The Future Needs Creativity

Creativity has always been highly valued in many different societies. Greek and Egyptian civilisations were among those with some of the most creative engineering (As well as their art still being displayed in museums today). It’s the skill of the future but it isn’t always about being an artist, graphic designer, writer or painter. It’s evolving past crafts and branching out into problem solving with relevance and novelty. CEOs will need to be creative when leading a team. Tourism needs to have imaginative marketing and services. Individuals with initiative will bring fresh ideas to businesses. It doesn’t always have to be for your boss though. At times creativity can empower you to become an entrepreneur and start your own job. From this these creators can make new businesses and invent new markets. If this is such a valuable skill then why does it seem the word “creativity” has become meaningless? It might be because creativity is linked to emotion and being too emotional is often seen as a sign of instability, which isn’t a positive quality to have when managing a team. Different industries are going through transformations. Companies that are hiring are widening their gaze to different skills. The biggest investment right now is cloud technology. This may seem like a far stretch from creativity? However the two actually go hand in hand.

There are benefits and disadvantages to this new world of tech. When it comes to creativity, computers lack the talent. They are great at optimising, but not so great at goal setting. Or even using common sense. They lack the vision for the future. Computers are taking more and more jobs by replacing people whose skills are no longer considered skills. Having a basic computer knowledge is no longer a valued skill and can be replaced with jobs that are automated. Detail oriented writers are being replaced by spellcheck. In short, machines are just better at the job. They have advantages that humans do not; optical part sorting, automated quality control, failure detection, and improved productivity and efficiency. Still, with this redundancy of workers technology is creating more jobs for people. We have apps for everything now and don’t even have to leave the house to get food, watch a movie or talk to a friend. Looking at these advances it’s clear to see we have redefined the way we live and communicate. Creative technology is helping us to be more connected.

Robots cannot replace creative jobs though. You will always have artisan bakers and confectioners. Florists and hairdressers thrive working in an immersive creative environment. The same can be said for technology and financial jobs. Creativity is an investment worth strengthening. How do we encourage creativity? Well people are the most creative in an environment where individual ability is recognised. By bosses allowing creativity to flourish they are giving themselves better workers. The essence of invention is what fuels our economy, new and better ideas are born bringing jobs to those who were cast aside by automated machines. So isn’t it time we adapt and encourage creativity?