The Creativity Canvas (Pt. 1)
When I talk to people about creativity, I often hear one of the three questions (besides many stereotypes and myths):
- “Why should I care about creativity?”
- “Can one develop creativity, and if yes, how?”
- “What is creativity, anyway?”
A large number of non-academic books, guides, scientific papers, online articles, blog posts and even apps have been published and launched on that topic. Creativity seems to be en vogue, in high demand and universally interesting. Yet, creativity appears elusive, fuzzy and ambiguous.
This blog post trilogy introduces a novel tool I designed to understand, explore and share thoughts on creativity. I start with the WHY in this post. In the next post, I introduce the tool in more detail before I outline some recommendations for HOW to use it in the last post.
One big challenge in creativity research is the lack of a clear definition — even on an academic level. Teresa Amabile, a well known Harvard professor for creativity, and her colleague Beth Hennessey asked 21 active research colleagues and theorists to hand in scientific articles they consider important on the topic of creativity. Out of 110 nominated papers, only seven were mentioned by two researchers and only one by three colleagues. (T. Amabile & B. Hennessey, 2010).
This confusion is visible in our everyday understanding, too. Add to that misunderstanding and prevailing myths that shape our everyday perception of creativity. As a result, people who do want to pursue a creative lifestyle still might have a lot of questions, in the best case. In the worst case, people completely opt-out to live a creative life and pride themselves being “not the creative type of person”.
Why should you care?
Why is creativity important, and why should anyone care? These are important questions. Matter of fact “why” (or “why not”) is immensely useful questions for creativity and curiosity in general.
I suggest two answers to that (inspired by Seana Moran in the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, 2010):
- Societal Progress
- Personal Expression
Societal Progress
Progress is — in my opinion — the easy, obvious answer. Many people connect creativity to original solutions or useful ideas for known or even unknown problems or needs. The sum of created products, services, experiences, spaces, organisations, laws, cultures and much more accumulate to the world we live in today. All of this has been created at some point by an individual, group, company, state or any other entity.
Innovation on organisational level and creativity on an individual level are considered as important factors for the wealth of our society and economy. In fact, some studies in multinational companies nominate creativity as the top factor to cope with the complexity in future (e.g. IBM Global CEO Study, 2010).
To put it bluntly: From a companies’ perspective, you either innovate or die. To innovate, you better foster a culture where people can unlock their creative capacities. The same is true for whole societies if you look at it from a higher level.
Personal expression
In my opinion, this is the harder, more vague concept to think about creativity. Potentially it is this “fuzzy, feel-good” perspective that makes people step back. I think, however, generally it is the more important concept that drives us as a human species and is the foundation for societal progress.
A while ago I red somewhere a sarcastic quote on social media:
“We are not only on this planet to pay taxes and die.”.
I thought it was hilarious, and it struck a chord. This statement sums up pretty neatly what I was trying to wrap my head around: we as humans species are driven by something; something inside us.
We are on a quest. We (usually) have an urge to find, to uncover and to explore that inner calling or raison d’être. We want to understand ourselves and look for ways to express ourselves to others. Our hope is that — eventually — we truly know ourselves and that others understand us too and see us for who we really are.
Creativity, no matter whether expressed through a dance, picture, blog post, start-up, talk, video, a doodle or anything else, is a means that channels our urge to express ourselves.
I think Sri Nitya Anupindi put it best in her Quora answer to the question “Why is creativity important”:
“To answer your question, creativity is about giving the world a bit of you. If that is not important, I don’t know what is.”
In my own words: Unlocking your creativity allows you to explore and share what is important to you. What a promise, huh?
Why do I care?
There is no single reason that I can point out to explain why I do what I do. My go-to-statement is that life becomes fuller and richer once you start creating; just have a little trust. The things you create add depth into everyday life. The people you meet enrich your perspectives.
The initial spark that triggered my quest was the question of whether or not it is possible to train and develop creativity. Five years back I, therefore, initiated a (still running) side project called The Creativity Gym. That eventually led to this post. My side project allowed me to discover my drive, that plays a big role in my life.
I currently define my drive as supporting myself and others to express our ideas. I have this hunch that the world is better off when people re-connect to their creative potential. I know my gut feeling is a leap of faith, but too important not to try. This is why I care. I think of all that locked, suppressed or misunderstood creative potential and wonder: “What great things would be possible if more people re-connected to, explored and expressed their creative selves?”. This, too, is why I care.
My observation is that creativity is not only fuzzy in academia and science. What I always missed going through (academic) texts, papers, blogs, personal narratives and books on creativity is the relevance for everyday life. Most lack actionability.
Creativity is even fuzzier in the corporate world, education, and even everyday language. It is a synonym for many things and confused with even more things. The word creativity, therefore, lost meaning and edge. It becomes hard to get hold of this elusive concept. Any attempt to train creativity inevitably leads to the questions: “Where do I start?”.
I want to help people to discover, to explore and to develop their creativity. I want to offer them a tool. Not an attempt to define creativity. Nor a self-assessment. Nor an advice. Again, I want to offer a tool. A tool that is intuitively understandable, easy-to-use and particularly actionable. A tool that helps aspiring creators to deliberately think about and design their creative life. At least that is the hope.
I call that tool Creativity Canvas (or Creativity Diamond due to its shape). My vision for the Creativity Canvas is to close the gap between high-level academic creativity research, popular science on creativity and narratives by eminent creators on the one hand and creativity that is relevant to all of us in everyday context on the other hand. The Creativity Canvas’ job is to give guidance and spark concrete action.
In the best case, I manage to design a tool that is equally useful for individuals, groups and communities and organisations of all kind. For starters, my main focus is on you, the individual.
All ideas are combinations of existing ideas
My background plays an immense role for my idea and its externalisation. My education, knowledge, skills, (work) experience, social environment, community and much more in hindsight turned out as building blocks for the Creativity Canvas.
If you think about it, most (if not all?) ideas are combinations of two or more existing concepts that enable that idea to emerge. The smartphone is a mix of an old-school mobile, a laptop and modern communication services (mainly). Note that the smartphone could not have been invented in the 19th century. As author Steven Johnson would put it, the building blocks back then would not allow for the smartphone to emerge as adjacent possible.
For the insight of the Creativity Canvas to occur, (at least) three building blocks were key:
- an overview and understanding of creativity theories, research and models that I acquired over the last years*,
- the observation that people struggle to understand their own creativity or creativity in general, and
- inspiration from a tool called “Business Model Canvas” developed by Alexander Osterwalder. The Business Model Canvas enables entrepreneurs and companies to build, reflect and share their business ideas on a page.
Stir all those components, add some curiosity, habits, drive, feedback, and voilà, the Creativity Canvas is born. The Creativity Canvas is a tool for people
- to understand,
- to explore,
- to talk about and
- to develop their creativity and that of their surroundings.
These activities together I call “creativity design”. This is important, I repeat:
“Creativity design means to understand, to explore and to develop your own creativity actively and deliberately. It also includes discussing creativity, sharing it and helping others to design their creativity. “
Designing something implies active reflection, decision making and behaviour. The Creativity Diamond, consequently, sets out to support people through a common creativity understanding and a shared language (just as the business model canvas did for understanding and sharing business models).
The hope is that through deep understanding, insight, action and dialogue, more people think about themselves as creative and use their newly found confidence to create.
A short teaser
Let’s start with a short teaser before that next blog post of this trilogy that will explore the architecture of the canvas and each field in a bit more detail. Just as movie teasers do, I present to you the Creativity Canvas with the bare minimum caption.
Creative Engine
- Curiosity
- Problem
- Drive & Self Expression
- Insight & Incubation
Building Blocks
- Personality & Mindset
- Knowledge & Skills
- Resources
Computing
- Quality Definition
- Thinking Styles
- Planning, Evaluation & Reflection
Externalisation
- Habits
- Individual Work & Collaboration
- Communication & Feedback
Noise
- People, Networks & Communities
- Social Environment
- Domain
That’s it. That’s the teaser. Now let your mind do some wondering!
In the next blog post, you hear about the architecture of the canvas. And in the final blog post of this introductory trilogy, I share a few thoughts on how to use it.
Remember: this tool is early stage, and many things are yet to be discovered. So please invite others to the party and share this tool and post!
* PS: Built upon the shoulders of giants
As mentioned earlier, the Creativity Diamond is a re-combination of existing elements. Significant contributions had been made by outstanding researchers. Many models and conclusions were building blocks or inspiration for my own model.
To quote Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”.
Here I’d like to mention important contributions and ideas that are incorporated into my own model. It’s impossible to mention all the inspirations I came across over time. I want to, however, credit theories and their main authors that heavily influenced the basic layout of the Creativity Canvas.
- Business Model Canvas — Alexander Osterwalder
- Divergent Thinking & Convergent — Joy Paul Guilford
- Componential Theory — Theresa Amabile
- Investment Theory — Robert Sternberg & Todd Lubart
- 4 stage model of the creative process — Graham Wallas
- Systems Perspective — Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
- 4-P (+2-P) Model — Med Rhodes and Mark Runco
- 4-C Model of Creativity — James Kaufman & Ronald Beghetto
- Design Thinking — David & Tom Kelley, d.school (among others)
- Effectuation Theory — Saras Sarasvathy
Many more people, also form the field of popular science certainly added to my understanding of creativity.
