Reflecting on Creativity

A quote forwarded from my Honours program director. Wise and thought provoking words from the founder of Apple (i.e.; the person who gave creative geeky type people cool laptops and gadgets to play with. Oh and allowing people to go deaf younger.. =D)

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people have.

Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. They don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions, without a broad perspective on the problem.

The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better designs we will have.”
- Steve Jobs