Creativity and Innovation Management - Personality Testing

Whilst tests measuring the creative or innovative personality exist, there are a number of inherent flaws. Some are noted below:

a) Whether a creative or innovative type exists at all is highly contentious. Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation - universal abilities. Creativity can be defined as producing a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas - universal abilities. Traits are not stable or transferable across situations. Motivation is a critical factor.

Creativity

b) Due to the numerous relevant definitions of creativity and innovation, it is clear that a number of differing and distinct competencies are involved. It is unlikely (or rare) that all competencies are present in single individual.

Creativity and Innovation Management - Personality Testing

c) Creativity is a cognitive process and case dependent. Not all people produce equal quantities of ideas across tasks and, importantly, the same people do not produce equal quantities of ideas across tasks.

d) Too many assumptions are made. Some have been indicated : the assumption that creativity and innovation are stable and transferable across situations ; motivation and competencies are not accounted for etc etc etc.

e) Collaboration, networking and such are ignored. Intellectual cross pollination results in a higher degree of creative output than is produced by individuals alone.

f) The generalisability, variability and reliability of the test paramters can be disputed.

These topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com.

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Creativity and Innovation Management - Personality Testing

Kal Bishop MBA, is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com.

Creative Brand Management - What is It?

In the sometimes cutthroat and very competitive business world, what separates your company and business from your competition? The main thing apart from the product itself is - your brand. You need branding and from this comes about creative brand management. This creative brand management article will tell and educate you about it, what it is, what it can do, for you and for your customers, and how important it is for your business and your bottom line. In other words, learning about creative brand management is an essential part of business education.

What is it? Creative brand management is the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand - simply put into simple words, it is the application of creativity to a product, line or product brand. It is important for any business because it seeks to increase the product's perceived value to the customer and therefore increase the brand's franchise and equity.

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How does this work? Creative brand managers and creative marketers see a creative brand as an implied promise that the level of quality people have come to expect from a brand will continue with future purchases of the same product. This may increase sales by making a comparison with competing products more favourable, and in favour of the better brand. It may also enable the manufacturer to charge more and thus earn a premium for the product, thus boosting earnings. Since the value of the brand is actually determined by the amount of profit it generates for the manufacturer, this clearly shows that creative brand management is useful and in many ways actually great for any business.

Creative Brand Management - What is It?

Specifically, how does it actually raise profits? This increase of profits can come about from a combination of increased sales and increased price due to the premium pricing of the product, and the reduced cost of goods sold, and perhaps even the reduced or more efficient marketing investments.

What does it actually mean for you and for your business? This means that you can increase your sales. This means that you can increase your price to premium prices. This means that you can reduce the costs of the goods sold. This means that you can make marketing far more effective and cost efficient. All these are key improvements that will actually happen if you have utilised the powers of branding.

All of these important enhancements will definitely improve the profitability of a product brand, and thus creative brand managers often carry line-management accountability for a product brand's profitability, in contrast to marketing staff manager roles, which are allocated budgets from above, to manage and execute. In this regard, brand management is often viewed in many worldwide organizations, not just in Singapore and China, as a broader and more strategic role than normal and common place product marketing alone, and in many ways brand management is more important than product marketing.

If you wish to improve your sales and business, then creative brand management is definitely the most important differentiating factor separating your business from the competition.

Creative Brand Management - What is It?

Larry Lew is the founder of Matrix Asia Brand, with vast experience in Singapore and China in brand management communication. Visit Matrix Asia Brand Communication to see brand management services offered!

Creativity Management: Do Creative People Have Common Characteristics?

What do creativity managers do?

Replace the word management with the word optimisation.

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That's what creativity managers do: they optimise the quality of the idea pool (creativity) and the implementation process (innovation).

There are many methods of optimisation and the creativity leader must be aware of all of them, in other words, he or she must synthesise them for optimal effect.

Areas [within creativity] that need managing include motivation, organisational culture, organisational structure, incremental versus radical effects and processes, knowledge mix, group structures, goals, process and valuation.

Areas [within innovation] that need managing include idea selection, development / prototyping and the art of commercialisation.

It is worth noting that 4000 good ideas result in 4 development programs, which in turn results in 1 winner.

Do creative people have common characteristics?

Trait theory suggests they have: for example, tolerance to ambiguity and intolerance to conformity.

However, traits are not stable (you might feel creative today but not tomorrow), they are not transferable (you might be a good guitar player but a terrible painter) and they are very hard to identify.

Overall, traits are not good predictors as to who will turn out to be creative or not.

A quote from David Ogilvy: "For sixteen years I have been trying to find some common denominator which seems to apply to all creative people. There aren't any. If I could find five or six characteristics I might be more successful at hiring them. I could make a list of curiosity, vocabulary, good visual imagery etc and then I could interview hundreds of people and hire the best. But I don't know of any common characteristic. We've got fifty copywriters and I suppose the good ones are judged at the end of the year, when we compare how many successful campaigns they have created. "

Learn more...

Download the MBA research, learn about this topic at http://www.creativity-management.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made, the author's name is retained and the link to our site URL remains active.

Creativity Management: Do Creative People Have Common Characteristics?

Download the MBA research, learn about this topic at http://www.creativity-management.com/