We are moving away from cookie cutter offerings to ones that not only enable but in fact require adults to create their own designs, fabricate their own customizations. Which is what we did as children. So in fact, we are in the midst of going full circle, which has profound implications. We not only need an injection of our former resourcefulness to create continuously relevant offerings, but also to be able to receive them as well. Therefore re-engaging our childhood creativity is not just an imperative part of successful business strategy. It is now also an imperative part of a full consumer experience. (from the forthcoming book Slingshot: Re-engage Your Childhod Creativity by Gabor George Burt).
Harvard blogger, Teresa Amabile, views the current threat to creativity as a result of the confluence of several factors, which are imposing a “squeeze on the ingredients of creativity.”
From the Harvard Business Review:
Creativity is under threat. It happens whenever and wherever there's a squeeze on the ingredients of creativity, and it's happening in many businesses today. According to the Labor Department's most recent stats, productivity is up. But stretching fewer employees to cover ever more work in our job-starved recovery is no way to run the future. Without the creativity that produces new and valuable ideas, innovation — the successful implementation of new ideas — withers and dies. Creativity depends on the right people working in the right environment. Too often these days, the people come ill-equipped, and their work environments stink.
[Image ©2010 SlingshotLiving.]
