Technology, Creativity and Innovation are Bound Together

Interesting article from Marketing Week (https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/03/02/creative-england-innovations-department-buggered).

Title aside, on which I couldn’t possibly comment, the sentiment resonated with me. 

I’ve always believed in collaboration because separating the whole idea of innovation from a business removes innovation from a wider set of skills without which may not make the idea viable. Of course, not everyone will agree with this article as it comes from a marketing perspective so to a certain extent is skewed but I believe it is still valid in that it may challenge some peoples’ opinion and perceptions.

“Technology, creativity, innovation and data are “all bound together” in reality, so any attempt to split them out and treat them independently will be detrimental to a business”.

Of course, there is an argument that those companies that have Innovation Departments should be encouraging creativity and innovation internally. However, at the very least by having such departments does motivate and help nurture innovations from outside of the organization and that by using corporate expertise and resources encourages success and further innovation. It also makes sense that companies work with and find new innovators rather than reinventing the wheel (so to speak).

From my experience in corporate life, most companies do encourage innovation internally as well, simply because being able to access peoples’ experience from a real-life perspective is invaluable as business and technical issues are often uncovered and solutions found and implemented.

There is by and large a need for both approaches and while people don’t always have the time or like me, ability to think in a creative way and not all companies encourage inventive thinking. Ultimately  company culture must encourage this line of thinking and this is not always possible as pressure is on to meet targets and company goals and this I’m afraid is often forgotten.