So how do I define creativity? Creativity is the ability to make connections that no one else has made before. Whether the connection is about meeting a market need with a product or tying together seemingly unrelated concepts in a classroom does not matter. So you see, my definition of creativity is quite broad and can be applied across disciplines. I have yet to find a counter example for my definition of creativity. If you can come up with one, please let me know!
The value of the creative connection isn't important to me. That's something for history to judge. Some creative ideas get no credibility until long after the creator is dead like Darwin's Theory of Evolution while others spread like wild fire immediately like Facebook. Others still only have value for a select few people because they are personal in nature. So judging creativity based on value is fallacious in my opinion.
Creativity is one of two human capacities that sets us apart from all other creatures on this planet. The other capacity is reasoning. One of the many problems with our modern educational system is that it undermines and strips away the creative potential in students. Education has become a protracted process of memorizing a long list of discombobulated facts that are pretty much useless after the exam. We live in the Information Age. If you don't know something, just look it up on you favorite search engine or Wikipedia. As we continue to erode away the very capacity that makes humans special, I believe that our society will suffer for it.
Here's a fun video about creative ideas and how and why they spread.
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