Changing Our Talent Perspective.

With innovation, entrepreneurship, and makers as part of our current economic ethos, there’s a growing movement to help all of us unlock our creative potential. Several forces are championing the idea that “being creative” isn’t reserved solely for those in traditionally thought of creative endeavors, from art to design. Rather, we’re celebrating and encouraging the creative inside all of us.

• IDEO founders, Tom and David Kelley, this year released, Creative Confidence, their book that teaches design thinking and encourages us all to have confidence in our creative abilities. If you can’t make it to Stanford’s d.school or have the benefit of working alongside IDEO creatives themselves, pick-up this book for inspiration and how to’s to ignite your own dormant creativity.
• Adobe continues to expand its offerings, while building from its core competence of selling tools for creativity. In June the company released its first hardware products, The Ink stylus and The Slide digital ruler, which work with accompanying apps, Sketch and Line, that make drawing simpler. Similar to Sunni Brown in her TED talk in 2011, Adobe’s Michael Gough (VP of Experience Design) speaks to the importance of drawing as a universal skill that all should learn to unlock creativity. These new Abobe tools will hope to do just that.
• Emphasizing the importance of this critical skill in today’s business environment, educational programs are adding degrees in creativity. Buffalo State College, the first to offer such a program starting in the late ‘60’s, continues to evangelize on creativity, offering undergraduate and master’s degrees. Drexel University in Philadelphia offers a M.S. in creativity and innovation. Other programs, such as at Penn State, teach the value of failure to creativity and innovation.

Consumer Forecast: Help unlock my natural creative talents to generate something unique and from me.

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