad news for all stakeholders. But there are degrees of failure and it can be measured:
a) Failure can lead to success. Ridley Scott scored a commercial failure with Blade Runner but went onto make some of the most commercially successful movies of all time.
b) How close was the endeavour to the strategic fit with the firm? Did the development and commercialisation cause long term problems?
c) Did the firm pick up any technical expertise that can be applied to other ventures?
d) Did the organisation pick up any business competencies along the way?
e) As a strategic option, was this the right thing to do? Knowing the wrong direction helps focus activity towards the right path.
f) What did we learn about our customers? Coke learned a lot about their customers when it brought out New Coke.
A good analysis can yield positive outcomes and convince shareholders to embark on similar projects in the future.
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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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