Every year the students at UC Berkeley challenge me to identify some elements around Creativity. What is it? How can managers harness it within their organizations? What is the nature of great ideas – where do they come from? Is Creativity the same as Innovation?
A simple definition:
…if it’s useful, novel and not previously thought of, call it creative. This applies to works of art, businesses, events, etc. If it’s a new idea that is put to some practical purpose for the first time anywhere, it’s an innovation. It’s possible to be highly creative but not very innovative. However, it would be hard to be innovative, without having gone through the creative process.
I’d like to challenge my readers – do you agree/disagree with the above? How do YOU define creativity? What is the difference between Creativity and Innovation?
(After hearing from several of you, I’ll post discussion by 8-9 entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed recently on their thoughts on creativity and innovation.)
I don’t think creativity is necessarily useful. However, you could probably stretch the definition of useful to apply to anything. Creativity can also be looking at old things a new way, or even new things a newer way.
I agree with the statements on innovation and it’s relationship to creativity.
I think that creativity can also be seeing new uses of ordinary objects, new way of achieving the goals. One example would be construct a human face from veggies. Creativity does not mean pure imagination or creating something from scratch. Creativity could be put to practical uses, just like innovation. Innovation, on the other hand, means perfecting an already know technology to make it more effective, less wasteful.
I believe creativity is realizing your (either a person or group or organization) potential to the fullest by not only generating innovative ideas but also executing them with discipline. Furthermore, creativity, innovation and collaboration go hand in hand. Often most creative groups/organizations are tend be highly innovative as well as collaborative.
Hi Randy,
Very nicely put. I might borrow this definition if I may. Personally I wonder if we spend too much time trying to define creativity, and too little time encouraging all forms of creativity.
I also think that creativity will mean somewhat different things to different disciplines.
The simplest and most direct definition I’ve come across is:
“Innovation = Creativity that ships”
(attributed online to both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, not sure which one actually said it).
Some writers spend many years researching and defining Creativity (Teresa Amabile at Harvard Business School, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Claremont College, or Scott Berkun @berkun at University of Washington) and I’ve noticed that often this research revolves around work at a University – in other words it forms foundation that is used to teach with. I myself am sometimes in this mode, sharing my findings and research on Enterpreneurship and Creativity in classes at UC Berkeley and Cambridge University.
Other writes, particularly in the area of Innovation also spend time defining things, but mostly in observing what has worked or not worked in a practical manner – for example Frans Johansson (The Medici Effect), Henry Chesbrough @ UC Berkeley (Open Innovation), or Tom Kelley @ Ideo (The Ten Faces of Innovation) – and use the material as a tool for informing executives, entrepreneurs and entire organizations.
Like your definition of Innovation!
I think creativity involves new, novel, not necessarily useful ideas by going through some sort of thought process. Creativity therefore describes the nature of the idea itself.
I think innovation as more of a social construct, where society can define the implementation of the idea as innovative. What one society may see as innovative may not seem so to another group. Innovation is not inherent to the actual idea, but how the society views that idea.
I think you can be innovative by mistake, as well as by force (having no other options but to find a new use for something), but creativity is much harder to produce artificially.
According to the definition stated above, creativity is the spark of all innovations. No chicken or the egg debate here.
While I agree with the author’s definition of creativity and innovation, I would add that innovation could have the effect of a positive feedback loop that sparks more creative ideas. For example, the Apple’s launch of iPhone and iPad is the classic case of taking a creative idea, touch sensitive user interface in tablet PC and palm pilot, and turning it into revolutionary products. But the amazing feat of Apple’s innovation is creating a new ecosystem for developers to create hundreds of thousands of apps.
Since my background is molecular cellular biology, my definition of creativity is novel and non-obvious but may not have some immediate useful purpose for it. My definition of creativity is akin to knowledge building for future innovations that encompass the practical element. For example, when VEGF receptor proteins were discovered and published in 1983, no one would know that they would derive the drug Avastin curing many cancer patients today.
All in all, creativity is an exploratory process for new knowledge and approach. And innovation is the art of combining creative ideas into a useful application.
Alex – I like your thought that “innovation is the art of combining creative ideas into a useful application,” and I can see where the chicken/egg debate might come into play…one great idea leads to innovation, which then leads to more great ideas. In fact, as a molecular biologist you may be very interested to read some of Ray Kurzweil’s works the Age of the Smart Machine and Singularity. Kurzweil makes the argument that MACHINES will sometime, in the not too distant future, be able to create innovations on their own – thus a single creative idea or innovation could lead to MANY more…unfortunately or fortunately without human involvement! RANDY
Randy – To clarify my earlier statements: Innovation can be a creative idea but a creative idea cannot be an innovation.
Thanks for the recommended readings
BTW, not sure if you would appreciate this, I found “The Medici Effect” on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=RNiFM9br5PwC
Personally I feel that creativity might not have to be useful. Creativity means to be outside the predetermined box that everyone else thinks in. It could be thinking of something completely new or just seeing something at a different angle than others. I guess innovation comes after creativity. Innovation, if I interpreted the message correctly, is to take the creative ideas and make them into something practical.
Creativity is thinking fearlessly.
Creativity is often defined as novel ideas that have value. Value is relative to the environment – for example, a cell phone is useless without an environment of satellites, plastics, silica, industry, and users. You can’t eat your phone if you’re hungry. It would do nothing to help a bear survive in the woods. Novelty is equally relative and elusive. Many of the inventions of our time seem strikingly similar to biological systems that developed on their own billions of years before us. Solar panels are novel…except that plants figured out how to store sunlight 4 billion years ago and they can also convert it to sugar. The things we make appear novel, and how they are used in their environment may also be novel, but the underlying patterns are repeated over and over. If anything, its the environment that’s constantly novel and our inventions are our legs racing just to keep up with it.
So then I feel that creativity at its root is not fashioned by us but comes through us. The elements of biological life self-assemble through a creative process that commands awe from the most humanly creative of us. Since life is uncompromising in its insistence for randomness and diversity, there is no single form of this creative expression that could ever be called the best on its own. We need a diversity of ideas and creative forms to survive in our changing environment. For something to work well, it has to work well in its environment, and if it does it may be a useful creation. But if it doesn’t, it’s not a sign of failure. The gift of our lives is that we are adaptive and mobile. If we are not creative in a certain environment, we can adapt and locomote until we find a context that fits with our personal creative expression. Maybe a lack of creativity is not really a lack of novelty or gift, but comes from a lack of understanding of this or openness to change (self or surroundings).
I’m not sure, but I think when we say creative, sometimes we really mean innovative. Creativity is a deeply inherent biological process alive in all of us. We are alive and thus can’t help but be creative. Innovation is what comes out on occasion from the smoldering stew of proteins and electricity. We have needs and so we innovate (“necessity is the mother of invention”). Creativity is the substrate, innovation is the by-product. We create and innovate constantly, often without an awareness of the level to which we do so and the complexity and beauty of the process. What I think is normally defined as “creative” is more of a mental creativity of the imagination; creating innovations first in our imagination that we do not perceive currently in the word to fulfill a need and then creating them in a tangible form from the materials of the Earth. But there is so much we do not perceive and can hardly imagine to our creative essence within us that is vastly more innovative and marvelous. For example, we can’t see it, but 90% of the cells in our bodies are not ours. They don’t contain our DNA. But many trillions of these non-human cells work with us symbiotically, keeping us alive. Another example: there are over a hundred billion neurons in our brains, each which have on average 1000 receptors that receive information from other neurons. We can’t see it or feel it, but these receiving ends can change shape in minutes or seconds. They change shape constantly, like ripples in a lake, responding to every novel chemical, stimulus, thought, idea. Millions of them have been forming some new pattern in our heads for hours or days or longer even now, and only when they begin their final stages of integration into a vastly holostic synchronized network do we experience consciously the feeling of a new idea – that feeling of “creativity”, which truly began so long before.
I believe that trying to define ideas as creative or not means that some people are always going to be invalidated and some ideas are always going to be wasted. Instead, understanding all ideas, finding what context they are best adapted to, and what general pattern of function they may serve seems a way to maximize the use of all ideas for their creative potential.
The definition above makes me think of patent law which says that for an invention to be patentable, it must be useful, novel, and not obvious. However, only processes that produce a tangible result, machines, manufacture, and composition of matter can be patented. In fact the USPTO ruled that “literary works, compositions of music, compilations of data, legal documents (such as insurance policies), and forms of energy (such as data packets transmitted over the Internet), are not considered “manufactures” and hence, by themselves, are not patentable.”
It seems to me that which is deemed “patentable” is a subset of that which is “creative.” According to the definition, “innovation” is a subset of creativity as well. I find it interesting that a governmental body is given the authority to determine what forms of creativity and innovation are worth protecting, and which are not.
I think creativity is looking at things in a new way, taking something already established that can be reorganized and rearranged for a new purpose. Creativity can be innovative, but I think it is a step beyond creativity. It almost must be the pinnacle of creativity, in order to be considered innovative.
I am surprised by the requirement that something be useful to be creative. Artwork is generally not intended to facilitate accomplishing a task or goal, but is the poster-child for creativity. It may be that the author intends a broader concept of “useful,” whereby a work of art might be considered useful for stimulating discussion or evoking emotion. However, if so stretched, the word itself loses much of its descriptive power.
I also believe a creative work can be previously thought of. Two individuals can independently arrive at the same idea, as famously occurred when both Newton and Leibniz independently made the same discoveries in calculus. In my opinion, both men were creative, even if their combined output was highly redundant.
I would instead define creativity as deriving ideas or artifacts that differ significantly from any previously known to the creator. Admittedly, it is ambiguous as to what constitutes a significant difference. However, I believe that creativity is ultimately subjective, and that the concept is inherently resistant to rigid formalization.
In my view, innovation is the successful application of a creative product. This parallels the definition given by the author, though I propose two subtle differences:
1) I do not require that the innovator be the first to apply a new idea; innovation is often a matter of executing on an idea better than the competition. Apple was not the first to manufacture a portable MP3 player, yet was clearly a driving force in innovation.
2) I believe one can innovate without going through the creative process by using ideas generated elsewhere. Large technology firms have shown a propensity to snap up start-ups and to license patents when looking to build out new product lines. They combine their organizational expertise with the creativity of others to innovate in their field.
I think creativity is to see or create an idea in a new way – and to pave the way for more new ideas and applications. I agree with the statement that it would be hard for innovation to be created without creativity – whereby, creativity is the creation of the new idea(s) (first step), and innovation is the vision, strategy, and means in which to apply these new ideas (later step).
Creativity is common in many of us. It’s the ability to examine some idea, product or service and have a unique takeaway from the experience. More often than not, this creativity is not put to use. Following up on these creative takeaways and solutions delivers true innovation. Similar to what Tom Kelley describes as “vuja de,” where individuals take experiences familiar to them but treat them as they have never seen the experience before, we all have this hidden talent. This is one of the best ways to channel creative ideas and turn them into innovative solutions. We are all capable of delivering these innovative solutions, but we need to take them time out of our busy schedules to solve our everyday laborious tasks that we are accustomed to performing.
i believe innovation is a subset of creativity and tend to agree with the statement above.
however, the statement, to me, pulls at this idea of practicality, and how it is a formulaic necessity for an innovation – i tend to disagree with this as a requirement. Something visionary and innovative (and throroughly creative) may initially appear to not have a practical purpose, and I feel that when it’s in this nebulous form – pre-adoption/acceptance – it is essentially still innovative, the practicality is just the next step to make it more normally accepted.
i’m kinda of lost now.
The way I see it, creativity does not necessarily have to be useful. I think a lot of new thinking does not provide any concrete value, but I think it could still be regarded as creative thinking. I would imagine that a “useful, novel and not previously thought of” idea is often accompanied by many not so useful ideas in the mind of the creator and it seems fair to let the whole process, or stream of ideas, be considered creative.
An innovation, on the other hand, I would say has to be useful and add value in some way. I think a new idea, without any judgement of its value, is an invention. If it is also useful, it qualifies as an innovation. I also would regard the useful application of an already used idea in a new setting as an innovation (thus I do not agree that an innovation has to be put into practice “for the first time anywhere”).
Furthermore, I think creativity is an ability, while innovation is a possible outcome from creativity. You have creativity and you make innovations.
):
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Since you mentioned poems in the welcome e-mail, I felt that I had to submit one. Unfortunately I write in Swedish, so I made a quick translation for this post (better than Google translate, but not of publishing quality
Harmony
My new vision
I despise it unwillingly
Anguish and frustration
building stones of my future
grey, ugly blocks in a stylish sculpture
which never becomes finished
An unconscious choice put me on the starting line
Since then I have been running
to be the first
every time is new and decisive
the thousand times I have won
mean nothing
a goalless marathon
reaching milestones without a plan
nothing leads to anything
I can never win
no one cares if I do right
only errors count
it is the way I wanted it
I did my best
good enough
but it provided no happiness
What to do
when real prosperity is achieved
through such, that
I have always looked down upon
Now, is this creative? For simplicity, let’s just assume it is new thinking, a new combination of meaningful words conveying a message in a somewhat unique way. What about its usefulness? What does useful really mean? The poem does not earn me money, but maybe there are other ways than bringing income that can be regarded as useful. It does give me satisfaction to write, I do like the feeling of creating something and be able to look at it and know that I and only I have created it. Although not essential to my life, I still would prefer having written this rather than not. Is that enough for this to be useful? Or do you think that those who read it have to enjoy it in some way? Is it sufficient if one other person likes it or does it have to be two, three, a hundred, thousands or millions who like it for it to be useful?
***
I think I would really enjoy this class and just hope that I can make it from the waitlist…
Creativity is to go beyond what already exists. Something will/can be created in a creative process. A creative process can create very interesting but also very “crazy” results. Creativity does not necessary lead to anything useful and may not be sustainable (ie. have any lasting effect) at all.
Innovation means to bring something to the next level by making it better or different. Creativity is a necessary ingredient for an innovative process. However creativity alone is not enough. A existing context in which the innovation happens and a use for the new creation are needed. The creative “part” of an innovation might be very small. For example innovation in the services industry are often not very creative (a lot of the time just 2 existing offerings are combined to a new offering; the resulting new service product might however be a real innovation).
This discussion about what creativity and innovation are raises some more question for me:
Why do large organizations so often fail to create creative and innovative environments?
Why is (almost) always a small company/player that is the most creative and innovative in a market?
If we understand better what creativity and innovation are, will this help us to define how large organizations could be creative/innovative?
Or is it impossible for a multibillion dollar cooperation to be at the forefront of creativity and innovation ?
I really like the definition of innovation as creativity put towards some practical purpose. For me, it makes most sense when I think about the design process and companies like IDEO or Frog. The brainstorming phase is highly creative, with a ton of new ideas and ideas building on existing concepts. But in the end, they choose an idea to develop, one that is not only creative but actually feasible, which to me represents the innovation.
I really appreciate the definitions on creativity and innovation.
I am really into music and think that this video at the link below is very creative, in that is highlights how pervasive social networking has become in today’s society. I also think this commentary on social networking provides some innovative ideas on the future use of technology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAOwo6uuhok&feature=player_embedded
This definition presented associates creativity with usefulness and innovation with practicality. There is an important social component to this definition, as what is considered useful/creative or practical/innovative in one context or culture may not be when considered in another context or culture. Is there an aspect of creativity or innovation that passes all social tests? How many people and who must agree that something is creative or innovative before an idea earns this distinction?
I largely agree with the comments questioning whether something must be useful to be creative — and I find myself wondering, “Useful by whose standards?” If the creator alone thinks it’s useful (in any way), does that satisfy this requirement? Or would some outside judge be the final arbiter of usefulness? I can get behind the first; the second seems like a boundary that could shut out many things I consider creative.
Also, what word WOULD we use, if not innovation or creativity, to apply to the “new uses for old things” or “seeing something old in a new light” situation that many people have addressed here? Is that insight?
Having lived in Japan for 15 years I can’t help but to listen in silent bewilderment when people talk of so-called “Japanese innovation”. Such a notion is an oxymoron, as developing creativity is very much culture-dependent process. In a culture where the highest cultural values are to fit in, not take risks, uphold the status quo and not make waves, strongly reinforced by an education system that instills such values from age 5, such innovation is almost virtually impossible. Creativity may be an inherently individual process, but innovation typically requires a team of creative and flexible minds which is what makes it all the rarer and more difficult to realise.
I believe there are different stages of creativity. It can be an exercise of re-ordering and re-combining existing elements and come up with something new, sometimes surprising. Creativity can also be creating new elements.
I would call the outcomes of both approaches an innovation if it finds its way into the market place.
With regard to innovation, I believe it is relevant from which perspective you look at it. There are innovations, that are new to the world. But there are many innovations that actually aren’t that new – and just copied from another market, industry, segment, …
I wrote my undergraduate art history thesis on relational art in public spaces. Three years later, without knowing about my paper, my sister developed her senior art show on the same topic. Last week, we found a newly published book on the subject, which neither of us had read.
I think new ideas don’t come from individuals, but emerge from a general cultural sentiment. Creativity is an individual’s expression of those ideas in an unexpected context. The ‘creative’ application of an idea might spark a litany of new work, but only because it more vividly expresses something that many other people can relate to.
In that sense, ‘creativity’ relates more to the communication of an idea than it relates to the idea itself.
Love the poem, Fredrik ! I’d like to see it in Swedish too – Frans Johansson (Swedish) would also like to see it in Swedish!!!
I think creativity is about coming up with new ideas, perspectives or ways to do something. Creativity is inspiring, it’s about being brave and breaking old patterns.
Innovation is taking creativity one step further and use this novelty in a useful way, e.g solving an existing problem. It is often harder being innovative than creative, even though the final solution might not seem as exciting and inspiring as the original creative idea. Which of the two you find most admirable might say a great deal about your personality.
I think of creativity as a personal thing – when it can be generalized and applied in useful ways to help others it becomes innovation. I think I would rather be creative if I could only be one of the two – people can be taught to apply creativity and be “innovative”.
To grossly generalize, in engineering organizations it seems like creativity comes from the rank and file, and innovation from managers.
Thank you, I appreciate that! As requested, in Swedish:
Harmoni
Min nya vision
Jag bespottar den motvilligt
Ångest och frustration
byggstenar i min framtid
grå, fula klossar i en stilig skulptur
som aldrig blir klar
Ett omedvetet val ställde mig på startlinjen
Sedan har jag bara sprungit
för att komma först
varje gång är ny och utslagsgivande
de tusen gånger jag inte förlorat
betyder inget
ett mållöst maraton
som ett Vasalopp med bara spurtpriser
inget leder till något
jag kan aldrig vinna
ingen bryr sig om jag gör rätt
bara felen räknas
det var så jag ville ha det
jag gjorde mitt bästa,
gott nog
men det gav ingen lycka
vad göra
när riktigt välstånd nås
genom sådant
jag alltid sett ner på
I think of creativity as the process for building arguments to change the status quo, and innovation as the societal acceptance of only the strongest, most compelling arguments. This framework similarly suggests that you cannot have innovation without creativity but you can have creativity without innovation.
I think that this framework places more emphasis on the “selection” responsibility of the innovation stage, and not just the application of the idea.
To me, the best real-life example of this framework in action is the clinical development process for biopharma companies. Scientists come up with new ideas for modifying biological function all the time (creativity). The clinical stage filters out the vast majority and selects the very best applications of these ideas for medicinal utility (innovation).
I agree with the definition provided, especially the link between creativity and innovation. To answer your question Randy:
creative = fresh
innovation = application of creativity
I agree with the initial definition, and much of the subsequent discussion; I believe that creativity is about rethinking norms: thinking differently and often making things more interesting. Innovation involves harnessing this creativity in order to improve upon the status quo or to fulfil (or create) a new need.
Creativity is a mutation in the genome of preexisting ideas; Innovation is a mutation that gives the genome a competitive advantage.
For me, I think creativity is something new, unusual that comes from one’s mind and turns out to be useful, beneficial for our society/human lives. It can be as small as your own joke that makes everyone laugh (personal creative) or as big as relativity theory.
Creativity describes the ability to generate new ideas and methods to communicate them. Innovation builds on these ideas by using experience from failed ideas to enhance the idea or to alter how it is communicated/actuated for greater impact/practicality.
How many thoughts/ideas/actions in this world are truly Creative? Could it be that there was only one Creative moment, when man began thought as a rational being, and all further progress in society is through Innovation? To me, Creativity not only has to be something new and fresh, but also be untouched by society (therefore, true Creativity resides in the mind). I think that this definition of Creativity quickly becomes Innovation when revealed to society and applied to existing subjects/applications.
I mostly agree with the statement, however, this is quite targeted toward a technical field. Creativity can be expressed in any field, be it art, literature, music, technology, education, essentially any new take any subject can be creative. However, innovation (perhaps because it is most often used in this context) is related to technical fields, such as innovation in the software industry. It is hard for me to imagine innovation in literature for example.
I generally agree with the definition above, and it seems like most people here have a similar view on innovation and creativity.
Regarding creativity, I think creativity includes different kinds of human abilities that can produce something new. The passage above argues that something useful and new is creative, but I don’t agree with the necessity of usefulness. Usefulness is a very subjective metric, and its usefulness can be changed in the future.
Innovation would be a new and practical attempt that tackles existing problems. And here, useful applicability is the necessary condition of innovation.
I believe that something creative has to be accepted and legitimized by a field to become an innovation, I think.
I also believe that creativity is not reserved for an elite and that everybody can come up with some sort of creative concept. As Paul Eluard (french poet) puts it :” There is indeed another world, but it is within our world”. I hope that this course will help each of us break the barriers and free our creativity.
Creativity is thinking beyond common sense. Finding different route than what people would normaly take.
Innovation is something more than creativity, it’s something that adds value and make life easier.
I think that creativity is the ability to use imagination to revise that which exists in reality, and turn into an expression of what is desired to be reality.
For me, Creativity appears as a very broad concept, with unclear limits. Maybe it could be defined not only by the novelty of an idea, but also by its impact on the context it is set on (audience, subject, etc.). In my opinion, the given definition contains this key element of Creativity when qualifying it as “useful”. The same is true for Innovation, which differs more or less from Creativity in its practical application.
Does Innovation have to involve creation?
For me creation is making something new, can be an idea. Innovation is doing something new can be with existing creation or a new creation.
I agree with the statement.
Creativity is a thought process that results in an idea representing something of value, to the creative individual himself or anyone else. Therefore creativity relies as much on process as results. The creative process occurs when concentrated thought or impulse leads to an idea that is clearly novel and different from what has been encountered before. The resulting idea should be compelling to some individual. It is not creativity to simply generate random thoughts, but to generate those in which compelling aspects can be identified.
Innovation is creativty applied in the goal of producing something of practical value. The benefits of the end results of innovation are typically more tangible. They are not necessarily physical, but something that can be readily used to achieve practical utility.
Both creativity and innovation are useful in their own right. Innovation requires creativity to occur, but creativity need not be accompanied by innovation in order to be important.
I too find myself questioning the definition’s requirement that creativity must be useful. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if creativity should be defined in a broader sense. For example, artists such as Picasso are often considered creative; however I would find it hard to imagine any of their paintings being considered useful.
That said, I agree that there is a thin but definite distinction between creative and innovative, and I agree that innovation requires giving something that is creative and new a practical purpose.
I agree with the previous statement. However, I think that this definition is broad for innovation. For a creative idea to become an innovation it must not just be application or execution of creativity. Unless we define creativity as not just an out of the box idea but also an idea with value. Because not every unique idea has the ability to become an innovation. To be truly innovative we need more than just interesting ideas but we need to be able to decipher which of these ideas have potential and value.
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions”
— Albert Einstein
“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.”
— Linus Pauling
Creativity = alphabet
Innovation = sentence
Without creativity it is hard to innovate…..
I agree, creativity breeds innovations. Creativity could be defined as anything novel and when creativity is put to practical use it becomes innovation.