A simple definition

When you cut through the huge amount that’s been written about creativity, it all boils down to two things: i) having good ideas; ii) when you need them.

• Having good ideas usually means thinking up something new. Maybe not revolutionary or world-changing, but new in the circumstances you find yourself. The idea may have been thought up a thousand times in the next country, town or office, but if it’s the first time for where you are, it’s new.
  
• When you need them really matters. A brilliant idea when you don’t need it isn’t creative. A brilliant idea that has no purpose isn’t creative. A simple idea nobody thought of before, just when you need it – that’s creative.

So the kinds of creativity we need in learning design concern things like novel learning strategies to solve specific problems, cunning new ways of getting to the heart of a problem, or ingenious new exercises that encourage online collaboration. But more of this later.

What isn’t creativity?

Given that a lot of people are rather confused about what creativity is, clearing up what creativity isn’t will take a little longer.

First of all, it’s not an unfathomable mystery. We know a lot about it now. We know how to cultivate it, and we know how to slay it stone dead.

• It’s not about solitary genius. Almost all creativity happens through social interaction, discussion and collaboration. It needs the input of diverse people and opinions. Even where creativity appears to be a solitary process – think Beethoven or Tolstoy – whatever comes out of that process needs the approval of others for it to be judged creative.
• It’s not an easily transferable skill. For someone to be creative, they need to have some degree of expertise in their field, so they can make new connections between things. Someone who is a brilliant interior designer and architect might be an utterly uncreative writer. So creativity isn’t just about being whacky, understanding how to think laterally or knowing how to brainstorm.
• It’s not something that can be rushed. Thomas Edison filled 3500 notes full of gradually evolving ideas before he started having “sudden” insights and breakthroughs. Genuinely new ideas take incubation, periods of reflection and calm. That’s why people who make their living through their creativity, constantly seek inputs and stimuli, constantly add to their mental store of ideas, just in case they need one quickly. And fairly often, they sit and do nothing.
• It’s not something you can force people to do. There’s a strong connection between loving what you do and coming up with good ideas. So if you’re a learning designer and you don’t like your job, chances are you’ll keep coming up with the same old stuff. And if you don’t want to come up with new ideas, you won’t. Simple as that.
• It’s not just about who you are. Research has shown that there are many factors that influence creativity: how clever you are, what you know, how you think, your personality, what motivates you, and where you work. So creativity is not the exclusive domain of a certain type of person; it depends on far more than that.

>> Part 2: Why do you need creativity?