Creative Directors, Innovation Managers and Executive Designers - creative brains are top earners in modern businesses. 

Creativity is THE currency for technological leadership in our today´s digital world. Being first at doing the next pioneering step means assuring a highly competitive market position. Innovation rules! 

But what is creativiy exactly, what makes it so valuable and can we learn to be a creative brain? The following article will provide some answers. 

Creative brains and their value 

According to Wikipedia: 'Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed.' 

During the past decades the value of these new creations has raised significantly. 

Especially businesses in the sector of technology spend a considerable amount of their investment in creative brains. Every business aims to keep up with its sector´s latest trends and stay ahead of its competitors. Creative thinking is logically a very important part of that process.

Creativity is becoming a scarce and highly demanded resource, thus a promising investment. 

According to the study 'The Creative Dividend - How Creativity Impacts Business Results' (Adobe and Forrester Consulting) 82% of companies believe that there is a strong relation between creativity and their business results. 

'An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.'  Bill Bernbach, co-founder of Doyle Dane Bernbach 

Talents that create pioneering ideas and turn them into magic are the ones who are best paid at the moment. 

Why? According to the above mentioned study done by Adobe and Forrester Consultin, it´s a fact that companies which actively foster creative thinking outperform their rivals in revenue growth, market share as well as competitive leadership. 

Creativity means capital. 

From a creators point of view maybe the best thing about being creative is that there are no limits (in the beginning). 

It is said that creative people, artists, people with a certain talent to invent new things usually show a certain insanity in their actions. Think about the great paintors, poets and authors in history! They were freaks (at least according to the written records)! 

Supposedly it´s the lack of (intellectual) borders which enables creative people to break through what we´d call normal. 

When I was working for a TV Channel a few years ago, being creative was part of our daily business. My colleagues and I were lucky since we were working in a company which encouraged a culture of creativity. We had weekly creative meetings which were exclusively used to do brainstormings, creative workshops, ideas exchanges - to invent something new. 

When we did these brainstormings we used creative techniques. What these procedures usually did was helping us to remove ourselves from the initital problem, to completely free our mind and forget everything we had ever heard or thought about this special problem, to then be absolutely open to any crazy, absurd, freaky, unimaginable and novel idea to solve the problem.

And it worked! These techniques enables us to contemplate problems from totally new perspectives we couldn´t have ever imagined. Sometimes we were suprised by our own ideas: 'Did I really say that?' 'Was it me who proposed to do it like that?'  

Creativity needs space to flower but also smart people to turn them into profitable solutions. 

Everybody who has ever been part of a software development project knows how different it can be to align creative design ideas with technical producibility. 

On one hand there are these free minds, the creative designers, dreaming the world a bit bigger than it has ever been, overtaking every single competitor in their imagination. And on the other hand there are the nerds who will tell them they are crazy and that nothing of what they have outlined will ever be turned into reality. And there it is the everlasting conflict between form and function! 

Back to reality - selecting the feasible pearls 

Obviously not every idea is a good idea and will be implemented in the end. 

But as I mentioned previously it is very important to not limit the creative outcome during the process itself. There is no too expensive, too crazy, too coloured or too complex when it comes to tap our brains. Brainstormes are called stormes since they can´t be stopped and take everything with them. 

Feasibility checks are done when the creative process has been completely finished. Then it comes to verify in detail which of the generated ideas will be considered for further developments. Usually only a small fraction of the ideas pool is really suitable in the corresponding context. 

That´s why these super brains are paid so well! 

So can we learn to be creative? 

Sure! Although people who bring a certain biological basis will have less difficulty in learning how to be an inventor. 

The brains of creative people are different: Imaginative individuals use two parts of their mind at the same time! I said it in the beginning: insane! :-)

Creativity is not just about learning how to perfectly use your imagination. According to research, highly creative people are able to use two parts of the brain at the same time: one which is responsible for imagination and another one which takes care of attention and memory. 

'The imagination network allows people to construct meaning from their experiences, remember the past, think about the future, imagine other people's perspectives and alternative scenarios, understand stories, and reflect on mental and emotional.' (Psychologist Dr Scott Kaufman and health writer Carolyn Gregoire) 

Kaufman recommends the following steps to train your brain.  

3 steps to boost your creativity

1. Save time for solitude. If you are on your own you are able to daydream constructively and gain space for new ideas. 

2. Think differently on purpose. Creative people think out of the box, which sometimes leads to misunderstanding. Free minds do not tend to conform or try to be crowd-pleasers. 

3. Embrace adversity. Many highly creative people are able to use setbacks in their life to their advantage. Failure pushes them to be even more motivated and inspired.

Creativity is a valuable good. The ability to invent  something new is highly appreciated in today´s businesses. Companies opt for creative brains to increase their innovation capital and be competitive. These are good reasons to continuously train our brains and boost our creativity. Besides: being an inventor can be extraordinarily entertaining. Remember Einstein: 'Creativity is intelligence having fun.' 

Wishing you a creative eve, dear Steemians!
Marly -

 

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Picture sources:
Title: pixabay.com
Notter quote: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/
Einstein quote: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/
Mind quote: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/