Much of how we perceive creativity can be nurtured in a community setting. With the backbone of a community or an organization, an idea can be brought to life.
Within the network of a community, we can collaborate and explore. Through diverse interactions, unity can be instilled, and people can be inspired.
This is exactly why I put my guests in teams in an ideation session. Ideas thrive in a community setting.
The basic unit of sustained innovation is not a single creative individual, but a creative community with a cause or focus.
We may think that innovation comes from brilliant individuals and in a way it does, but the most effective innovators build creative communities and provide them with a focus.
That is why sustained, successful innovation usually comes from within communities and organizations that can assemble all the necessary skills for the complex task of taking an idea from the drawing board and into the real world where it can be used.
Communities and organizations sustain innovation because as they share ideas they can mutate and grow, especially as they adapt to new conditions.
Groups with diverse skills and outlooks come up with innovative smart solutions more often than groups of very clever people who share the same outlook and skills. The more vantage points there are from which a complex problem is seen the easier it becomes to solve.
Diverse viewpoints will generate more possible solutions and evaluate those solutions from a wider range of vantage points, so spotting potential flaws.
Far from repressing new ideas, collaborative discussions with friends, colleagues or peers will foster them.
If we want a more innovative society, we need more creative communities.
