Creativity Expert Exchange @ Buffalo State, What a treat! What a trigger for ethics

It’s great to go to a conference hosted by the International Center for Studies in Creativity. These are folks who know what it takes to enliven, engage, and encourage creativity and creative thinking.

The event is a home-coming for me because the ICSC is my alma mater, and as well as extending a welcome to alumni and other creativity experts, it also provided tremendous refreshment in thought and connection making.

Here’s what I learned and relearned at this year’s Creativity Expert Exchange (CEE).

• The spread of ICSC’s discipline is extending into China in a variety of ways
• Online collaborative environments for teaching creativity-thinking related courses is working
• Frameworks for using technology to teach students about creativity is being explored
• Educational cultures at schools are being transformed so that students and teachers leverage creativity thinking to deepen learning and vary learning experiences
• People are curious to know what people do with a degree in creativity
• Research is being conducted to see if there’s anything behind the assertion that undergraduate students who take creative studies courses are more likely to graduate than are those who do not
• Modeling how children explore and learn provides adults with insights into expanding expectations and understanding of the creativity process overall
• ICSC students, faculty and alum are producing meaningful products in creative process, experience and knowledge for students, parents and teachers that are showing remarkable positive effect
• We are leaving linear thinking behind and moving forward with relational learning and decision-making
• Interpersonal ‘frequencies’ that is, the energy patterns of people, can influence the nature of their interactions and decisions
• It’s great to be in an environment in which people know that questions are welcome, new ideas are welcome, and feedback for actions is the norm

One topic  which wasn’t on the agenda, though was discussed during meals and breaks was that of professional ethics in the creativity field.  One morning I woke up with this upsetting bumper sticker image in my brain, “Just because I am a creativity professional doesn’t mean I’m ethical.”  I kind of wish it were true though – that creativity professionals could be trusted for their practice.

Events such as these where creativity professionals gather trigger my wonder about the growth of the creativity field

• what can people expect from creativity professionals, experts, and practitioners?
• is it important to have a consistent understanding of their roles, responsibilities, scope, behaviors and deliverables?

Do you think it’s important?  Do you feel that every creativity professional should share the same basic knowledge and fundamental practice?  Accountants, for example, all know about balance sheets; engineers, about the laws of physics, teachers know about pedagogy. Regardless of the school one attends, there are certain ‘professional’ standard courses people take in their own discipline.  I’m not sure if that exists in the creativity field, do you?

• What do you suppose all creativity professionals would know of they all shared a disciplinary core?
• What assumptions do you suppose they all might operate from?
• What do you suppose their motto or code might be?