#creativity

#creativity

For years, I tied my identity to productivity. My self-worth hinged on how much I could accomplish in a day, how many boxes I could check. The busier I was, the more valuable I believed myself to be. But that constant need to perform left me mentally and emotionally drained, disconnected not only from others but from myself. The shift didn't happen overnight. There wasn't a single moment of clarity, but rather a quiet unraveling of old habits and a tentative embrace of new rhythms.

This article very nearly didn't exist. For several weeks, it made a conspicuous effort not to. It began, or rather did not begin, when I was invited to pitch a second article for Big Think about virtually any topic in neuroscience. Triumph. I had freedom and unlimited time. What could be easier? A lot, it turns out. Weeks went by, and I did not write. My inbox began to fill with cheerful nudges from Stephen, my editor. Still keen to write something?

'If you don't speak, someone will speak on your behalf.' It's a maxim that Tim Delaney holds close and one that I hear regularly from him. It is, naturally, a point well made. All brands should aim to be part of 'the conversation'. But in today's fragmented media landscape, simply speaking up is not enough to guarantee being heard. So, what's your strategy to get heard?

Lauren Groff: If you want to write something that's going to affect people emotionally, you have to do it emotionally. Nick White: And it has to cost you more than the time you're spending writing. It pushes me to my emotional and intellectual capabilities. I feel like when something is working it is because all cylinders are firing, and I am working at the very bleeding edge of what I am capable of.

It's not AI. It's not personalization. It's creativity. More specifically, it's emotional creativity executed consistently over time. The new research, released by digital advertising company System1 and Effie, evaluated over 1,200 campaign outcomes, totaling $139 billion worth of marketing spend, and ad data from over 200,000 people, from challenger brands to massive organizations. And it revealed that many companies have it backwards, ranking targeting as their number one priority when in actuality it only delivers a 1.1x profit multiplier, on average.

I mean literal play. The kind that is open-ended, imaginative, and unconcerned with outcomes. In my decades as a play designer and educator, I've watched executives, engineers, and designers from companies like Google, Nike, and Lego light up when they are given permission to play again. Not because they suddenly "learned" to be creative-but because they remembered they already are.

A cartographer, a composer, an archaeologist, a neurobiologist and an astrophysicist are among this year's MacArthur Fellows, one of the most prestigious cash awards given to "extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential," according to the MacArthur Foundation. Each Fellow will receive a no-strings attached award of $800,000. So how do you get one of these so-called "genius grants"'? You need to be nominated and vetted. It's a selection process that takes "many months and sometimes years," said Marlies Carruth, director of the MacArthur Fellows Program.

The deeper issue is uniformity of thought. These systems can test your personality with startling accuracy. Combined with your chat history and prompts, the model nudges you into particular 'basins of attraction.' You think you've had an original idea, but you haven't. The model blends and regurgitates existing material. Multiply that across millions of users and intellectual diversity collapses. John Stuart Mill argued that diversity of opinion sustains democracy. If AI funnels us all into the same conceptual pathways, we lose that.

A 2022 study demonstrated that viewing an environment with natural elements stimulates a flexible imagination. The authors noted that nature allows our minds to temporarily detach from daily states, such as moments when we are in a daze or daydreaming, to obtain "flashes of inspiration." They provided evidence demonstrating that more unique and diverse creative ideas become possible when opinions are flexible, as may occur when we are in natural environments.

Corporate events should focus on connection and fun, appealing to a diverse range of interests. With creativity, they can energize and inspire employees. Giving employees to showcase their inner capabilities easily. Such events are also crucial in reducing stress among employees. Here are 20 ideas for corporate events that can boost; Team morale, Inspire creativity, and Strengthen your business culture.

A whopping 53 percent of just over 5,000 US adults polled in June think that AI will "worsen people's ability to think creatively." Fifty percent say AI will deteriorate our ability to form meaningful relationships, while only five percent believe the reverse. While 29 percent of respondents said they believe AI will make people better problem-solvers, 38 percent said it could worsen our ability to solve problems.

TV is no longer passive. With connected TV (CTV), streaming platforms, and shoppable formats, the medium has become both more complex and more creatively fertile. What was once one-way communication is now a two-way relationship where audiences consume, interact, evaluate, and even purchase in real time. Understanding the audience behind the screen Linear TV campaigns were predictable and measured by reach.

Fletcher is a rare hybrid: trained as both a neuroscientist and a professor of literature, he teaches at Ohio State's Project Narrative, the world's leading academic center for the study of story. His previous titles - Wonderworks and Storythinking - earned him a reputation as a boundary-breaking thinker who blends science, history, and art to explain why stories matter and how they shape human creativity.

Marketers' days are still filled with content creation, switching between far too many tools and balancing software and human partnerships, but AI has now entered the chat. Marketers charged with driving growth now spend a significant amount of time prompting, training, and cajoling artificial intelligence. There have been breakthroughs and AI is starting to fulfill on the long-awaited promise of turning loyal marketers into department heroes.

While 2023 research from Visier demonstrated that 83% of workers admit to " productivity theater"-performing busy work that creates the appearance of output without meaningful results-that same year, the World Economic Forum declared creativity to be the second most critical skill for our workforce by 2027. The collision of these realities signals a fundamental shift that smart organizations can no longer ignore.

If you want the creative process to work, you must accept that it is messy. Instead of inching your way, step by step, from data to solution in a logical progression, it's best to generate a chaotic array of possibilities and test them out on the problem until something clicks. Jump to conclusions without worrying about how you cross the intervening gap.

Sam sits in his noisy apartment, surrounded by the distractions of his digital life. His research is scattered across a dozen tabs. He writes a sentence, then deletes it. Doubt creeps in: "Is this the right way to start?" Before long, he's scrolling through social media, half-heartedly checking his email, and staring at his chaotic desk-a mirror of his cluttered mind. After two hours, he has little to show for it but frustration and dread.

I'm an introvert. Actually, I'm one of those extroverted introverts. Once I force myself to get out there and talk with people, I really enjoy it. But the thought of it beforehand can be overwhelming. I also consider myself a creative person. I do a lot of wondering and mulling and some occasional stewing and brewing and dwelling. It's solitary and sometimes lonely up there inside my head.

"In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself."