London’s Mayor outlines his Culture Metropolis plan. PSFK has the quick hits of the plan (original here). I’d like to see all cities should put this paragraph about creativity and innovation in their plans.

The history of London shows that investment in ideas pays off in the long-term, not just for the city, or the country, but the entire world. This investment comes from a mixture of private and public sources, and we need both to continue. We should never be in a position where Londoners fear that it is too costly to have creative ideas. It is these ideas that bring prosperity, and this is not a time to be lowering our ambitions. London’s arts and cultural organisations already do a great job at fundraising, but they can’t be expected to defy the laws of economic gravity in a prolonged downturn and in the face of necessary austerity measures.  Creative thinking and innovation is vitally important to the health and wealth of this great city and that is exactly why I am advocating through my Cultural Strategy that continued support and investment in the creative economy is crucial to sustaining the wellbeing of London and the nation.

scenius – the unusual pockets of group creativity and invention that emerge in certain intellectual or artistic scenes

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative persuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

—Albert Einstein 

Digital strategy seeks to bridge the gaps between technology, the creative idea, the target as user, business objectives and the brand – and brings grounded creativity to technology

Great definition of digital strategy (a/k/a what I do).

“Being bored is a precious thing, a state of mind we should pursue. Once boredom sets in, our minds begin to wander, looking for something exciting, something interesting to land on. And that’s where creativity arises.

My best ideas come to me when I am unproductive. When I am running but not listening to my iPod. When I am sitting, doing nothing, waiting for someone. When I am lying in bed as my mind wanders before falling to sleep. These “wasted” moments, moments not filled with anything in particular, are vital.

They are the moments in which we, often unconsciously, organize our minds, make sense of our lives, and connect the dots. They’re the moments in which we talk to ourselves. And listen.

To lose those moments, to replace them with tasks and efficiency, is a mistake. What’s worse is that we don’t just lose them. We actively throw them away.”

Peter Bregman – “Why I returned my iPad”. Now, if only Apple/AT&T hadn’t effed up my iPhone 4 ordering process I’d own an iPhone and an iPad. IF ONLY.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. 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 they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So 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 design we will have.

- Steve Jobs (via teendrama)

I’m not sure that this is my advice for overcoming creativity blocks, but I do think that this is great advise in general. Read everything.

Lots of reading and lots of sketching. The reading part is a long-term strategy: constantly consuming ideas, influences, details, angles, metaphors, symbols, etc. and storing them in the back of your brain so that later on — sometimes much later on — you have a rich catalog of starting points to draw upon. (…)

Kanye West had some great thoughts to share on creativity.

There’s no such thing as fact anymore, only opinion. The closest thing we have to fact is “common opinion”. Everything is an opinion. The way you dress is an expression of your opinion. Your religious beliefs are your opinion. The music you turn up loud is your opinion. For most people it’s easier to just agree. For me the hardest thing is to ‘just’ agree and that is what sparks creativity, the feeling that something can be better, the feeling that something’s missing. The feeling that something’s needed.