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

1A - IN THE BIG INNING

“I had an idea the other day ….”

That’s how it starts.  A single voice.  A moment in time.  Often, very soft ---- like a whispered spring breeze.  And gone just as easily.  But in that moment rests the tipping point of history.  It is the origin of change.

Change became the hot topic in American culture in 2008.  As a nation - and as individuals - we got a green light to open the flood gates of change.  You can thank Barack Obama for that.  Even conservatives started saying nice things about change.

All well and good.  But change requires something more than permission.  It also requires an idea.  Without one, change is impossible (change to what?).  The whole thing grinds to a halt - all for the lack of an idea.  That’s why I am writing this blog.  It’s about one simple thing --- how to have an idea.  I hope it changes your life.  You’ll find out why in a bit. 

 But first, let’s get a few things straight 

Albert Einstein never needed something like this.  Neither did Michelangelo nor da Vinci.  I’d also suggest that Steven Speilberg and Steven Jobs don’t need it either.  Because those folks are what I’d call “pure creatives” – one-man idea factories.  They’re born with it.  And it is utterly impossible to educate or train someone to be a pure creative.  You either got it or you ain’t.

But here’s the good news - the rest of us can learn how to do a pretty fair imitation.  And that’s where a blog like this comes in.

In truth, I think Speilberg would skim this material, then say - “Ah .. yeh.  No, this blog is nice.  I can see where it would be helpful, yeh … like the section on …” - not because it actually helped him, but because he wants to help those who lack the natural instinct.  In contrast, I think Edison would have taken notes - because Edison wasn’t actually creative.  He was simply the only man in history more innovative than George Washington Carver.  This is a punchy way of introducing the fact that there are only two routes to having an idea:  creativity, or innovation.  We’ll talk about both.

Copyright 2009 Joe Anderson