Living on the edges....

As usual Seth is brilliant.  Creativity isn't about grabbing and using the latest greatest... it's about blazing the trail.  To do that you've got to be willing to drop the dead weight and move on.  When it's broken... kill it.  Dream on the edges... BODers... let's see if you can raise a few eyebrows... DON'T BLINK!

Seth writes:

What does it mean to be creative?

You could watch the most non-creative, linear-thinking, do-it-by-the-book cop work to solve a crime and you'd be amazed at how creative her solutions seem to be. Creative for you, because you've never been in that territory before, it's all new, it's all at the edges. Boring for her, because it's the same thing she does every time. It's not creative at all.

For me, creativity is the stuff you do at the edges. But the edges are different for everyone, and the edges change over time. If you visualize the territory you work in as an old Boston Bruins sweatshirt, realize that over time, it stretches out, it gets looser, the edges move away. Stuff that would have been creative last year isn't creative at all today, because it's not near the edges any more.

This gives you two useful tactics for problem solving:
1. If you want to be creative, understand that you'll need to get to the edges, even if the edges have moved. Being creative means immediately going to the place the last person left off.

2. If you are "not creative," if you are the sort of person that gets uncomfortable being creative or has been persuaded you're not capable, don't worry about it. Just stretch the sweatshirt in your spare time, watch the creative things other people have done, keep up with the state of the art. Then, when you do your "not creative" thing, most people will think it's pretty creative indeed.

Comments

[DWAYNE]

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT ON CREATIVITY IS NOT JUST DROPPING THE DEAD WEIGHT BUT TAKING SOMETHING THAT IS WORKING (JUST GETTING BY) AND DROPPING IT TO MOVE FORWARD.I AM THANKFUL THAT WE HAVE CREATIVE LEADERS THAT PUSH FORWARD AND SOMETIMES BRING THE OLD GUY LIKE ME ALONG AND I AM NOT GOING TO TALK DEAD OR WEIGHT OR IF THEY ARE PUSHING ME OR DRAGING ME.I SAY GO TEAM BE CREATIVE BE BE CREATIVE! I NEED A BALLGAME TO YELL A REF.