3 Take-Aways From the Creative Economy Conference

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The Creative Economy Conference hosted by the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design was informative, inspiring, and entertaining.

Staff from Planar Creations attended the entire conference and we think there were three important lessons discussed at the conference.

 

Collaboration expands opportunities

On the first day of the conference, we heard about the role collaboration plays in the creative process. We were told a story about how a collaborative project forced two artists to use new mediums and helped one break out of a slump.

Community collaboration. Use other mediums to market your work. #CreativeEconomy
— Alex Musial (@Alex_Musial) March 27, 2013

Listening to the conference’s participants, it became clear that collaboration demands five things:

1. Clearly defined goals. If you don’t set goals, your collaborative efforts will be messy, time consuming and defeating. A successful collaboration begins by answering the question: What can we do together that we cannot do alone?
2. Transcend a parochial outlook. Like the artists who were challenged by new mediums, you cannot let your efforts be too narrowly focused. A failure to rise above our traditional limitations and set aside our own short-term goals will mean a project is destined to fail.
3. Open and frequent communication. When a group of people starts a new project and enters uncomfortable territory, those involved need to keep one another up-to-date, communicate honestly, and discuss issues openly.
4. Share what you learn. If you are brave enough to embark on a collaborative endeavour, others are sitting back and thinking about it - they want to, but they might be intimidated by what it demands. By sharing your lessons and your experience you will be able to empower and support others.
5. Support is needed. Having an organization that helps move people into collaborative relationships and through projects is extremely important - it increases the chances of success. Throughout the conference we heard stories about how the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design plays such a role in the local community.

 

Creativity requires failure and quiet mind

On the second day of the conference, Marcato Digital CEO Darren Gallop openly shared what he called “failures.” He said where he is at professionally is not where he planned to be and added that the original plans for his company and technology changed dramatically.

What was clear from Darren’s story is that different career and marketing challenges sparked his creativity - he was faced with a problem and thought of solutions that did not previously exist.


Creative types and entrepreneurs must make mistakes and must fail because only through that failure can they find new methods and opportunities.

On day three, Gavin Sheppard said that, creativity can only happen with a quiet mind.

There are multiple ways to get your creative juices flowing. For starters, you need to be relaxed, but not too relaxed. If you are too wound up or too laid back your ability to consider multiple possibilities is reduced and so is your ability to identify and solve problems.

You need to challenge yourself to enter into unfamiliar territory. Explore unfamiliar places or try, like the artists on day one mentioned, working with unfamiliar materials. People use the worn out saying “think outside the box,” but studies performed show that:

“When people literally — that is, physically — embody these metaphors, they generate more creative ideas for solving problems.”

 

Creativity is not innovation

Creativity is not innovation, innovation brings creativity to life.

Believing the two are the same is an understandable mistake because the two concepts are so closely related. Creativity is identifying a problem and coming up with an idea, a way to solve the problem. Innovation is figuring how to bring that idea to life and, as Doug Milburn from Protocase said, “It creates economic value.”

When thinking about the difference between creativity and innovation, think of Eddison:

"Innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." 

I don’t know if his numbers are right, but the sentiment is bang on.

 

Your turn

We surely didn’t pick up on all of the big messages from the Creative Economy Conference. What did we miss? What do you think of the ideas above? Please share your thoughts and comments with us below.

Stephen Moore is the Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Planar Creations. Follow him on Twitter.