Creativity in theory and practice
Creativity: “Creativity is a process that results in a novel work that is accepted as useful, tenable or satisfying by a significant group of people at some point in time.” (Morris Stein 1974: 15)
Stein, M. I. (1974). Stimulating Creativity. Volume 1. London: Academic Press.
“Creativity is the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain.” (Teresa Amabile, 1996)
Amabile, T, M. (1996). Creativity in Context. Oxford: Westview Press.
• Novel – different in some way
• Useful – serve a purpose
• Appropriate – fit the task at hand
• Appreciated – someone must value it
• Universal – in everyone in some capacity
Creativity can be found in:
• Art, music, literature: Picasso, Mozart, Shakespeare…
• Science: Einstein’s theory of relativity, Darwin’s theory of evolution.
• Technology and engineering: Dyson’s vacuum cleaner, Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web, Shawn Fanning and Napster.
• Business: Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook, Alex Tew and the Million Dollar Web Page, Gillette’s latest razor, the iPod/iPhone/iPad.
Creativity is a necessary condition for innovation. It underpins both types of innovation. Innovation is the successful implementation of creativity within an organisation.
Stages of creativity: Problem finding, Idea generation, Idea evaluation, and Recognition.
Stages of entrepreneurship: Opportunity recognition, Entrepreneurial design, Business formation/planning, and Legitimacy (market share).
The de novo problem: “The behaviour of organisms has many firsts, so many in fact, that it’s not clear that there are any seconds. We continually do new things, some profound, some trivial. We ‘solve problems’ which by definition means we’re doing new things in situations we’ve never faced before. We write poems and improvise on the piano and devise scientific theories. We speak new utterances all the time… When you look closely enough, behaviour that appears to be repeated proves to be novel in some fashion… Even if you managed to repeat the same
Stein, M. I. (1974). Stimulating Creativity. Volume 1. London: Academic Press.
“Creativity is the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain.” (Teresa Amabile, 1996)
Amabile, T, M. (1996). Creativity in Context. Oxford: Westview Press.
• Novel – different in some way
• Useful – serve a purpose
• Appropriate – fit the task at hand
• Appreciated – someone must value it
• Universal – in everyone in some capacity
Creativity can be found in:
• Art, music, literature: Picasso, Mozart, Shakespeare…
• Science: Einstein’s theory of relativity, Darwin’s theory of evolution.
• Technology and engineering: Dyson’s vacuum cleaner, Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web, Shawn Fanning and Napster.
• Business: Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook, Alex Tew and the Million Dollar Web Page, Gillette’s latest razor, the iPod/iPhone/iPad.
Creativity is a necessary condition for innovation. It underpins both types of innovation. Innovation is the successful implementation of creativity within an organisation.
Stages of creativity: Problem finding, Idea generation, Idea evaluation, and Recognition.
Stages of entrepreneurship: Opportunity recognition, Entrepreneurial design, Business formation/planning, and Legitimacy (market share).
The de novo problem: “The behaviour of organisms has many firsts, so many in fact, that it’s not clear that there are any seconds. We continually do new things, some profound, some trivial. We ‘solve problems’ which by definition means we’re doing new things in situations we’ve never faced before. We write poems and improvise on the piano and devise scientific theories. We speak new utterances all the time… When you look closely enough, behaviour that appears to be repeated proves to be novel in some fashion… Even if you managed to repeat the same