What Does Creativity Mean?

Dear #CorporateCreative

It was a Friday evening back when I still worked in Advertising. There was a lot of work left to do, the Client was not backing down and giving us permission to deliver the brief the next day.

As the Account Manager, I couldn't go home, especially when my Creative team were still in the office. After all, I brought the message that we had to deliver the creatives that day, how could I then go home? So, I found a comfortable spot in the Creative Director's office and sat down to while the time away on other tasks that would typically have been done the next day.

Taking a break to see how far the guys had gone, I saw the Creative Director with a pencil. So I moved closer to see what he was drawing, it was some simple but detailed animal drawing which he explained would later be moved onto an actual art sheet and painted in with oil.

This scenario is just one of the many times I had encountered visual creativity. I know now to call it that because back then, I never considered myself a member of the creative community. I mean, I did makeup and I was already a known beauty writer for a couple of offline and online publications, but I still felt that only those who could draw, paint, sculpt, body paint and all whatnot, were really creative people.

Years later, I'm constantly wondering what is creativity?

What I do know is that it is not the singular privilege of a select group of people and it can be learned too.

What I don't know is how it can be taught or identified.

I found myself being called a creative one day and when I asked why - the person reeled out all the things I was skilled at but had never considered as enough to make me a member of the creative club. It then dawned on me that I indeed was a creative person that had been thriving in a generally non-creative space.

 Putting both together is how I coined the words "Corporate Creative'.

The point of this little story is that YOU may be reading this article and saying to yourself, 'Oh, Barbara is talking about Sarah and Roland but not about me because I'm not 'a creative.' It is not written on the forehead.

GOD Almighty asked Moses in Exodus - what is that you have in your hand?

So it is I ask you today what is that you have in your hand? It is a skill, a talent, a gift. That makes you creative. All you need right now is to identify it, know it and understand how to tap into it.

Yours sincerely,

#BarbaraO