What benefits can you imagine by harnessing the innovation capabilities of the creatives and bringing them into “traditional” organisations?
Organisational conflicts, unappealing public transport, bad team work. Have you experienced any of these? These are just a few examples of everyday issues we might be experiencing in our every day lives. I can imaging you are thinking what do these have to do with one another? Nothing and a lot. The combining factor here is creativity, more specifically utilizing creativity to overcome ordinary everyday obstacles.
creativity helps overcome everyday obstacles
Imagine the use of gamification to boost the use of public transport. Could this make the use of public transport more interesting and help reduce car traffic?
Imagine using art creation to teach expressing oneself. Art has been proven to be an outlet to express feelings, frustrations, desires. When given the space to be creative, your mind rests and you can find new surprising angles to your thinking. Sometimes it’s easier to paint what you feel rather than try to put it into words. Why not use this as a way to get your point out there?
combining different perspectives
Imagine going to an innovation camp in a remote location with people from different organisations and different levels of work life. CEOs with RDI specialists together with city employees all together in a safe space without titles. An open situation like this can bring down barriers of hierarchy and blocks in innovative thinking. Using the different perspectives of each individual you can find surprising solutions to challenges, and even find new directions to move towards.
So perhaps you can take a moment, look at your organization and think if some of you current issues could be solved in untraditional ways.
All of the above mentioned scenarios can be done with the help of innovative and creative people by utilizing their expertise in different ways in regional and international contexts. So perhaps you can take a moment, look at your organization and think if some of you current issues could be solved in untraditional ways. If you feel stuck, contact a creative and bring them in to find new ways to begin solving the challenges and take your organisation to a new level.
Getting cross-sectoral collaboration started
Don’t know any creatives? The CCI Secretariat can assist you in finding international contacts and cooperation possibilities and international networks such as the Creative Broker Network can help you get started! There is also plenty of material available for understanding and developing cross-sectoral collaboration, such as European Network of Living Labs’ knowledge material.
Author: RDI Specialist Annika Salmi (annika.salmi(at)xamk.fi). The author works for the Creative Ports project, which receives Interreg funding.