Unleashing Creativity: The Art of Keeping Your Ideas OPEN and Flowing

Openness is not just a practice, but a more enlightened modus operandi – an ideology – for creators that can help you face the unexpected, embrace possibility, and lead you to more gracefully navigate the perilous and unpredictable landscape of invention, innovation and change. In this playful tour of what it means to be open, we’ll consider ways to channel the creative energy through your brain and body, and to ensure that you remain refreshed, defiant and unbound.

Embrace the Culture of OPEN Curiosity

Learning to Ask 'What If?'

Creativity requires curiosity, and engaging in a spirit of learning and discovery can set off creative sparks. For a start, try to question convention. How about asking the question ‘What if?’ What if you were to see your project differently, from another point of view? What if the things you thought you couldn’t do or didn’t have weren’t problems at all? Maintaining your curiosity helps you become more creative.

The Power of OPEN Collaboration

Building Bridges, Not Walls

Collaboration is key to innovation; opening up to other people’s different views is like a crucible, fuelling the creative fire that helps you arrive at a place where the sum of individual parts is greater than the whole. Open collaboration is about actively encouraging diverse views and constructive criticism, valuing others’ suggestions, and appreciating the many different ways in which they can make a substantive contribution to the challenge at hand. The result is not only a faster rate of problem-solving, but also an all-important creative journey that’s more fun and richer overall.

OPEN to Change: Adapting and Evolving

The Art of Being Fluid

Change is the only constant in life, and embracing change is how we grow – opening up our minds to new ways of thinking, new technologies, and new strategies to fit the conditions of the marketplace. The ability to flow gracefully and fluidly through changes that may otherwise disrupt our progress is one of the best skills you can possess, turning obstacles into stepping stones that propel you toward your next milestone.

Harnessing the Power of OPEN Feedback

Constructive Criticism as a Growth Engine

When feedback is delivered respectfully, especially if it begins with a positive observation, it can be invaluable – as long as the recipient receives it in an open frame of mind. The little things can add up, so good ideas should be nurtured in an environment where feedback is welcomed – not feared – and continuous learning, and improvement encouraged. Open feedback, which is constructive and aimed towards improving the project or idea being discussed, not destroying it, should be warmly welcomed.

The OPEN Mindset: Cultivating an Attitude of Possibility

Embracing the Unknown with Confidence

Adopting an open mindset is a matter of viewing the unknown, not as a closed door, but as a frontier that is there to be seen. It is about having a sense of confidence that whatever the challenge, you will find a way to overcome it. This embracing of challenges encourages experimentation, and therefore, is at the core of the creative process. Just as importantly, adopting an open mindset will make you more likely to embrace and engage with the risks that necessarily go hand in hand with the creative process.

OPEN Tools and Resources: Amplifying Your Creative Endeavor

Leveraging Technology and Information

Alongside shared assets, open also means taking advantage of the resources, the digital tools and infrastructures, and the networks of skills and people available to you right now. All these things can facilitate and augment the creative process. In a time that invites and encourages sharing, these tools can amplify your own practice, but they also make a contribution to a commons of skills and resources and ideas that is available to us all.

The Essence of OPEN

But it is also a lifestyle, an attitude to life, and a creative practice that can make the journey more fruitful, and more enjoyable, regardless of what kind of artist you are. For open communication is a powerful asset, as is the facility to embrace change. And for anyone who values the communal wisdom of shared, open resources, this principle can unlock doors you didn’t even know were there. And, just as importantly, when the rollercoaster of innovation takes its plunge, keeping the channels of creativity open will help us navigate the descent and enable us to ride out the storm, whatever that might be, until the tracks level out once again.

In keeping open, we embrace the possibility within us and around us – an open-ended future full of possibility. Let’s commit to keeping our minds, our collaborations and our spirits open to the unknown. The art of keeping ideas open is really the art of possibility.