"Creativity" is too large a word and "design" is too small a word.

That's my one-sentence summary of the keynote speech given by Dr. Edward De Bono a couple of weeks ago at the annual conference of the American Creativity Association. I was privileged to attend this speech, and I've been reading a lot of De Bono lately too.

For De Bono, "creativity" is not a focused enough word. He prefers "idea change," which he says better captures the "skill in thinking" aspectof creativity, as opposed to considering creativity as a gift or something that manifests itself only in certain circumstances.

"Design" is too small a word for De Bono because he considers "design" as more than just putting together visual elements. He uses the word "design" to describe the process of deliberately putting together new ideas in order to deliver value.

The ideas put forth in De Bono's speech can mostly be found in his book Serious Creativity, which is one of my favorites.

Now that innovation is a corporate hot topic, I predict that DeBono's focused approach to creativity will gain more popularity. Most of the more touchy-feely (oops, I mean right-brained!) approaches to creativity and innovation aren't well suited to corporations -- I can attest to that! We've had clients who, even though they understand they originally hired us to bring them new ideas, greet every idea put forth with "that won't happen here." It's daunting. And our approach is already pretty serious and process-oriented.