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Creativity & Innovation

Ok, so we all know creativity has a strange feel when associating it with professionalism. The reason creativity is so important is because it leads us to that next great idea or the next great add on to an existing idea, product or service and ultimately builds our future in the present. Naturally most new products, services and processes are created to meet an existing obvious need or demand, however creativity helps us make them better.

Creativity does for you what a research and development section does for an entire corporation, it allows you to stay innovative and relevant in today’s fast changing world.  Some people may have a great business sense however as an entrepreneur creativity and having an imagination will keep you one step ahead of your competition and one step ahead of your customers. Having creativity allows you to give your customers and employees something different, something new and fresh, something that goes beyond only solving their problem with your product or service, it gives them an experience that will be remembered.

So how can we be more Creative and Innovative?

It begins with something very simple and that’s having an imagination for starters. That sounds easy enough, but  as business owners who have gone through the rigors of starting up a small business creativity and imagination tend to be one of the last things on our mind. We need to kick the dust off our imaginations and let it flourish. We need to always ask ourselves, “What If” and “How Could we” or “I wonder”. These are the small little questions that ultimately spark that new idea.  The next thing we need that directly compliments this thought is having the ability to match a creative idea with real world implications. For this part we need inspiration and a little common sense, and this is the fun part. When someone asks an artist “What inspired you to create this masterpiece?” the answers always seems so interesting.

Sometimes it's simply by looking around at the everyday objects we see, sometimes ideas and inspirations are derived from emotions, sometimes from our senses or a combination of them all. We all have access to these senses, we can all visually see the same objects and we’ve all had at one point or another the same emotions, so why is it we aren’t all artists? This is the not so simple part to answer, and it comes back to truly setting  your imagination free, freeing yourself from your office desk, freeing yourself from your 9-5 work day, freeing yourself from the silly structure we need in our life to function.

And last, but not least, be passionate and fearless and without shame, trepidation or embarrassment about who you are what your thoughts are what ideas you have and unleash your creative side. Creativity is not a talent that can be controlled, it’s as wild and untamed as mother-nature and capable of producing thoughts, ideas just as beautiful and just as powerful. This is the side most of us refuse to grasp and it’s the side we need more than ever in our western culture if not to become an old rusted shell of an economy. Creativity and innovation is in a serious decline in the US, if we find where the creativity, passion and innovation is we will find where the worlds wealth will very soon be if it’s not there already.

On an individual level we need to acknowledge this side of our self and learn to harness the power of innovation and creativity. On a corporate level we must ensure  your products, your company and your vision has color, has style, has passion, has a fresh feel. Creativity resides on many different levels, on a personal level, on a company level right down to a product and or business process. You need to look at all these aspects and ensure there is room for innovation and creativity and help the process out wherever you can. True we can’t all be famous artists, but we can all open the door to creativity which in turn will open doors to innovation.