Creativity vs. Innovation?
- Jun 7, 2017
- 2 min read
What does it mean to be creative? What does it mean to be innovative? Can you be one without the other? These are the questions that came into my mind when I recently began my university class 'creativity and innovation'. Well, in week 1 we began the process of unpacking these ideas and thinking about what they mean.
This article suggests that the key difference between creativity and innovation is in the execution. Ever find yourself coming up with loads of ideas that seem is evaporate the moment they leave your mouth and and end up in the great idea cloud in the sky? Or maybe you never even got around to speaking about your idea out loud. To a person. Well, this could put you in the group of people that might be considered creative, but perhaps not innovative. On the other hand, do you have people in your life the are simply doing things? The people that chat to you about an idea they have had, and then when you catch them a few weeks later they are actually doing something about it! These could be your innovators.
I definitely find myself in the first category. It's one of my least endearing qualities. I find that I regularly lack the bravery and ambition to back myself and run with an idea. Especially if by doing so I am potentially opening myself to judgment from others. I have often wondered why this is, particularly over the last couple of years when I have lived in New York City - a place where everyone seems to be innovators with limitless self-belief! I now find myself living back in the UK, where I am from, and am once more in my comfortable safe space. This leads me to wonder if there is a cultural aspect to this creativity business. Now, excuse the sweeping generalizations (!) but one thing I really noticed from living in New York, was that it is completely ok to try something and not to succeed. There were so many people trying things (be it businesses, projects, events) and not all of them worked out. And that was ok. They just tinkered with the idea and had another go. I'm not sure that failure is acceptable in the same way in other places across the world and, as a result, I think maybe less people are willing to try.
I'm really looking forward to examining these ideas further in this unit, especially as it will be structured to give us practical tools to take forward. Maybe this can be a stepping stone to me becoming a little bit braver at implementing my ideas. Or even just speaking them out loud!!
What do you think?
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