Creativity 101 : What is this called creativity really?

As a marketing expert and filmmaker, I have been developing creative ideas for years and working with creative people. In this article series titled "Creativity 101", I will share these experiences and information with you. Our main goal is to show that creativity can be learned and improved, to share techniques and to learn how to use creativity not only in the creative industries but also in everyday life.

Before we talk about how we can improve our creativity, let's start with a little theoretical part, what is creativity and that's the hard work. Because creativity does not have a clear definition, nor does it mean for everyone. You may be thinking how we can use and develop something that we can not determine its definition and meaning. If you are thinking about it, you are reading the right article because it is a fact that the definitions and the results are different for everyone and this development starts by asking questions and thinking. However, although UFOs can be created as a common concept for unknown flying objects in space research; artists, researchers and scientists working on creativity have different opinions about creativity.

One of these, Mo Stein, defines creativity as follows:

Creativity is a process results in a novel product that is accepted by a significant group of others as useful, tenable or satisfying at some point in time.

According to Stein's definition, the "product" that emerges at the end of a process has mathematically measurable values that depend on the satisfaction of others and must be "useful". If you ask me this is a very misleading definition, because in this definition football, for example, should also be regarded as an art. Does it satisfy somebody, yes. Can it be mathematically measured, yes. Is it useful, yeah. Especially useful for politicians to change the agenda. In this definition, let's look at the picture below.

This painting made by Jackson Pollock in 1948₍₁₎ is useful, measurable or satisfactory to you? If you do not know the past of the artist, the period of the art and other similar information, and you are only focusing on the painting, you do not think so. Nobody thinks. What if I say that this picture is one of the most expensive paintings on art history with a price of 140 million $ ? With this information, we can look into Mo Stein's definition and enter into a discussion that will for hours but our goal here is not to brainstorm a single topic, at least not now 😉

Let's look at the next important definition of creativity. Ellis Paul Torrence, a former psychologist and mother of creativity in modern sense, has kept the definition of creativity a bit wider:

Creativity is the process of sensing problems or gaps in information, forming ideas or hypotheses, testing, and modifying these hypotheses, and communicating the results.

We see Torrence approaching a more intuitive approach to Mo Stein's relatively more materialist approach. According to Torrence, we can conclude that creativity is actually an instinct attached to thinking and intuition. The famous psychologist says that if you are able to perceive the information and problems that arise, develop ideas, understand their deficiencies, and relate all of them to each other and make a deduction to yourself, then you are creative and in this case, almost all of the scientists can be considered creative. It's also a good plumber often. Or maybe you are trying to do something new instead of missing material when you're preparing breakfast in the morning. I did not lie to creativity as you see everyone saying that there is room in your life 😊

Ruth Noller, a professor of mathematics and creativity, has created a mathematical formulation of creativity :

C = f_a (K, I, E)

To better understand the symbols in the form, let's look at the English explanation for Noller's formula.

Creativity is the function of an individual’s Attitude, driving his or her Knowledge, Imagination, and ability to Evaluate ideas.

At this point, contrary to previous approaches, the concepts of "imagination" and "knowledge" are introduced for the first time. These concepts are very important in the stages of the development of creativity, so it is useful to keep it on the edge of your mind.

There are many different definitions made by different people at different times. The common point of all is "different" like creativity. The difference is the nature of creativity. Each of these definitions is both true and incomplete. While the beneficial approach directs us to create products that facilitate everyday life, we show our creativity in perceiving and solving the problems that face in intuitive creativity. Personally, Ruth Noller's approach is closer to me. Knowledge, imagination, evaluation and action, the process of making something happen is the foundation that keeps the creative industry right now.

Let's do a little brainstorm with a couple of examples. One of the most used areas of creativity is painting. So can we say that every picture is creative?

In the picture below we can say that the artist who draws a picture of Hugh Laurie is very talented, he is certain. Is the drawing creative?

Let's look a little more familiar. These drawings that using Steemit logo are drawn more than 6 months ago by @ruen's. Are these drawings more creative? (Yes, absolutely so 😉)

These questions are actually one of the basic arguments of creativity that goes on almost every day. Although talent has great potential, it does not always mean creativity. Yes, the artist in the first drawing is very talented, but drawing a photograph without adding anything from himself is not very creative. Because creativity expects his creator to "add something from himself/herself." The biggest common point of the concept of creativity that we see in different definitions is "creator". A creative person is an individual who can look to an idea, a product, a problem or just life, and see things differently from other people. That's what makes that thing creative.

Let's have a little more casual life. Pasta is very familiar, very informal taste for everybody. Buy or make pasta, boil in water, make the sauce and eat, that's it. How much creativity can be added to a pasta? Right? If you watch the video below you can see that even a pasta can almost become a work of art with creative touches.

As a result, although we have different ideas, can define the general lines of creativity as it is accepted today. Creativity is the ability to look at an idea, knowledge, object, problem or anything concrete or abstract, and to move that thing to a new dimension with this view. I will try to explain the factors that trigger of looking differently in more detail in the next article, but before that, I have some questions for you.