Corporate Creativity

(cross-posted from my personal blog, www.onthedll.com)

Several months back Activision CEO Bobby Kotick caused quite a stir when, during a long interview with Forbes magazine, he implied that DJ Hero was a mistake and that it sucked focus away from the Guitar Hero games and led to the demise of the franchise as a whole. This set off quite an uproar among the gaming community (as is typical when Mr. Kotick says, well... just about anything).

Now, some disclosures and disclaimers before I carry on:

But this isn't an excuse to bad-mouth my former employer, or talk trash about the Hero games and the decisions made during their lifecycle. What's done is done; I've moved on, and so has most of the gaming community.

Here's the thing... had anyone actually taken the time to click through to the source article (as opposed to just reacting to the flame-bait quotes that were extracted and reprinted), they would have found a long interview with Kotick on the topic of innovation, and how Activision encourages and rewards innovative thinking within the company.

It gives a lot of insight into the way the company thinks about the creative process, and it brings me to the topic of today's post: corporate creativity.

There is a difference between "creativity" and "corporate creativity". This is a fundamental truth, and anyone hoping to be a creative professional needs to accept it.

For most young people, creativity knows no bounds. A small child can often find excitement and intrigue in the mundane. Ask a kid where their stuffed animal lives, and you'll be amazed by the story they might tell you.  Often it makes no sense, and it doesn't have to. This is a form of pure, unrestricted creativity. It is making up new stuff, just for the sake of making up new stuff. No rhyme or reason.

As we get older, many of us lose a bit of the naivety and develop some perspective and our own form of self-censorship.  Still though, a lot of us manage to escape into adulthood with at least some of our creative drive and energy in tact. We want to make new stuff and give back to the world, and we want to rely on our imagination and instincts to help us deliver true innovation.

Some of us will remain true, unrestrained artists and manage to find success in this manner. But, many more of us will end up trying to find work in a creative field. And a lot of that will involve a move towards creating under the watchful eye of a corporate overlord... someone like Mr. Kotick. Here he is in the Forbes interview, in response to the question "What's the most important thing that you do to encourage innovation at your company?":

Think about that for a second. This man runs the largest video game publisher in the world. So how does he encourage innovation? Simple. Ask the audience what they want, then give it to them. Bam! Innovation. That, in a nutshell, is the true realization of Corporate Creativity as I see it.

To be fair, this is not a phenomenon specific to Activision, or Mr. Kotick. In spite of his claim that this process is "unique at Activision", I've seen it first-hand in a number of places I've worked and shared enough war stories with friends in other creative fields to feel pretty comfortable saying that this is more or less par for the course.

I still remember my first all-hands meeting as a young intern at EA, where the studio head introduced everyone to his concept of "feature-IP". As he explained it, feature-IP was an innovative idea delivered within the context of an existing game or franchise. He used examples like "real-time injury reporting and performance effects in Madden". So, basically... get inside this box, and innovate the hell out of it, just so long as when you're done it fits right back into this box. Feeling inspired yet?

But here's a secret... growing to understand corporate creativity - not subscribing to it wholesale, but rather understanding where it comes from and how it works - made me a more powerful creator. That's not to say that I've sold out to the man (at least, not all the way...) but rather it gave me another lens through which to look at and think about my creations.

Because honestly, the idea that you should consider your audience during the creative process isn't inherently evil. Far from it. The key is to retain your unbound creative spark, while at the same time having enough awareness to ask yourself questions like "who is this for?" and "are people really going to like this?"

If you want to remain a pure "creative" and ignore those lines of thinking, that's fine. Just don't expect anyone to care about the things that you create... you might get lucky, you might not. Who knows. And certainly don't expect that anyone is going to pay you to work a job where you create in that manner... corporations aren't so much interested in taking bets on getting lucky. They like a sure thing.

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Looking back on this post, I can't help but feel that my tone took a turn for the cynical as I progressed. So please don't misunderstand. True, pure, creative energy is a wonderful and beautiful thing. In spite of my various experiences as a professional creative, I still cling to my pure creative spirit. And coming to understand the concept of corporate creativity, while at times frustrating, has forced me to grow as a creator.

My point about "Creativity vs. Corporate Creativity" is simply this: if you have drive in the former, and interest in the latter - just don't expect them to be the same thing.