“C” is for.

“C” is for.

Creativity.
A concept close to my heart.
A word I associate with ideas and new life.
I’'ve worked in advertising creative departments all my career.
Trying to be different.
Trying to think of ideas that make people sit up and take notice.
Trying to make people interested in things.
And to respond warmly and positively.
I find other creative people interesting and stimulating.
I find them challenging and fun.
Creative people know that different gets noticed.
Whereas the same old same old gets ignored.
That’'s what creativity is.
Making something that hasn'’t existed before.
Making something that has existed before is copying.
And a copy is invariably a fake.
It has no value.
Creativity comes from within.
From the soul.
The heart.
The mind.
It’'s a spark.
The spark of creativity.
Which is ignited sometimes by sensation, sometimes reflection.
Two abstractions generated within ourselves by our personal, unique experiences.
Creativity is originality.
It’'s precious.
To be creative is to be inventive.
From scratch.
Creative work, if it is to be of any worth and truly define the term, can never be what has been done before.

The other day, I was looking through a glossary of online marketing terms for the definition of yet another geeky word in their unfathomable “I-know-something-you-don’t-know” lexicon.
I came to the letter ‘c’.
There was “creative”.
“The technology used to create or develop an ad unit. The most common creative technology for banners is GIF or JPEG images. Other creative technologies include Java, –HTML or streaming audio or video. These are commonly referred to as rich media banners.”

Bollocks.