Innovation at the Bottom

My last post made me think: if innovation didn't matter to people at the top, why doesn't it matter to people at the bottom?

Ordinary employees don't care for creativity because they don’t live and work in an environment that encourages a creative lifestyle or work-ethic. Their minds are tuned to work, as the master wishes.

So, if master believes in creativity, things can change. The trick for the master is how to manage creativity in an office environment.

I am beginning to believe that every business has a creative side, whatever it sells or makes. It’s just waiting to be tapped. It flourishes, as Tom notes, only when the environment spawns a culture to encourage it. The masters should create systems that encourage the employees to embrace the realities of everyday situations through risk-taking and creative thought. The systems should build into itself a tolerance for occasional failure and an appetite for simple discoveries. These systems can help every employee fight the barriers to innovation: company's and employee's mindsets, how people perceive and use products/services, rituals/superstitions of a culture etc.

I think I am repeating myself. But, so is Tom... he is giving so many examples of innovation that I am beginning to feel sick as a designer. What have I done till now in twenty five years of my I-want-to-be-creative-and-useful life. When will I actually live one? What am I waiting for?

Forget it. The point is straight: Be Creative, and let people around you Be too. Business or no-Business.