[view poster at full size]

"Creativity" Examples

One way creativity happens is when someone makes a connection between two things that were never connected before. Velcro was created when the barbs on a sticker burr stimulated an idea for creating a new closure mechanism.

A similar thing happened recently at Sodexho Services, the largest provider of outsourced food and facilities management in North America. The manager of a corporate cafeteria happened to notice the chairman of the company standing in a long check-out line. He was determined to find a faster way for people to pay for their lunches. On his way home he passed through a highway toll booth and suddenly a connection was born. How could he let people pre-pay for their lunch and completely avoid the check out line? This connection led to "E-Z-Pass," a pre-pay process that is getting rave reviews from customers.

At the acrobatic performance company, Cirque du Soleil, there is a sense of ultimate creativity. Every act is a work of collaborative design between the artists and director and coaches, every piece of music is created anew for each act, and every costume is conceived and individually crafted from scratch. With every new show, they create a new masterpiece beginning with a clean slate-no one's creativity is saddled with hand-me-downs or left-overs from the past.

[back] [next example]