Myths about Creativity

1
Myths about Creativity

• Creativity and Innovation
• Jerry Banks

2
Creativity requires doing something new

• Creative individuals usually build on existing
  ideas or on existing fundamental principles.

3
Only experts can create anything useful

• Being an outsider is often useful because you are
  not hampered by traditional vision.

4
Creative ability is a gift possessed only by a
small fraction of the population

• The desire to create is more important than any
  inborn talent.

5
People must be emotionally disturbed to be
creative

• Except in the arts, poetry, and music, to excel
  as a creative person requires a strong dose of
  self worth.
• The creative person needs to have a wandering and
  questioning mind without losing control of the
  situation.

6
If a person is truly creative, they will be
discovered

• A creative person must blow his or her horn, but
  blow it tactfully.

7
Ideas are the result of inspiration, not
perspiration

• Flashes of brilliance are the exception, not the
  rule.
• Inspiration usually comes after lots of
  perspiration, but more likely in the form of an
  insight, and usually incremental.

8
Creativity requires high technology

• Complexity can destroy creativity.
• The watchwords should be to make things as simple
  as possible, but not any simpler.

9
There is no better way

• There is not one way, but many good ways.
• Trying to solve every problem using the same
  technique will not work.

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