There’s a lot of noise about how computers and artificial intelligence and robots and automation are going to take over human jobs. The usual advice is for humans to concentrate on the things that we’re good at. Things that computers struggle with, such as creativity.
But creativity is hard to define and pin down.
Creative acts occur in many forms, sometimes being the result of deliberate strategies, sometimes the result of making your own luck. More often than not, there’s a need to be alert and observant and a need to be able to recognise opportunities when you see them.
Equally, there’s a skill in spotting creativity when it has occurred.
This is where Dave Trott’s new book, 'Creative Blindness and How to Cure It’ comes in.
The author argues that "Creativity is all around us. Not in art galleries. But on the train, at work, in the street outside, and in schools, hospitals and restaurants. Creative vision exists where ever people are."
Dave Trott is a guru of the ad world; he's a master of creativity himself and pretty good at recognising when it happens in the wild. This compendium of brilliant examples of creativity in action will be useful for anyone wanting to up their game, whatever your game happens to be.
Here’s a few examples:
The young boy who overheard his father talking about food banks, so at Halloween when trick or treating, instead of asking for sweets he asked for food for the local food bank. People responded positively to this selfless act and wanted to do their bit. So they give him tins and packets of food. He thought he might need a wheelbarrow for the collection but by the time he was done, he’d filled and emptied it 17 times.
(Wouldn’t it be great if that became the UK version of trick or treating?)
The 1960’s Milk Marketing Board who wanted to increase sales of cheese to pubs. But pubs were places for drinking not eating at the time and the idea of bread & cheese was a tough sell. So they invented the ‘traditional’ ploughman’s lunch which people took to be such a natural fit that the ‘tradition' endures to this day.
The parrot that swore like a trooper and what happened to him as a consequence. Actually, I can’t repeat this one, so you’ll just have to get the book yourself!
‘By seeing things differently, you can think differently, and change the world around you’.