Want to be more creative? Then get more curious.
Let me explain…
I’m fascinated (bordering on obsessed) with creativity and how the creative process works. I have been for most of my life, but I don’t think I ever really understood where creativity comes from until a couple years ago when I stumbled across the following Steve Jobs’ quote:
“Creativity is just connecting things.”
I’ve found that to be true, particularly with regard to my own creative instincts.
But in order to connect things and be “creative,” you first have to have things to connect. And in order to have those, you need the desire to explore and experiment with things in order to ultimately find things to connect as part of your creative process.
In short, you have to be curious.
I was reminded of this recently when I had a moment of creativity related to email marketing strategy.
I’ll spare you the details, but my idea was inspired by an understanding of Barack Obama’s own email marketing strategy. I couldn’t have made the connection if I didn’t have an existing understanding of the Obama campaign’s approach to email.
But how did I know that?
It turns out that several specific moments of curiosity over the past three years ultimately led to this minor creative revelation.
Way back in 2009, I was curious enough to read an article in Wired about the man responsible for Obama’s email campaign.
A year later at Blogworld, my curiosity led me into a presentation where a speaker demonstrated the differences between Obama and McCain’s email strategies.
Earlier this year, my 37 donations project (which I undertook in part because I was curious to see what would come of it) led me to join Obama’s email list. As a result, I witnessed how his campaign does what they do from a subscriber’s perspective.
None of this was done for any reason other than to satisfy a series of curiosities. But that’s the thing about creativity – you never know what you’re going to need to “create” until the moment comes.
So when I found myself in a conversation about email marketing recently, I was able to have a “creative moment,” or connect things, as Jobs would say.
That connection may have seemed spontaneous, but it wasn’t. It was the culmination of three years worth of curiosity.
And that’s the secret most “creatives” won’t tell you about how the creative process actually works.
One Comment
Reminds me of a quote by George Carlin – “Nail two things together that nobody has ever nailed together before, and some schmuck will buy it.”
When I first started to do stand-up in the early 1980’s, my first priority was to learn how to write my own stuff. One thing I already knew was that the more associations involved with a joke, the funnier. Other factors help, such as surprise and juxtiposition/counterpoint, etc. but basically the more connections one can make in a punchline, the funnier.
Keep your mind open and teach yourself to see and make connections between concepts, ideas, motives, the where-what-when’s, and challenge yourself to connect the unexpected. It takes a long time, but eventually you can make this a habit of thinking that helps you discover things and write gooder.