A creative idea is a original thought. It would qualify as innovative if it is put into action and used to create some value. For example I have an original thought that cars should be made to use water as fuel. It becomes innovative once I implement the idea and start designing the car.
From my experience in the design industry, I believe that a creative idea is truly innovative if it encompasses these key aspects:
- Novelty: It should present a new or significantly improved concept or approach.
- Feasibility: The idea must be practically achievable, not just theoretically interesting.
- Value Creation: It should offer clear value, whether that's economic, efficiency, environmental, social, or in advancing knowledge.
- Usability or Applicability: The idea needs to be practical and usable in real-world scenarios, effectively meeting the needs of its users.
- Scalability: There should be potential for the idea to be scaled up or adapted for broader applications, showing its viability over time.
- Problem-Solving: True innovation often stems from a novel way of addressing specific challenges or needs.
- Sustainability: The idea should be sustainable in the long term, considering all resources and environmental, cultural, and societal impacts.
- Impact: Ultimately, the impact of the idea is a crucial measure – how it influences individuals, industries, or societies.
In my field, it's not just the creation of something new that matters, but how it is applied and the difference it makes.
As Indika Wettasinghe says. Generally, creativity is defined as something that is novel (original) and appropriate or useful. However, it can be problematic to include values like usefulness in the definition since it means that something novel might first become creative long after the fact when the idea becomes useful. I subscribe to Weisberg's definition where something is creative if it is novel and created with intent. This definition also helps distinguish between creativity, design and innovation in that creative ideas through a design process are made useful and then utilized (see, for example, Weisberg, R. W. (2009) "On 'out-of-the-box' thinking in creativity" in Markman, A. B., & Wood, K. L. (2009) "Book Tools for Innovation
" pp. 23-47). "Utilized" is in this context not only about being used but also requires some level of diffusion since most innovations are measured based on their impact and not only their novelty or usefulness.- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Mathematics
- Algebra
- Matrix