Why Creativity?

Why am I writing about creativity? Great question Ryan.

I believe creativity is an under-utilized skill every person has.

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. ”
― Pablo Picasso

What is stopping individuals from unlocking the ability to question the norm and step out in a unique and individual way?

I’ll use this blog to explore this phenomenon and explain why I believe that creativity is a skill that can be improved and unlocked.

Being able to visualize ideas, describe them to others and be passionate about them isn’t impossible. I love exploring individual’s passions and helping them to make it a reality. Through my experiences with event planning and leadership I have really gotten to witness creativity in its most pure and innocent form. Last year, as the Activities Programming Board Nightlife Chair, I spent a few meetings figuring out what style of leadership would help me inspire my committee of about 12 volunteers to creatively brainstorm events for campus.

At first I had them do it as homework, so the following meeting they returned empty handed and we were back at step one. So then I tried a let’s go ask people what they want method. As a group we walked around or small library and our on-campus hangout spot asking students of all demographics what events would they like. It helped a little but the events that kids were asking for were things we are doing already such as comedians and magicians. We needed creativity and we needed new.

I used the time until the next meeting to really think about what would help this group of students. I thought back to the documentary 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park. In the movie the writers used a brainstorming method, in which the group sits in an enclosed room with a white board and starts writing jokes about things going on in today’s pop culture.

I decided to implement a similar tactic and have my group brainstorm just general ideas of things that make them happy, or things they think make other kids happy. Immediately I had a great response, the group was bouncing ideas left and right off each other. I sat and played devil’s advocate to keep them digging deeper into their thoughts of joy. We ended the day with the idea of a talent show.

The following meeting was round two, they came ready to talk about things that just made them happy. To have the group happy and laughing, before we even began helped take our ideas to a brand new level. We eventually ended this meeting discussing the different parts to an event called “Hamster Night”.

Hamster night became an idea because of the big human spheres that people get into and run around in. We then started putting ourselves into the shoes or tiny feet of hamsters and created a series of other games and activities that are similar to what a hamster would do.

This creative brainstorm was effective for this one size group and these individuals, various other methods can be applied. However the one common factor is joy. I believe that you must first reach a true and sincere feeling of happiness in order to drive an individual to creativity. Finding something that you are passionate about and enjoy will only open the doors to the various other ways to use or improve that one thing.

One could make the argument that any emotion can stem creativity. However let’s take anger for example. Anger is a self-motivating tool. On a busy day at the grocery store any one would be angry or frustrated. All these emotions result in the need to improve your situation, so maybe you scream at someone, or start cutting lines. Perhaps you start thinking about things you would improve. So you think, they need new staff, they have poor management, or there aren’t enough lines open. All negative influenced ideas.

These ideas, while observational aren’t proactive and don't bring new ideas to the busy shopper experience. Imagine now a person who truly loves the shopping experience and wants to help other people find the beauty of going to a central location for the most basic of human needs. This joy could spark the possibility of implementing televisions in view of the check-out lines so angry fans can still watch the game as they are picking up additional snacks. Another could be having tablets in the lines where consumers can take selfies (which are automatically uploaded to stores social media), play games, and the grocery store could advertise on them.

I hope that you can see the creativity in yourself. Just remember to be happy!