Sunday, September 28, 2014

Creativity is so Disruptive

Creators and innovators build their own roads while they are traveling them. Creativity can be nurtured but not taught.

As Robinson points out in his famed TED talk, Schools Kill Creativity, the end product that universities produce is university professors. To get to be a professor you need to get A's on your academic journey. This means you have to parrot what you have been taught. Original thought rarely gets an A grade because it doesn't fit the norm.

There is reason that Jobs, Gates, Ellison and Zuckerburg left university before graduating, and that is that the university system rewards conformity, not creativity. They got frustrated by the sausage factory of conduit based education.

Being creative brings a newness that challenges the status quo. It's hard for professors when their students have thought patterns and ways of thinking different from the prevalent educational dogma. How do you mark the work of Jobs, Gates, Ellison and Zuckerburg when you don't understand what they are saying.

The world is a better place because these original thinkers bucked the trend and struck out on their own.