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No creative conference is ever complete without the countless hours of debate on the nature of the C word.
There are always a few in the crowd who are more interested in creative solutions for problems within their network. Those few are usually the least vocal.
I once heard of one of those less involved in the “creative” debates making a stand. “You have been discussing the word creative for two days now and you’re going for a third” he said. “Let’s try a 5-minute conversation without using the word creative.”
What followed was a dumbfounded silence. It was as if he had unplugged the attendants’ power supply. “What we should look at here is the destructive impact this word has on our industry;” he continued. “The misuse of the word creative does more damage to creativity than anything else.”
I have to admit that the argument of our friend does have merit. Clients use the word to practice their ego, creative heads use it to defend their status, graphics people use it to hide their lack of anything good to add to the value of work, management uses it to justify the failure of business, and networks use it to justify their policies in some of their branches. Not a blanket judgment of course. But let’s admit it, this does happen.
In the MENA region, the word “creative” is still egotistical and has nothing to do with interpreting complex business objectives to popular language or having cultured insights. It’s still viewed as the whorish property of art inclined people and not something to be practiced in all realms of work and production in any industry.
By enforcing dictatorial creativity to supposedly expand horizons and free the mind, we managed to confine our view of the world to that of a pin hole in a large empty plain waiting to be filled by something of significance.
