Introduction to Creativity & Innovation

Hello, everyone! Welcome to our blog, "I See". Let us introduce ourselves first - we are Candy, Kevin, Viper, Year 2 students majoring in BBA HRM. You may wonder what this blog is about and why we have such name, perhaps the meaning of “I See” will give you some hints.

ISee
“See”, not only mean that you look at something, but also imply you understand, too. We deeply hope that you will get some new ideas to your daily life from this blog other than simply read but get nothing.

What’s more, our aim is to let you know more about Creativity and Innovation. To show you the impacts Creativity and Innovation have kept bringing to the world, we wish that our blog can continue and become more popular at the end of the semester.

Back to our topic, what are Creativity and Innovation? And what is/are the differences between them?

Creativity refers to the brainstorming of ideas, which is widespread. However, you may think that it is not as creative as we think. Then, why do we say so? It is because a little thinking in your mind can be creative. For example, removing the wool on my clothes in unconventional ways can also be regarded as the start of creativity. So, making use of tape to remove all the wool can be an interesting idea and that’s Creativity. However, can it be transformed into Innovation?

Innovation refers to turning ideas into practical and sometimes meaningful. We come up with an idea that we believe that it really works. When we present it to others, they agree with us and appreciate very much. Since then people begin following the idea and therefore it becomes an Innovation. Innovation does not only provide a solution, but also supply more options to choose from that people who have never thought and tried before.

To present these two abstract terms, we would like to use the example below to illustrate. Many people do use the tape to remove the wool on clothes. Yet have you ever seen this thing?

This is a wonderful wool cleaner. It cleans the wool just like using a brush. It may be no longer innovative as one of us has bought it for several years. It was bought from a market and its creative function is very attractive. Perhaps the inventor has come across a trouble - 'I DON'T want to use the tape any more. It's so time-consuming! Is there a faster and more convenient way to remove the wool on clothes? ' By the time he made this brush, he was producing an Innovation. I think people who buy it have the same thought as mine that "I'm tired of using this tape". This is, the transformation from Creativity to an Innovation.

To futher illustrate, we are going to include the 3M case which may help your understanding about creativity and innocation. Here is a brief introduction about the author, background of the blog and the viewership.

The author
Jaap Linssen, is not only the founder of Dutchfarmcheese.com but also the manager of Innovation Factory in Amsterdam. His duties include giving suggestions to company about innovative and fresh ideas. Jaap Linssen has started writing blogs since June 2007, mainly about community management, culture, development, enterprise 2.0, innovation, leadership and strategy. What he has mentioned was all about day to day news and well-known companies like IKEA, Nestle and Wiki.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_24/b4038406.htm?chan=search

(*1)

The viewership
This blog is appealing to the existing customers of Innovation Factory. Its customers consist of e-commerce and e-business managers, marketing managers, product managers, IT managers and even CEOs from big companies. All these parties either are interested in or have already undertaken the innovation projects. Nevertheless, individuals or groups who are curious about innovation are also attracted to visit the blog. The blog is created owing to several reasons. Innovation Factory wants both existing and potential customers to see the talents of its people, and, creative ideas and suggestions they have. Also, it desires to promote the idea of innovation and creativity over the world.

The blog
3M is a well-known innovative company. Its employees are allowed to spend a big portion of time on creativity. However the ex-CEO, McNerney, did not share this idea. He started a revolution in 3M: cutting 11% of the employees and 2% of capital expenditure and implementing the Six Sigma program in the company. And now, we have found that 3M’s current CEO, George W. Buckley was facing a dilemma. Although 3M experienced years of rising sales and profits owing to the revolution, its sales of newly developed products have decreased 25% and resulted in inadequate innovation. The challenge that George had to deal with was striving for a balance between innovation and efficiency.

Let's click this link and check how creative and innovative the blog is!

At 3M, A Struggle Between Efficiency And Creativity

In this blog, the author tries to raise the viewers' concern by introducing some information about 3M. As the author does not state his stand point clearly in the blog, the viewers have some room to think about the issue by themselves. Should 3M be concerned investing more on creativity? Or should it keep focusing on maximizing the profits? This issue is really worth discussing.

It is difficult for the author to interfere with the CEO's decision , but he leads us to think deeper. The viewers of this blog will have two different points of view towards this issue. Some people will think that solving the financial problem of the company is more important and hence reducing the expenses seems to be the one and only way to achieve this. This thought is quite normal as many companies use this method to cut the expenses and raise the profits. As these people read this blog, they may not see author is promoting the idea of creativity and innovation.

However, some of the people may hold the opposite viewpoint, which is also the same as ours: Is there a way to balance efficiency and creativity? Efficiency means more revenue can be obtained from the decreased expenses of a company. In order to be efficient, the companies have to put efforts to minimize the expenses. Efficiency cannot be neglected by companies, reflecting the performance of which. So does 3M. This is a rational and reasonable decision.

We believe brands that 3M created make herself to be so successful, but how about if 3M no longer can create those innovative products?

Many people, including three of us, think that Creativity is an irreplaceable asset to 3M. 3M considers itself as a diversified technology company serving innovative products and services (http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/About/3M/) (*2). In the past years, 3M is doing well in this area. Creativity is something unique and different from others. 3M differentiates itself from other competitors by creative ideas and the innovative products. There is no doubt that both innovation and efficiency contributes much to the growth of 3M. The CEO of 3M should not decide to sacrifice one side to fulfill the other side, but to find ways to balance or enhance both. As we have stated before, 3M is a company that builds on Creativity. Reducing creative ideas will remove the base of 3M and lead to its collapse, at least we believe in it. So, we think that 3M can balance the efficiency and creativity depends on the its goal and the economic situation.

Efficiency and Creativity, is it necessary a dilemma? (*3)

We suggest the company can select “creative efficiency” or “efficient creativity”. Although these two terms are similar, the meanings are different. For “creative efficiency”, it means the creativity and innovation are tools, a progress, and a way to make the company more efficient. It is a general approach in some companines which seek efficiency as a goal. For “efficient creativity”, it means finding some methods to speed up their idea, in order to get the development stage faster and then produce it. It is common in some companies which see being creative as a goal.

First, let us define the goal for 3M. As we know that the competitive advantage of the 3M is that they can produce the products in a creative and innovative way. Their products include household appliance, stationery in office, and parts in industry. Damage-free hook is an example of household appliance which brings great convenience to the households. 3M succeeds in the market as it emphasizes the creativity and innovation in their product. In the 3M's website, it is mentioned that “Multiple innovative technology platforms allow 3M to create thousands of products for dozens of diverse markets.” 3M is a creativity-oriented company. So, we think that 3M can balance efficiency and creativity, depending on the goal of company and the economic situation.

As 3M is a creativity-centered company. We think that 3M should implement the “efficient creativity” because the development of new technology is its competitive advantage. Speeding up their ideal development can make them keep on top. However, in the economic depression, we think that the company can adjust their company polices to “creative efficiency” shortly until the economic situation improves. It not only helps to maintain Creativity, but also keep the competitiveness in the market.

References

*1. Brian Hindo. (2007). At 3M, A Struggle Between Efficiency And Creativity. Retrieved 6 September 2009 from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_24/b4038406.htm?chan=search

*2. 3M. (2009). Our Company. Retrieved 6 September 2009 from http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/About/3M/

*3 Unknown. (2007). Efficiency vs. Creativity. Retrieved 6 September 2009 from http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2007/efficiency-vs-creativity/#comments

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Thank you for all the viewers and commentators.

Based on your opinions, we have amended our content above and further elaborated the concepts of "creative efficciency" and "efficient creativity" as follows.

As the ideas of "creative efficiency" and "efficient creativity" raise the interest of many of you, our group is going to illustrate these two concepts in a more understandable way.

These two concepts are actually similar to each others. The point of making them different is the ultimate goal of a company. If the company has a goal to achieve efficiency, then the company should find a creative and innovative way to achieve this goal. That is "Creative Efficiency". If the goal of a company is to be creative and innovative, the company should find ways to support the expenses of creativity and innovation. That is "Efficient Creativity".

These can be elaborated by using marketing concepts. If a company decided to position itself as the cost leader in the industry, taking the lower cost as a competitive advantage over others companies in this industry, the managers have to find ways to reduce the cost of operation in a creative manner. In this case, the company focuses on "Creative Efficiency". If 3M is willing to apply this strategy, the company may outsource the research and development works to the design firms, hence they can focus more on production.

When the situation changes, the company positions itself to be the market leader in the industry. The efforts of research and development, and marketing are now the competitive advantages to the company. The managers should then focus on supporting the R&D and marketing departments. For example, the managers can better allocate resources in the company in order to operate at lower costs and higher efficiency.

To conclude, you may actually consider that creativity and efficiency lie on the two ends of a continuum. If a company focuses on only one side of the continuum, no matter which side it is, the result will be obviously unsuccessful. It is hard to find business with polarized strategy. The position on the continuum determines the success of the company. Which position is the best for survival, or aggressively, takes advantages over others? This really depends on the company strategies, the industry structure, and the environment.