1B – CREATIVITY VS INNOVATION

The truth about creativity

Obviously, we’ve gotten a little sloppy with the English language.  We’ve let similar words parade around as synonyms in disguise, which confuses us anytime someone goes back to using them as distinct concepts.  Do you want to eliminate the plague; maybe save 100 million lives in your lifetime?  All you have to do is remember three simple things:

1.   Water runs downhill

2.   Hot’s on the left

3.   Payday is Friday

Congratulations.  You just created modern plumbing; disease got neutralized and pumped far away.  The most creative ideas and solutions in life tend to be so commonsensical and straight forward that we almost fail to see them as creative.

 

The truth about innovation

NASA spent millions trying to invent ink pens that work in zero gravity.  Meanwhile, Comrade Vladmir issued pencils to the Russian Cosmonauts.  That was very innovative.  So was Edison’s incandescent light bulb.  But neither one of them was creative.  You can bet your bottom dollar that we’re gonna talk more about that later in the blog.

 

Notice something about both of them, though.

The outcome - of both creativity and innovation - is usually something of pristine simplicity.  But the process of getting there --- now that is often a different story.  And that’s the story we’ll be learning, from now until page whatever it is.  (I haven’t finished the blog yet.  I simply don’t know.)  You see, I’m convinced that this effort is a process, not an event.  And that takes time.  It also takes rules, otherwise it’s just a random process - and that’s neither creative nor innovative.  It’s just dumb luck.  So we’re going to generate some rules to keep us looking in the same direction. 

 © 2009 Joe Anderson