The other day, Lapid Leaders Africa requested me to share my knowledge, wisdom and experiences with a community of the next generation of African leaders, as pertained to the Creative Industry. It got me thinking…
What comes to mind when you hear the words “creative thinking”? What about “innovation”? Both Creativity and Innovation appear as two of our four company core values, making the words very dear to us.
M-pesa revolutionized the way we handle money, send money, bank, and even make payments. McDonalds introduced the concept of fast food, and later somewhat turned the franchise into a real estate empire by starting to own the land on which the franchises operate on. Innovative right? The story is very interestingly expressed in the movie: The Founder (watch trailer here).
The dictionary defines Creativity as the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. It is characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.
Creative thinking, on the other hand, is a way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective that suggests unorthodox solutions (which may look unsettling at first).
Innovation generally refers to making changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products. For businesses, this could mean implementing new ideas, creating dynamic products or improving your existing services.
In business, innovation is a 3 step process:
- Discover, (a problem)
- Imagine (a solution) and
- Create – develop ideas, and refine them into useful forms, and to use them to earn profits, increase efficiency, and/or reduce costs. (Execute/Test/Iterate)
At Mesozi, we reimagine how businesses go about their business processes and create technology-driven solutions for them through solutions such as MarketForce™. At Cloud 9 Africa, we are revolutionizing the way people find fun things to do.
Back to our core values: One, Impact & Innovation is about creating change(positive) in the world; and two, Creativity is about thinking different, inspiring, and being inspired. We realize that creative thinking and innovation will make us more likely to succeed because it gives us a competitive advantage in the fast-changing and highly competitive environment in which we operate.
I urge you to, in your own way, innovate! Be one of the first to introduce into reality, something better than before; something that opens up a new era for others.
teshmbaabu 