Creativity is nothing but a mind set free!
- DICE18332603
- Nov 12, 2018
- 9 min read
Updated: Nov 14, 2018
If someone asked you did you consider yourself a creative being what would be your response? Would you stand with pride and say "yeah,I think I have a creative bone in my body!"? or would you sit back and be too modest to give a positive response regarding your own opinion of your creative abilities and actually not believe you're creative? For most people, I would unfortunately expect the latter option. This was proved true when I had the privilege to attend DCU's "GET CREATIVE!" conference on the 30th of October in the helix. Over 600 students attended and had the opportunity to listen to many different creative and inspiring guests speakers including our energetic MC for the event Joan Mulvihill. It was her who made me realize our lack of confidence in the amount of creativity we have within ourselves. When Joan asked all 600 aspiring business students to stand if they believed they were creative, it was if she had told us that if we stood up we would be fed to lions. it could be seen that all but a mere few brave tributes, stayed sitting comfortably in their seats.... myself included. Although I believe many may just not have stood up because of the fear of drawing attention to themselves, that was not the case for me... I truly did not believe I was a creative person. However, in the four hours the conference lasted, my opinion changed in ways I was not expecting.
Throughout the whole conference the various speakers attempted to encourage us to see ourselves as creative specimens like themselves. I would suggest some were of more interest to me than others but that is just a part of a personal opinion. However there was definitely something valuable to learn from each individuals story.
Guest Speakers:
Joan Mulvihill, MC
Aisling Cowzer,Innovation and design thinking, Experience Strategy and Digital Transformation manager at Accenture Interactive
Tania Banotti, Director of Creative Ireland.
Patrick Hickey, CEO of Rothco
Joanne Looby, head of innovation for the Baileys brand, DIAGEO
Mark Bennett, country manager of Talent Garden,
Brian Dillon, musician in Meltybrains?,
Akhil Voorokkarra, Engineering student and creator of Eirloop
Joe Cullinane, panel interviewer, DCU
Creative Ireland - how to put creativity at the centre of public policy
Some food for thought was brought to the table by Tania Banotti, Director of Creative Ireland. Creative Ireland is "a culture-based programme designed to promote individual, community and national well-being." I had never heard of this organisation prior to the conference but let me tell you, it is doing amazing things in our country!. I found Tania to be energetic and full of passion when talking about the projects Creative Ireland were undertaking and that to me was truly inspiring.
One of the projects we were told about was the creative youth project. The aim of this project was to "enable the creative potential of every child in Ireland". I liked the way this ambition was worded. it made it clear that the ambition was not just aimed at some children that may have creative abilities already but to "Every" child to reach their potential as they believe everyone has some ability within them to be creative. Children all around the country have been given opportunities to be creative through different ways such as through art and crafts, music, poetry, writing workshops and much more. We did not just learn about the creative community initiatives and creative youth projects but were presented with videos by Tania of happy faces of the beings who have been enabled to let their creative flow blossom through the projects.
Cruinniú na nÓg is a free event organised by Dublin city council once a year to give children the chance to develop their creativity potential which I think is a wonderful thing! Maybe if i had had the opportunities to take part in these initiatives when i was younger I would of considered myself a more creative person much sooner.
However and interesting aspect of Tania's talk was the point she made about the problem of peoples creative opportunities diminishing as they grow. As Joe Cullinane stated in the later panel talk "all children are artists. The problem is we don’t remain artists when we grow up". If we think back the the days of primary school, everyday was full of opportunities to be creative! Between writing stories and drawing pictures, acting out the scenes of history instead of just learning from a book or making pictures and artefacts in art class, we were continuously encouraged to express and create. However, Tania made me ponder upon my creativity levels when going to secondary school when she highlighted the lack of room for self expression. Even though I may not have realized it at the time Tania made me realize I was a creative kid. I enjoyed drawing and painting and finding new ways to do things. I actually invented the Snuggie in 2007 when I discovered if i wore my bathrobe backwards it was a blanket with arms! Pity i didn't patent it...
However in secondary school I feel like our creativity was stripped from us, especially in leaving cert. It almost seemed like in such a structured course, we were taught nothing but creativity was impractical. There was little room to show self expression as there was a set way to do everything and if you differentiated your way from the guidelines your grades would be likely suffer, even though we could all agree, there was definitely better systems that could be created! Maybe this is why my opinion on my own creativity abilities changed? Maybe it wasn't the fact that I wasn't actually creative but the fact that i wasn't presented with opportunities in so long that I forgot I can be!
Thankfully to Tania and the Creative Ireland team, the government are recognizing this problem and are taking action to prevent this occuring to the children of today as they grow and also solving the existing problem with the young people and adults in Ireland! Exciting stuff ahead and its all looks positive!
DESIGN THINKING BRINGS PEOPLE INTO THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO
The amazing Aisling Cowzer, Experience Strategy and Digital Transformation manager at Accenture Interactive was another one of many amazing guest speakers at the conference who provided us kindly with all sorts of information on design and design thinking in regards to creativity and innovation.
I did not go into the conference unfamiliar with the term "design thinking" as it had been a topic of relevance in DICE lecture material, however I understand it is a term many people many people would not understand. here is a definition:
"Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.” – Tim Brown CEO, IDEO
As Aisling pointed out many of us can feel threatened by the word "design" or about being a "designer ". We all have this idea in our head that a designer is some sort of person who can draw or design clothes or some sort of architect that designs the structure of huge buildings and we believe because we cannot do these things we are not designers. However we were encouraged by Aisling that anyone is able of design. The concept that being able to design is due to ability to understand the individuals goals and knowing the purpose and reason for what you are designing, was one that stood out to me. This was a new concept to me. One I probably had not made great use of previously.
Aisling highlighted the importance of design thinking in business and in everyday life. To be good at design thinking you must consider and understand what other people want out of your design and what will best suit every person in different types of situations. This is something I feel may have been holding me back in the past when trying to create and design ideas and holds many others back also . A "design mindset" is crucial when trying to boost ones creativity and innovation. A design mindset focuses on finding a solution when designing your ideas rather than focusing on the problem, something I am very very bad at.... However on learning how important this aspect is in business it is most definitely something I am aiming to improve on. I am currently trying to do this by using the double diamond design process that Aisling explained to us in her speech.
Double Diamond is a process model created by Design Council, a British organization, in 2005. Aisling explained that people start the design process almost always in the middle of the double diamond.... FOCUSING ON THE PROBLEM!. unfortunately this is something I could relate to but something I am aspiring to change so paid extra attention when aisling explained how to use the process properly. later, It was explained that by researching into where and why the problem has arised is actually key to creating a successful design. It seemed to make so much sense to me! It was like the lightbulb finally switched on in my brain. Previously, I had spent so long spending time trying to fix itself problems rather than figuring out what caused them and designing ways to prevent them instead.
Thanks to Aisling Cowzer's speech and adapting her design thinking ways, I feel as though I can now be more confident in my abilities of creativity and design innovation in my everyday life and also will be of value to me in future work in the business world.
"CREATIVITY IS JUST CONNECTING THINGS"
~STEVE JOBS
The connective powers of creativity were brought to life by the panel of guest speakers who were interviewed by the wonderfully engaging host Joe Cullinane.
The panel consisted of 3 men of different creative backgrounds, Mark Bennett, country manager of Talent Garden, Brian Dillon, musician in Meltybrains?, and Akhil Voorokkarra, Engineering student and creator of the awesome project Eirloop each of which engaged in what turned into almost a debate like conversation on their passionate opinions of the meaning of creativity. It would have been nice to hear a woman's perspective up on the panel, However I was happy to see a larger showing of creative woman speakers in the conference overall. GIRL POWER!! Ailbhe and Izzy keane from Izzy Wheels are definitely worth checking out and also Joanne Looby, head of innovation for the Baileys brand was a joy to listen to as she talked about her creative branding with such passion. Inspirations to say the least!
The energy of the conversation between the members of the panel was electric! Who would of thought a businessman, a musician and an engineer, would all be connected by one similar aspect. That being their creativity! What really stood out to me though was their different perspectives on what creativity was. Brian and Akhil seemed to differ the most in opinions, which would be expected seeing as they are from such different backgrounds. The thing about it which was amazing was that I didn't disagree with any of their opinions. When thinking of the opinions based on the means of which each shows their creativity each of them made sense.
Akhil mentioned that creative drive comes from his sense of satisfaction in problem solving. When coming up with ideas for the Eirloop, he used a logical and innovative approach to create a better system of transport for the people. However with Brian, it could be seen that his creativity is derived more for self expression purposes. None of these men are your stereotypical artist yet all have the creative ability to make something new and great. This made me realize that I am creative! Just because I also do not fit into the "artist" stereotype does not mean I can't find solutions to problems and express myself through terms or art. Akhil made a nice reference that you cant learn from a book what hasn't been done before and how true is this! There's no real definition of creativity, no guidelines. There is no rights or wrongs in a creativity process. Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes and I feel the panel displayed this concept amazingly and in the end made me feel I also had the ability to be an "artist" of my own kind. Thanks Guys!
Anyways, I think I've done enough babbling on about creativity now... time to stop the talk and start the action! If i was to be asked again was I a creative person by Joan Mulvihill or even anyone, i most definitely would say yes! Big thanks to all the speakers and all the people who made the GET CREATIVE! conference happen. Thanks to you my outlook of creativity has changed and also my own creative ability. Also to my readers, I hope you all now realize that everyone is creative! EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST!
Thanks for reading!
~ DICE18332603 :)
Stay tuned for my next blog post "GET DIGITAL!"
references:
all videos used and all other videos of the conference can be found on youtube, dcu business school here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKrj7RcBtHcdaF2B1Q8gyBm_n6LjgNtTO
www.accenture.com
www.creativeireland.ie
https://twitter.com/creativeirl?lang=en
http://www.meltybrains.com/
https://talentgarden.org/ie/
https://rothco.ie/
https://youtu.be/i2sI5R1-qCo paul hartog, double diamond video
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