Creativity & Innovation Toolkit

Disciplinary interpretations of "creativity":

Creativity means different things to different people, and in different disciplines. Here's a sample of disciplinary interpretations from academic staff at Griffith University:

Business

In business, the terms are usually associated with "entrepreneurship," or the process of recognising opportunities for new commercial ventures and acting upon them, usually in the face of risk. The skills needed to be an entrepreneur include: observation of the market, insight into customer needs, invention, innovation, a willingness to take risks, securing outside investment, delivering the product or service, financing, marketing and management

In marketing, Dr Joo-Gim Heaney (Griffith Business School, Griffith University), says that creativity is closely linked with the personal process of coming up with new inventions, processes or ideas. Innovation is more a social process of transforming that invention into a commercially viable product (Barclay & Benson, 1990; Rickards, 1991). In this sense, marketers are looking at creativity as the source of ideas that can hopefully be turned into profitable and useful innovations that meet consumer needs.

Sources:

Barclay, I., & Benson, M. (1990). Success in new product development: The lessons from the past. Leadership and Organisation Development Journal, 11(6), p.p. 4-13);

Rickards, T. (1991). Innovation and creativity: Woods, trees and pathways. R&D Management, 21(2), p.p. 97-109.

Criminology

Dr Merrelyn Bates, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, sees creativity in her field as a means of addressing issues and problems in the criminal justice system. For her, the starting point is to understand the criminal justice system, because without this the criminologist would find it had to "know" whether the issue is systemic, resource-based, historical or cultural, etc. Each innovation requires evaluation and ongoing research to ensure that there is ongoing efficacy and currency.

For example, crime affects all sections of our society and as a result, crime prevention strategies are developed in order to address different issues, e.g., the innovative initiatives for curbing graffiti on public buildings adopted by many local councils in Queensland - relevant council sections, police and other appropriate agencies (usually youth-related) meet regularly to identify "hot spots" and develop strategies to curb the graffiti; the pilot program for a drug court; and the "whole-of-government" initiative developed in the court sector to rehabilitate drug offenders, who face correctional sentences only if they lapse. Creativity and innovation for a criminologist, therefore, are directly connected to applied knowledge.

Design

Mr Paul Barnes, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, sees four major aspects of creativity in his discipline: an inquisitive mind; a keen eye on the world around; knowledge of the elements and principles of design; and a passion to experiment. In his opinion, they all have roles to play, but, when pressed, says that the fourth is the keystone of creativity.

Engineering

Professor David Theil, from the School of Microelectronic Engineering at Griffith University, sees creativity as requiring a knowledge of the technology, and an understanding of the human condition, both locally and around the world. The latter is far more difficult and can be very individual. Microelectronic engineering is a leading edge technology field that has two objectives - to solve existing problems (market pull), and to create new futures (technology push). All developments are designed to improve the human condition in the broadest of terms. This includes new products created with minimal environmental impact, both from the product itself and its manufacture.

Dr Philip Williams, from Griffith's School of Environmental Engineering, believes that creativity is an important and essential part of environmental engineering. Indeed, part of the rationale for the emergence and development of environmental engineering, he says, was the recognition that in order to solve environmental problems, engineers would need more than the old traditional, and largely technically-focused skills. Thus, environmental engineers recognise it is necessary to think "outside the square" to solve complex issues. Such solutions require a variety of inputs, including, not just technical, but economic, social and environmental perspectives as well. This is often described as an holistic approach, as distinct from the older, "end of pipe," where a problem would be accepted as inevitable and a "technical fix" would be implemented. The holistic approach, therefore, can result in a variety of possible innovative solutions.

Environmental engineering students at Griffith develop their creativity by being exposed to a diverse range of courses, which include the natural and social sciences as well as the usual engineering sciences and mathematics. They learn a variety of viewpoints, e.g., that the environment is fragile, that people are critically important and that their work must be sustainable.

Humanities

According to Associate Professor Patrick Buckridge, School of Arts, Media and Culture at Griffith, creativity is intrinsic to the discipline itself. He believes that creativity is a crucial component of all worthwhile work in the humanities disciplines, not just in those areas (Creative Writing, Screen Production) that have tended to monopolise the label, but in the broader academic study of literature, history, language, philosophy, social life and popular culture.

He understands creativity to mean: the ability to discover and articulate new meanings; devise new arguments or syntheses; and find new ways of extending, modifying or contesting existing arguments or syntheses, within a given field of social and cultural phenomena.

The reason that "creativity" is a good term to invoke for this is that the connection between doing all the things you need to do as preparation, on the one hand, and actually coming up with the idea that will lead to the new argument, on the other, can be quite unpredictable and a bit mysterious, presumably because it comes out of the subconscious mind as it continues to work on problems put to it by the conscious mind.

The creative dynamic to him, therefore, always involves two phases: "immersion" and "articulation." The process of immersion, whether it is in personal "life experience," or in a literary work, an historical period, a particular community or subculture, or a philosophical system, is the necessary prerequisite to a new argument or synthesis - without it, any new argument is likely to be thin and derivative at best, unguided by a personal but holistic understanding of the field that "immersion" can provide.

By the same token, the task of articulating, expressing and communicating is essential, not only in order to transmit new insights to others, but also in order to bring the idea, argument or synthesis itself to completion. Without it, the immersion phase can produce only passive empathy and passive learning