I liked everything that Jim McGee says in his posting It’s not about creativity, it’s about curiosity, except the title.

Poor old "creativity"; it's got such a bad name, mainly because of widespread misunderstandings of what it is. I'll not repeat what I've said elsewhere on this site. But the key points that tend to be misunderstood about creativity are generally around relevance ("be as creative as you like, but make sure the ideas are relevant") and exclusivity ("take that suit and tie off, and then you're allowed to be creative").

One reason the title of Jim's posting grabbed my attention is because of the strapline on my business cards: "e-learning: it's all about creativity" (which strangely doesn't appear on my site...). I mean two things by this:

1. The design of any form of learning experience is a creative process. My experience suggests that many in the "learning industries" haven't truly grasped this, and many are scared of it. Old learning design methodologies were driven by values that prioritised certainty and control over exploration and curiosity.
2. The experiences we design need to cultivate creativity in our learners, as the process of learning is also deeply creative, not replicative (is that a word?).

So - I completely agree with Jim that curiosity is critical - and I sense, rather unfamiliar - for organisations. Where I'd disagree is with the suggestion in the title that curiosity and creativity are disconnected.

We, as learning designers need to be endlessly curious in seeking out new ways of doing things. And this should carry through to cultivating curiosity in our learners.