Celebrating Creativity and Innovation

“It is said that a question well posed is half-answered. If so, then true invention consists in the posing of questions. There is something mechanical, as it were, in the art of finding solutions. The truly original mind is that which finds problems”. - Paul Souriau 

 Yesterday (April 21^st) was Creativity and Innovation Day – “a time to celebrate our human capacity for initiating meaningful, responsible, knowledgeable and impactful change.” Imagine a time every year when people all over the world celebrate their capacity to generate new ideas and make new decisions that make the world a better place and make their place in the world better too. Creativity and Innovation Day started in 2002 and now has people in more than 40 countries doing things large and small to ground their commitment to do something a little differently at home, at work, at school, in the arts and their communities. It now is a week long – beginning on Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday – April 15th.

Generate new ideas, Use imagination, Make new decisions That will make the world a better place and make their place in the world better too. Since 2002 people in over 106 locations covering 46 countries are involved.  You can too. In your own way, celebrate WCID with family, friends or colleagues. Would you like to celebrate too? It’s easy. During Creativity and Innovation Week people host creativity events, bring in creativity and innovation speakers, do something differently at home, and more for the purpose of raising awareness, comfort, competence and confidence in their natural ability to merge knowledge, imagination and evaluation to live a better, meaningful and more productive (and fun!) life.  Visit the new site CreativityDay.org for more information.

Check out Linda Naiman’s Creativity at work website, a rich resource for developing creativity and innovation at the intersections of Business, Art, Design and Science. Our focus is on creativity, collaborative leadership, and cultivating environments that foster innovation. (Note: Linda Naiman, founder of Creativity at Work, is known internationally for pioneering the use of arts-based learning to develop creativity, innovation, and collaborative leadership in organizations, through consulting, training and coaching). 

Read a powerful book, The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor by Gail McMeekin. About the Book – Sparked by her long search for inspiration in her life and work, Gail McMeekin has worked closely with some of today’s most highly creative women for her one-of-a-kind guide to maximizing creative energy. “For many women,” she writes, “breaking free of our societal and psychological chains is a prerequisite to truly creating a life that expresses our genuineness and uniqueness.” The dynamic women sharing their secrets for the first time include Sarah Ban Breathnach, who channeled her creativity into the book she was “born to write” (the best-selling Simple Abundance); interior designer Chris Madden; and software tycoon Brenda Laurel. From interviews and conversations, McMeekin distilled the common themes in these innovators’ lives and work into practices any woman can use.

So, what ideas come to mind, what can you do to celebrate and promote creativity and innovation in your company, your community and your circle?  I would love to hear from you!  Feel free to post your ideas here.

Ps. This would have been posted yesterday, however I was hoping to connect with the founder first and interview her as part of this post. We do have two inventing women interviews next week, so stay tuned!