Creativity is a buzzword that has been used in corporate work spaces for decades, but speaking the lingo and actually conjuring palpable results from creative training sessions is another story. It’s fantasy in fact, and even worse many of us have gone decades believing the myths. It’s sort of fitting, and ironic that there are creativity myths we have drawn our fates by for so long–surely a very creative person invented them to fill a gap–but according to scientific studies, that’s just what we’ve done. Fear not though, techy iconoclasts and revolutionaries, there are new and updated theories to re-wind the muse-hair spools.
Let’s take a look at a recent New Yorker article, Groupthink, which does a great job discussing the outdated methods of creativity that may be stifling your work environment, while providing solutions to help ecommerce teams be more creative.
First, let’s get this shocker out of the way: Brainstorming doesn’t work. Alex Osborn coined and coddled the theory for decades, and it has gained enough momentum to blow past the subsequent pointed research that indicates it’s a sham. In fact, individuals are known to generate a lot more ideas than those in a group setting. Yep, the introvert off in the cube is much more creative than his popcorn chomping colleagues at the weekly brainstorm jamboree.
But there’s a hitch. In modern times, projects require large, highly specialized teams to work on ideas together. Everyone can’t simply operate in a silo in an environment where it takes so many people to work on singular focused large scale projects, so brainstorming is a natural first choice when it comes to idea generation. Directive: “Team Q, go come up with some ideas on how these new Boeing 747 engines work under X conditions,” and the white coats scurry off to some giant white boards to chart physics equations.
But one of the core tenets of brainstorming is that you can’t criticize others, not even a little. According to a 2003 study, this suggestion alone could have undermined an otherwise decent theory. Conversely it is a “debate condition” that should be promoted during group creativity exercises, otherwise free associaters won’t be challenged to answer with anything more than the typical blue responses to, “what do you think of when you see this picture of the sky” questions. Add a little dissent into the mix, and presto, you have inspired participants answering with “jazz” and “berry pie.”
Maybe researchers effectively saved brainstorming from being relegated into the scrap pile for ideas (although most still brainstorming just take it for granted that all this stuff works anyway), but in the world of internet technologies there’s still a barrier to creativity many don’t consider: Random proximity to others.
According to the article, Steve Jobs organized Pixar’s headquarters in a revolutionary way, but only in retrospect can we see the elegance of that decision. It’s the same thing that happened within Building 20 at MIT where so many famous inventions were discovered. So, what was the secret? Cross-pollination. Some of the more important advancements in the work environment aren’t realized by slaving away over the keyboard; it actually happens while employees are taking a break to get some coffee. There, an engineer might talk with a graphic designer, and one of them might be impregnated with an idea that could rock the digital world.
Make sure your work space cultivates chance meetings. To do this, Jobs made sure everyone had to come through the central atrium (they eventually had to de-centralize the facility’s only set of bathrooms though). For ecommerce merchants, especially with telecommuters, this might justify social media lounge time with those who rarely get to mix.
Encouraging a creative space doesn’t just benefit productivity, but it keeps the job fresh, and in the tech. world we all know how important it is to be on stage, or at least in the front rows. Everyone’s synapses should be challenged or it’s cyber-mold and in the closet to permanently hibernate, along with other obsolete technologies. If only Atari Pong code developers had had interface inspiration.
How do you keep your ecommerce workspace fun and creative?
