Actionable Useful Appropriate (Amabile 1998:77)
Even regarding Social Media I am asked this all the time, let alone my call for more use of video and 'user generated content'.
It being 'creative' is not enough, value must be apparent, predictable, then measured and monitored. At times processes want the Jack in the Box; while I want it 'out there' turning heads and grabbing attention.
I am taken by the diagram that puts creativity at the intersect of Expertise, Creative Thinking and Motivation, but when I read about intrinsic motivation over extrinsic I grin: this is familiar territory, personally it is what makes me tick, and appropriately in the week I am interviewed to volunteer at the Olympics and on the evening I agree to some pro bono work for my old swimming club, I am reminded of the role intrinsic motivation plays in sport.
The intrinsic motivation principle of creativity: people will be most creative when they motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction and challenge of the work itself and not by external pressures. (Amabile 1998:79)
THE CREATIVITY MAZE (Amabile 1998:80)
A mouse is extrinsically motivated to find the cheese in a maze and will in time take the direct route to the goal however many twists and turns there are.
The creative person, for the love of the maze will question every twist and turn and ultimately uncover a quicker or more direct route through, over or with the maze.
I've found me again.
Repeatedly trying against type to be the mouse I become unstuck. I've been there, in the context of film production, I have been the producer who hires people who are motivated to achieve what they perceive as required for the project.
Money matters, but I have worked with people who do it for free and are equally if not more motivated to deliver and are prepared, as I have twice done (short films: 'Listening In' and 'Watersprites', to work through the night). (Both on YouTube under JJ27VV)
I can indeed apply what I learn today, today.
An OU motto used only the other morning by our Dean Prof. James Fleck (or in my case what I learn tonight, I can apply in a few hours time to question how creativity is facilitated or crushed by the system and little ways to feed the motivation of those around me).
Not satisfied simply to read this, take notes and screen grabs, I feel I will be sharing links or copies with close colleagues, faculty and campus colleagues as a means to seek a modus operandi that facilitates creativity.
At this point, unusually I must break off this conversation and contemplate where I place such deeper and potentially sensitive and private reflection.
Ideally this would be into the pages of a locked e-portfolio blog, or alternatively offline (initially) into a relational database such as FileMaker Pro.
Serendipitous to be on this module now and for the first article I read to be this one?
(though I should have been doing an MBA the year before this paper was published).
Reference
Amabile. T.M. (1998) pp.77-79 How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review. October to September.