Creative Thinking

By Ty Young 

I believe the most interesting and fun thing about creativity and problem solving is that there is and always will be a need for it. Even when we solve our problems or come up with our best idea yet, the work is never done. Just as time continues to wait for no one, things continue to constantly change. The famous phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is irrelevant in my opinion.Even if something is working perfectly and is also satisfying to the eye, if it can be better, I believe the effort to make it better should be made.

As for me personally, I need creative thinking and problem solving for not just my career path and interests but for my personal interests as well. Especially creative thinking so I can push my writing and continue to grow as such. In communications, no matter who you are working for or with and no matter what area of communications, creativity and innovation is always welcomed and needed. Mass communications, journalism, print or broadcast, public relations, advertising, and visual communications all need people to think in new ways to convey the information and news they are trying to get out to the people. Trends and pop culture in general are constantly changing. What's popular this week might not be so popular in a month or so. It is up to journalist and communications team to figure out how to connect pop culture and trends with the information that they are trying to give to the people whether it is a significant piece of information that a lot of the public might want to know or it is a comedic advertising a new food special at a restaurant or fast food place.

I don’t believe that you can just give someone creativity but you can introduce a new way of thinking. Some people, like me, overthink and sometimes the most obvious seems like the most wrong way to go about something. When someone says their idea out loud, it is sometimes the first thing that one person came up with but was too ashamed to say aloud for fear of being rejected or embarrassed. We tell people to think about what is something that they believe should be invented or innovated for the benefit of them and how that very same thing could also be fort he betterment of the environment. I know since starting my education in communications, I tend to think about what message am I or are we trying to get out and also what seems to be popular and trending nowadays. Maybe we can use a famous phrase and make a pun out of it to get people to pay attention to our commercial or billboard.

One of the more fascinating things about creativity and problem solving is how different things such as environments or activities stimulate different people in different ways. Some people love to operate where there is a lot of buzz from the public and the community around them while others might love the solitude of their own home to think or just simply the quietness of a library or an educational building after the students and faculty have gone home. Sometimes it can be even more complex than that. For me personally, the environment I want to study or work in really depends on my mood as well as what exactly I need to work on. Not to mention that my schedule and the amount of free time I do or do not have also dictates how or when I can get a chance to think and create. Some people do better when they have one person or a group of people that they can bounce their ideas off of and collaborate to come to an even better solution. Some people like working and hitting all the bases of creativity and problem solving themselves and then present their findings and conclusions to their peers or partners and let it go from there.

Finally, one thing that I came to conclude is that between creativity and problem solving,
one of those concepts can not really have a wrong answer in it while the other one technically can. You can’t just question someone's creativity and how they do things or go about their activities when it comes to art and creation but when it comes to solving a problem, some ideas are better than others and some ideas might not even be as much of assistance.

In conclusion, since starting this course, so many revelations, a lot that I have included in
this paper, have come to me. As well as a lot of different ways to think. These are definitely
concepts that I can and do plan to incorporate into my everyday thinking especially when I’m
working on a personal project, doing work for an organization that I am a part of, or am simply just trying to complete a complex or difficult assignment for a class. Creativity and problem solving doesn't just belong in just one area of life or in just one occupation.