Creative Generalists excel in five core areas, they are:
• Wander & Wonder - finding possibility
• Synthesize & Summarize - presenting information
• Link & Leap - generating ideas
• Mix & Match - connecting people
• Experience & Empathize - understanding worldview
Wander & Wonder
Possibility
Entertain curiosity and ask unasked questions.
Generalism comes in especially useful at the early campaign planning stages that form the foundation on which highly talented (and increasingly outsourced) designers, writers, photographers, directors and technicians later apply their refined skills. It’s generalists who plant the conceptual seeds and it’s often not only the quality but also the breadth of their upfront thinking that determines the ultimate success of a campaign.
Synthesize & Summarize
Information
Connect the dots and present complex information succinctly.
Diversity generates economic expansion. We have an environment teeming with differentiations and obscure inspirations by way of hyperinnovation, culture blur, and enhanced communications. Organizations have more points of inspiration, not only as a result of their own activities but also of others’ from every industry all over the world. All of these inspirations simply need to be harvested and formulated into generalities that can then lead to further developments. Simply put, organizations receptive to these by way of a generalist approach that merges disparate fragments win.
Link & Leap
Ideas
Take a simple insight and find a transcending application.
Perhaps the most obvious of generalist characteristics is the connect-the-dots serendipity-searching that comes from linking disparate subjects together. Such cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural knitting is core to moving from incremental innovation to transcending ideation. Generalists leverage the existing wealth of specialist insight and initiative to find ideas that remarkably overcome intellectual dead-ends, open up whole new avenues of opportunity, and even devastatingly leapfrog competitors.
Mix & Match
People
Make worlds collide and harness collaborative energies.
As important as possibility, information, and ideas are, they are all for naught without real people working together to discover and explore such new territory. And where would such introduction and cooperation be without the agent, the broker, the networker, and the matchmaker? This, perhaps the most human and age-old aspect of generalism, is paradoxically also the part that’s been so successfully expanded by new technology – particularly online applications.
The successful and productive mixing and matching of people will always require a human touch, design. As incredibly useful as social networking tools are, they are limited because they are used voluntarily and by the self-aware. There are many instances where organizations are not, in their processes, motivated to function horizontally or outside of their traditional bounds, and there are many talented individuals locked in the tunnel vision of their pursuits, blindly unaware that collaboration could be the best move they make.
Experience & Empathize
Worldview
Understand humanity and life’s many interrelationships.
We can tip-toe forward inch-by-inch with our head down in steadfast concentration and call it movement, but we cannot call it progress until we lift our head, run our eyes across the horizon and understand not only where we stand but also where we are going and why. To do this requires insight, which is often gained by walking a mile in someone else’s shoes and looking at things from another vantage point.
http://creativegeneralist.blogspot.de/2008/02/what-specifically-do-generalists-do.html
• Wander & Wonder - finding possibility
• Synthesize & Summarize - presenting information
• Link & Leap - generating ideas
• Mix & Match - connecting people
• Experience & Empathize - understanding worldview
Wander & Wonder
Possibility
Entertain curiosity and ask unasked questions.
Generalism comes in especially useful at the early campaign planning stages that form the foundation on which highly talented (and increasingly outsourced) designers, writers, photographers, directors and technicians later apply their refined skills. It’s generalists who plant the conceptual seeds and it’s often not only the quality but also the breadth of their upfront thinking that determines the ultimate success of a campaign.
Synthesize & Summarize
Information
Connect the dots and present complex information succinctly.
Diversity generates economic expansion. We have an environment teeming with differentiations and obscure inspirations by way of hyperinnovation, culture blur, and enhanced communications. Organizations have more points of inspiration, not only as a result of their own activities but also of others’ from every industry all over the world. All of these inspirations simply need to be harvested and formulated into generalities that can then lead to further developments. Simply put, organizations receptive to these by way of a generalist approach that merges disparate fragments win.
Link & Leap
Ideas
Take a simple insight and find a transcending application.
Perhaps the most obvious of generalist characteristics is the connect-the-dots serendipity-searching that comes from linking disparate subjects together. Such cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural knitting is core to moving from incremental innovation to transcending ideation. Generalists leverage the existing wealth of specialist insight and initiative to find ideas that remarkably overcome intellectual dead-ends, open up whole new avenues of opportunity, and even devastatingly leapfrog competitors.
Mix & Match
People
Make worlds collide and harness collaborative energies.
As important as possibility, information, and ideas are, they are all for naught without real people working together to discover and explore such new territory. And where would such introduction and cooperation be without the agent, the broker, the networker, and the matchmaker? This, perhaps the most human and age-old aspect of generalism, is paradoxically also the part that’s been so successfully expanded by new technology – particularly online applications.
The successful and productive mixing and matching of people will always require a human touch, design. As incredibly useful as social networking tools are, they are limited because they are used voluntarily and by the self-aware. There are many instances where organizations are not, in their processes, motivated to function horizontally or outside of their traditional bounds, and there are many talented individuals locked in the tunnel vision of their pursuits, blindly unaware that collaboration could be the best move they make.
Experience & Empathize
Worldview
Understand humanity and life’s many interrelationships.
We can tip-toe forward inch-by-inch with our head down in steadfast concentration and call it movement, but we cannot call it progress until we lift our head, run our eyes across the horizon and understand not only where we stand but also where we are going and why. To do this requires insight, which is often gained by walking a mile in someone else’s shoes and looking at things from another vantage point.
http://creativegeneralist.blogspot.de/2008/02/what-specifically-do-generalists-do.html
