Cultivating Creativity

It amazes me when people say, "Oh, I'm just not the creative type." I don't believe creativity is something you're born with, but rather something you cultivate, nurture, and strive for. Creativity is part of our biology; if our bodies can constantly create new cells, then our brains can create new thoughts, and therefore be creative.

I recently became aware of a local campaign called Creativity Matters that believes that creativity can be taught. Imagine the possibilities! The best problem-solving happens when you let yourself step out of the box and think about things in a new way. I've sat in more meetings than I care to remember where new ideas are shot down before being explored, and I blame our quest for instant solutions. Creativity needs a little time and space, but the the rewards are often far more effective and lasting than going for the quick fix.

So, how do you learn to be more creative? Creativity Matters has a great list of 25 ways to cultivate creativity every day. Check it out. Oh, and I highly recommend firing your inner critic. Creativity needs optimism, and our inner critics live on a steady diet of doubt and fear. So, whenever possible, put that voice aside in favor of the one that says, "Hmm, I wonder what's possible?"

Ha! Made you look.

Before we humans had written language, we used images. Ancient cave paintings all over the world illustrate that our deep-seeded need to tell our stories goes way back. Along the way we've come to rely more and more on written language as our main means of communicating, and we're now inundated with so many stories vying for our attention it's hard to know which ones to pay attention to. Just ask anyone returning from vacation with the dreaded task of opening e-mail for the first time in two weeks.

Given the sheer volume of information we attempt to digest daily, it's no wonder that we make quick decisions about which messages we choose to "hear". It's usually a gut-level response to what something looks like, before we even decide to read the actual words. Does the color palette get my attention? Do the photos intrigue me, draw me in? Is the text laid out in a way that makes it accessible and easy to digest? Of the 20 items in my mailbox, which one will I choose to actually read in the brief moment I have right now?

That's not to say that the words themselves aren't important Once you get someone's attention, you'd better have something worthwhile to say. In the words of the man the New York Times calls the "Leonardo da Vinci of Data", Edward Tufte, "If your words aren't truthful, the finest optically letter-spaced typography won't help. And if your images aren't on point, making them dance in color in three dimensions won't help."

The surest route to being heard is to marry meaningful text with good design. What constitutes good design is a topic for another time, and I'll save my speech about why you probably shouldn't let your neighbor's teenage son who's learning PhotoShop design your company's logo and business cards. The bottom line: the most important message in the world, if poorly delivered, will go unheard.

Gettin' Creative on a Park Bench

The wonderful folks of Theater Simple showed up at the September BeatWalk with a trailer loaded up with a big mound of fake grass and a park bench perched on top. They invited people to come sit and talk about creativity and art, then created a podcast of those conversations. Apparently they had so much great material they expanded their usual 15-minute format to a 30-minute podcast. I had the great pleasure to be interviewed for this, and not only did they include my passionate opinions about life and art, I got to have the last word.

OK, world, own your creativity!

Collaboration Made Easier

Technology was supposed to make our lives easier, right? While that sometimes doesn't seem to be the case, every now and then an online tool comes along to prove that technology can, indeed, make life a little easier.

A vendor I'm working with on a big, complex project turned me on to Active Collab, a subscription-based service that allows multiple users to post and alter task lists. You can also upload files related to the project, and create milestones as certain tasks are accomplished. I've found it fairly easy to use, although it's a bit confusing when posting new tasks to know how to add to an existing task list rather than creating a new task list. I've been told the professional version might be an improvement.

ActiveCollab has great potential even for smaller, less complicated jobs. Anything that has more than one person working on more than one task would benefit from a system like this. And it's especially useful if team members are at multiple locations.