Creativity in Large-Scale Contexts: Guiding Creative Engagement and Exploration

A new model for smarter creativity

Innovators and creators work in cultural, social, and economic contexts that shape their work. These contexts are large-scale, filled with overwhelming multitudes of elements and possibilities. Creativity in Large-Scale Contexts, by Yale professor Jonathan Feinstein, introduces a groundbreaking new network model to describe how successful innovation is focused, generated, and accelerated in these large-scale cultural and social contexts. The book will help teams and organizations innovate smarter and faster.

Feinstein argues that in large-scale contexts creativity happens most efficiently when it is actively "guided" by a team or leader. Guiding creativity involves understanding and navigating the creative cultural, social, and economic context, imagining new ways to understand and use the tensions present in this context, identifying puzzles and opportunities, and spanning these tensions to create novel connections. With thoughtful guidance, creators and creative teams can find their way through the thicket of possibilities faster, smarter, and with less waste. Feinstein describes two forms of guidance—guiding conceptions and guiding principles—and shows how they work together to generate faster, better innovation.

Creativity in Large-Scale Contexts draws on case studies of famous creators including Virginia Woolf, Albert Einstein, Indigenous artist Clifford Possum, transgender activist and engineer Lynn Conway, and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey. Empirically grounded, this book will be essential for teaching and managing creativity and innovation and will open new avenues for future intellectual growth in the field.