Creativity is defined as the ability to generate new ideas, possibilities, or solutions. It involves both divergent thinking to produce many novel ideas and convergent thinking to evaluate those ideas. Creativity results from an interaction between a person, their culture or field, and bringing something new. It is not just an innate gift but a common ability that can be developed. Creativity helps solve problems, communicate ideas, and provide entertainment or enjoyment. Developing creativity requires being open-minded, flexible, willing to take risks and handle uncertainty, and learning from others over a long period of immersing oneself in a topic or discipline.

1. - What do you understand by ‘creativity’ and to why is it
needed?
It is the process needed for problem solving.. not a special gift enjoyed by a
few but a common ability possesed by most people.
Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three
elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty
into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validate
the innovation.
Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas,
alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems,
communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.
Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:
1. need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation
2. need to communicate ideas and values
3. need to solve problems
In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or
from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to
generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure
not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the
uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see
things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more
fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity
or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown.
The word 'creative' has many meanings- the most democratic meaning
would really suggest that any act of making something (even making an
idea) might be seen as a creative act. In more elitist versions of the term, it is
reserved for those who are seen as highly skilled or original (famous artists,
musicians, film-makers etc). an interesting third alternative is to think about
how creativity can be an unconscious, random or collaborative act that
becomes more than the sum of its parts.
CREATIVITY - THEORY
Anthony Storr ‘creativity has been defined as the ability to bring something
new into existence’.
’the making of the new and the rearranging of the old.’ (Bentley 1997)
Ken Robinson has identified some Creative Habits of mind
• Creativity - enquiring mind

2. • Flexibility - lateral thinking and connection making
• Willingness - to think the impossible
• Confidence - to try things out
• Ability - to handle uncertainty - perseverance in adversity
• Self-reflective awareness
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote that the creative process normally takes five
steps (Creativity, 1996, p.79):
o Preparation - becoming immersed in problematic issues that are
interesting and arouses curiosity.
o Incubation - ideas churn around below the threshold of
consciousness.
o Insight - the "Aha!" moment when the puzzle starts to fall together.
o Evaluation - deciding if the insight is valuable and worth pursuing.
o Elaboration - translating the insight into its final work.
Spontaneity takes practice Csikszentmihalyi says that it typically takes
someone 10 years of acquiring technical knowledge by immersing
themselves in a discipline before they create anything significant. Malcolm
Gladwell makes a similar argument in his new book, Outliers – according to
Gladwell, the magic number is 10,000 hours of practice.
Csikszentmihalyi : ‘Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or
responsibility and irresponsibility.’
Csikszentmihalyi Divergent thinking involves fluency, or the ability to
generate a great quantity of ideas; flexibility, or the ability to switch from
one perspective to another; and originality in picking unusual associations of
ideas. …Divergent thinking is not much use without the ability to tell a good
idea from a bad one, and this selectivity involves convergent thinking.
David Gauntlett has written extensively about creativity and the idea that
‘making is
connecting’. His main argument is that ‘through making things, and
sharing them with others, we feel a greater connection with the world, and
more engaged with being more active in the environment rather than sitting
back and watching.’
Banaji, Burn & Buckingham have researched into the extent to which
technology makes us more creative. They conclude that ‘creativity is not an
inevitable consequence of using technology’.
George Steigler (an economist) : In innovation, you have to play a less safe
game, if it's going to be interesting. It's not predictable that it'll go well."

3. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Learning – pushing yourself, taking on challenges – creates a feeling he calls
‘flow’. Flow is a fancy name for being so engrossed, absorbed, rapt by
something that time flies and you forget your worries.
Ken Robinson
‘Individual creativity is stimulated by the work, ideas and achievements of
other people. We stand on the shoulders of others to see further.’ (11)
‘To promote creativity it is essential to understand the main elements and
phases of the creative process including:
- the importance of the medium;
- the need to be in control of the medium;
- the need to play and take risks; and
- the need for critical judgment
‘Creativity is not only a matter of control; it’s about speculating, exploring
new horizons and using imagination.’ (133)
‘As Carl Jung puts it, the creation of something new is not accomplished by
the intellect alone but by the play instinct. The creative mind plays with the
objects it loves.
Creative activity involves playing with ideas and trying out possibilities. But
creative achievement does not always require freedom from constraints or a
blank page. Great work often comes from working within formal
constraints….The creative achievement and the aesthetic pleasure lie in using
standard forms to achieve unique effects and original insights.’ (133)
‘Creativity is not only a process of generating ideas. It involves making
judgments about them….creativity is not just a matter of being original, but
of producing outcomes that are of value.’ (133)
‘creativity can be inhibited by trying to do too much too soon or at the same
time.’ (136)
‘Our best ideas may come to us when we’re not thinking about them…As the
writer E.M. Forster said, in the creative state we are taken out of ourselves.
We let down a bucket into out subconscious and draw up something that is
normally beyond our reach.’ (154)
‘Creativity is incremental. New ideas do not necessarily come from nowhere.
They draw from the ideas and achievements of those that have gone before
us or are working in different fields….conceiving new ideas is often promoted
by knowledge of the achievements of others – by cultural literacy.’ (182)

4. ‘Creativity often comes about by making unusual connections, seeing
analogies, identifying relationships between ideas and processes that were
previously not related.’ (188)
‘Creativity relies on the flow of ideas. This happens best in an atmosphere
where risk is encouraged, playfulness with ideas is accepted and where
failure is not punished but seen as part of the process of success.’ (190)