This blog will deal with the topics of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION, its wider application and relevance in Nigeria. Let me invite you as we make CREATIVITY and INNOVATION more exciting than scandal and gossip.
In addition, issues which are topical to the PROPAGATION of a culture of CREATIVITY and INNOVATION such as cultural evolution / revolution, leadership, governance, public institutions and the flow / ebb of popular culture etc., will be considered as contexts to our key subjects.
For the sake of variety though, I will also tackle current and pertinent topics even if we deviate ever so slightly, as long as there are pertinent lessons for our quest.
My first encounters with CREATIVITY were as a teenager who found immense pleasure in the hobby of creative writing, becoming professional in later life, and in the secondary school subject of Fine and Applied Arts. I will be sharing lessons and insights based on the experiences and knowledge I have garnered over the course of several years of personal and professional schooling / study, learning and working across several sectors including public, private (commercial / corporate) and not-for-profit sectors.
In order that we may start on the same page, I want to share some definition of terms that would guide what I am presenting. Unlike the academics, I would not shy away from dictionary meanings, however contexts would also be considered in my definitions as we go along.
From the Free Dictionary, the following definitions are given:
In the Optima Social Entrepreneuship handout included inside the LEAD Training Course Pack, there is a glossary ehich presents a general definition of terms ehich I consider relevant and useful. In this glossary, our two key terms are defined as:
In this blog, I also want to challenge poor social attitudes to creativity.
As a writer with heightened cultural awareness and social dissociation which people deliberate perpetrate on other peoples and their culture, I am anxious to return back what i am persuaded were precursor essences of human socialization from the beginning of the history of man back into the public domain.
If you are careful to note that INNOVATION is presently discussed as though it indeed exclusively pertained only to the corporate / commercial sector. this is actually a narrow view of the subject. from the beginning when man was primarily in the hunter-gatherer phase of his social evolution, and he began to make tools, he was always creative and innovative!
Although the benefits of creativity to soceity as a whole have been noted, social attitudes about this topic remain divided. The wealth of literature regarding the development of creativity and the profusion of creativity techniques indicate wide acceptance, at least among academics, that creativity is desirable.
It seems as though only employers are increasingly valuing creative skills. I wonder why?
A report by the Business Council of Australia, for example, has called for a higher level of creativity in graduates. The ability to "think outside the box" is highly sought after. However, the above-mentioned paradox may well imply that firms pay lip service to thinking outside the box while maintaining traditional, hierarchical organization structures in which individual creativity is condemned.
Ken Robinson argues that the current educayion system is "educating people out of their creativity".
Find out why I agree in my next post...
My first encounters with CREATIVITY were as a teenager who found immense pleasure in the hobby of creative writing, becoming professional in later life, and in the secondary school subject of Fine and Applied Arts. I will be sharing lessons and insights based on the experiences and knowledge I have garnered over the course of several years of personal and professional schooling / study, learning and working across several sectors including public, private (commercial / corporate) and not-for-profit sectors.
In order that we may start on the same page, I want to share some definition of terms that would guide what I am presenting. Unlike the academics, I would not shy away from dictionary meanings, however contexts would also be considered in my definitions as we go along.
From the Free Dictionary, the following definitions are given:
Creative
adj
- Having the ability or power to create: Human beings are creative...
- Productive; creating.
- Characterized by originality and expressiveness; imaginative: creative writing
n.
One who displays productive originality: the creatives in the advertising department.
Innovation
n
- The act of introducing something new.
I am not fully satisfied with these definitions as they stand, because they merely give the broad meanings of the terms without capturing contects and naunces. However, they are still very useful for our purpose.
- Something newly introduced.
In the Optima Social Entrepreneuship handout included inside the LEAD Training Course Pack, there is a glossary ehich presents a general definition of terms ehich I consider relevant and useful. In this glossary, our two key terms are defined as:
- Creativity - The ability to generate new ideas and solve a problem in a new and unique way.
Simple and straight forward, but leaning toward the entrepreneurial mindset. I tend to prefer the definition at the encyclopaedia level:
- Innovation - The introduction of a new idea / concept / process which is not necessarily about generating income
- CREATIVITY - is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is created (such as idea, a joke, a literary work, a painting or musical composition, a solution, an invention, etc). The range of scholarly interest in creativity includes a multitude of definitions and approaches involving several disciplines: psychology, cognitive science, sociology, linguistics, business studies, and economics, taking in the relationship between creativity and general intelligence, mental and neurological processes associated with creativity, the relationships between personality type and creative ability and between creativity and mental health, the potential for fostering creativity through education and training, especially as augumented by technology, and the aplication of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of the learning and teaching processes.
You certainly can see why I would prefer the last two definitions. They capture the multi-disciplinary essence of the two terms. If we do not discuss CREATIVITY and INNOVATION within the multi-disciplinary contexts, the discussion would be incomplete and diminished. When a professor of science talks about creativity then the hip hop artiste should be able to relate to his argument; when a market woman talks about innovation I would hope Bill Gates should appreciate her point!
- INNOVATION - is the application of better solutions that meet new requirments, inarticulate needs, or exisiting market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new that "breaks in to" the market or into society. One usually associates to new phenomena that are important in some way. A definition of the terms in line with these aspects, would be the following: "An innovation is something original, new, and important - in whatever field - that breaks in to (obtains a foothold) in a market or society."
In this blog, I also want to challenge poor social attitudes to creativity.
As a writer with heightened cultural awareness and social dissociation which people deliberate perpetrate on other peoples and their culture, I am anxious to return back what i am persuaded were precursor essences of human socialization from the beginning of the history of man back into the public domain.
If you are careful to note that INNOVATION is presently discussed as though it indeed exclusively pertained only to the corporate / commercial sector. this is actually a narrow view of the subject. from the beginning when man was primarily in the hunter-gatherer phase of his social evolution, and he began to make tools, he was always creative and innovative!
Although the benefits of creativity to soceity as a whole have been noted, social attitudes about this topic remain divided. The wealth of literature regarding the development of creativity and the profusion of creativity techniques indicate wide acceptance, at least among academics, that creativity is desirable.
It seems as though only employers are increasingly valuing creative skills. I wonder why?
A report by the Business Council of Australia, for example, has called for a higher level of creativity in graduates. The ability to "think outside the box" is highly sought after. However, the above-mentioned paradox may well imply that firms pay lip service to thinking outside the box while maintaining traditional, hierarchical organization structures in which individual creativity is condemned.
Ken Robinson argues that the current educayion system is "educating people out of their creativity".
Find out why I agree in my next post...
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