You Don’t Have to be Brilliant to be Creative, Just Combinatorial

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Was reading an interview with Maria Popova of Brainpickings.org and it dawned on me that I never shared her link with you, my Readers. Her website often has posts that can be quite thought provoking. Check it out.

I do want to share something from her webpage that is one of the best explanations of creativity/innovation that I’ve come across. It’s not complicated, it doesn’t play to turf wars in the ongoing battle between those that carve distinctions between innovation and creativity. It’s simple and beautiful.

Read on…

…creativity, after all, is a combinatorial force. It’s our ability to tap into the mental pool of resources — ideas, insights, knowledge, inspiration — that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world, and to combine them in extraordinary new ways. In order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these ideas and build new ideas — like LEGOs. The more of these building blocks we have, and the more diverse their shapes and colors, the more interesting our creations will become. Brain Pickings is your LEGO treasure chest, full of pieces across art, design, science, technology, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology, you-name-itology. Pieces that enrich your mental pool of resources and empower you to combine them into original concepts that are stronger, smarter, richer, deeper and more impactful — a modest, curiosity-driven exercise in vision- and mind-expansion. Please enjoy.

Ponder Popova’s description and use it as a tool for a creative self-examination and an audit of your environment.

“…art, design, science, technology, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology…”

What are you doing to feed your creative side – what are you drawing upon of the above, to equip yourself with the building blocks of innovation?

What are you doing to build an environment that is conducive to creative growth?

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Michael Plishka
Michael Plishka is the President and Founder of ZenStorming Solutions, LLC an innovation design consultancy. He believes in co-design methodologies, sharing design thinking essentials - empowering people and companies to make a difference with their products and services.

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