The Innovation/Creativity Continuum

Innovation is constantly in the news. Corporations spend millions of dollars fostering, cultivating and encouraging it in work environments that often seem inhospitable to deflected and unexpected thinking. Interestingly, artists rarely use the word innovation to describe the methodology of their work. Creativity is the more common term. How are the two different? Drew Marshall […]

Portalized

At the RISD exhibit (Photo by Jan Baker) It’s an it. It is a simple insight but a huge one, that an entity exists outside of yourself that is your inspiration. Some call it the artist’s gift, some call it creativity. But the idea that it is separate from you—that it can be addressed and […]

Focus and Creativity

Heron on the beach at Small Point, Maine This is a postscript to yesterday’s post with more on the theme of the usefulness of downtime… Sam McNerney has posted a piece on Big Think called Why You Shouldn’t Focus Too Much in which he highlights the results of several recent studies on focus and creativity. […]

Fitzgerald and Creativity

F. Scott Fitzgerald I have never been keen on the idea of a creativity elite. Since 1959 when C. P. Snow wrote his legendary essay “Two Cultures” about the breakdown in communication between the sciences (“the white coats”) and the humanities, other us/them dichotomies have emerged. Creativity is one of those, highlighted in recent books […]

Outside the Lines

Siva drinking World Poison, Nandalal Bose (Photo: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi) I have been participating in an ongoing conversation with my friend Supratik Bose about the nature of creativity. Over dinner a while ago he told me he didn’t believe something could be deemed creative unless it demonstrated market value. Bose, trained […]