Friday 13 July 2007

Applied Creativity / Everyday Creativity

Ask audiences if they are "creative" and in my experience, only about 10 % of people will raise thier hands. Why is this? For some, they think its a little arrogant to think of oneself a "creative" - thats OK I guess, we dont like arrogant people, but i dont see why people cant celebrate their creativity. For the majority of people with their hands still in thier laps, it seems that they REALLY DONT think they are creative.

This must come down to thier personal definition of creativity, and the context within they view their creativity. For sure if you are good freinds with Thomas Heatherwick (designer, among other wonders, of the roll up bridge) http://www.thomasheatherwick.com/ you might find it difficult to consider yourself "creative" like him. But if you think about the way you might get through the day of hassles and niggles - you might start to impress yourself with the way you creatively duck and dive to solve problems and make quick fixes. Your solutions might not get you in the center spreads of the sunday glossys, but there can be no doubt that you are exersicing your everyday creativity as much as Thomas might be.

For me this picture is the very essence of applied everyday creativity - this person had a problem - no hot water to wash his hands in. He didnt moan about it, he did something about it. And this touches on another potential block to our belief that we are not creative.... our belief that solutions must be perfect, that creative people create beautiful solutions.
Lets start the campaign now... "perfection tomorrow - something now"

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