Collective creativity

In the behavioral sciences, collective creativity, in analogy to collective intelligence, is the shared human ability to generate new ideas and solutions together in a creative process. It occurs when social interactions lead to new interpretations and discoveries which individual thinking could not have generated. ^[1][2]

In a business context, enterprises try to tap the combined creativity of their employees and how this creativity can be managed and tapped so as to create innovation.^[3][4][5]

When many of us think about innovation ...we think about an Einstein having an 'Aha!' moment. But we all know that's a myth. Innovation is not about solo genius, it's about collective genius

— Linda Hill^[5]

A more natural fostering environment for collective creativity, however, can be found in the sciences, arts and literature where a certain degree of unmanaged self-organization can take place.^[6] Musical collective improvisation is an outstanding exemplification of artistic collective on-the-spot creation. Academic conferences can be breeding grounds for (spontaneous) development of new scientific ideas.

Several components have been identified as the basis of collective creativity, with diversity (in perspectives, cultures, etc.) from and thus even controversial ideas among the contributing individuals being one of the most prominent ones.^[2][6]

A similar concept can be found in distributed creativity that emphasizes the potential "scatteredness" of the contributing individuals.

Social collaboration as a collective creative processes has been found to thrive on the "edge of chaos".^[7]

See also

• Innovation management – Systematic planning, management and control of innovation in organizations
• Co-creation – Product or service design process
• Computational creativity – Multidisciplinary endeavour
• Solidarity – Unity of feeling or action on a common interest