Sir Ken Robinson: Why Should You Care About Creativity?

Not probably, it definitely is. Sir Ken Robinson is amazingly brilliant, and his value for creativity is revolutionary. Creativity defines the world we live in. He defines creativity as "the process of coming up with original ideas that have value." Just think about that. Everything in the world that we use and take for granted is the result of some creative person somewhere taking a risk. The importance of creativity is the most undervalued characteristic of people in the world. We focus more on SAT and ACT scores, both of which are only a fraction as important.

derefr• 16 years ago

It's not under-valued, it's non-valued. As in, it's impossible to attach a value to someone's creativity, because, as far as anyone has been able to determine, it's not quantifiable. You can't hire with "creative" as a criteria unless you can create some sort of test that will accept creative people and reject non-creative people. Since there is no such test, we don't bother to look for it when hiring, and thus don't build businesses that depend on their employees to be creative, because they haven't been filtered as such.

JonathanFields• 16 years ago

Love Robinson's insights about creativity being a process, not an event, and it being available in different formats to everyone.

Also, the notion that we each tend toward certain creative roles, using the example of Keith Richards creating opening riffs, then handing off the melody, speaks to the sometimes highly-compartmentalized nature of the process and maybe even the existence of certain innate creative preferences. Very cool interview.

Robinson's book is a great read, too.

Sir Ken Robinson: Why Should You Care About Creativity?

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