Understanding creativity

Creativity is a word that is more frequently used but least understood by many. On a narrow perspective  creativity can be seen  in a mother’s normal relationship with her child while on a wider perspective  as a process of bringing something new into being. For me the most appealing lies in the middle and the one favoured by  Dr. Akin kazakci a design theorist at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines in Paris. ‘Fit of ideas; the way they link together and build upon each other.’

Creativity is not necessarily a large number of new ideas but linking the existing ideas to form new ways of doing things. A lot of people are talented but not creative. To be creative  one has to engage his talent in a coherent and focused manner, rather than chiseling ideas that probably do not lead to a result.

According to Dr. Kazakci the teams that ‘screed of new ideas tended to score consistently worse than those who were more focused and critical.’ Working on existing ideas with view on improving on them is the key and that is creativity not the escapist creativity that lacks any form of engagement as quite often seen.