For a wide variety of reasons, it’s very difficult to fully realize the ideas and visions you develop for projects that come your way.  Success and “failure” (read “experience”) go hand-in-hand when in comes to entrepreneurial initiatives.  But that’s the reward, having the opportunity to break new ground, make a difference and push things forward.  I always try to take on new ventures that are a conceptual and experiential stretch (never do tomorrow what you did yesterday!) and where there’s an opportunity to create and implement emerging ideas and novel solutions.

Developing Creativity

True, some folks appear to have much higher levels of creative output than the rest of us, but creativity is something you can learn and develop though practice. Like any skill, once you understand the personal dynamics of the way you best organize your thought processes and understand the principles of creative problem solving, you can apply these practices in every phase of your personal and professional development.  

Like physical exercise or musical talent it takes time to develop the ability and skills to perform at a high level, but willingness to take risks and to overcome the blocks that you experience (or others may cause) are all that stand in the way to increasing your creative ability.  

With the vast resources of the Internet, the high bandwidth of connectivity through smart phones, tablets and other personal communications technologies plus access to an incredibly diverse range of knowledge, there has never been a more important time to develop creative skills that result in ideas and products that are both original and valuable (the two essential conditions for creative productivity).

Future Learning Environments

Nobody can accurately predict the future. What skills each of us will need and in what particular combination will depend on factors both within our control and outside of it.  Technology and production methods will continue to evolve quickly.  Global competition will bring major, innovative challenges and push conceptual boundaries.  Building individualized capabilities that are creative, flexible and transformative combined with in-depth abilities in specific areas may be the best preparation.  To make this happen in institutions, a revolution in formal training methods is long overdue.

Creative transformation is a result of the dynamic interplay between intense preparation, sustained commitment and hard work, environmental support (and sometimes pressure), a passion to succeed, a positive response to opportunity, openness to new ideas and an overriding desire to evolve and to grow.           

Let me know if you find these comments useful..........