Brewed Fresh Daily

Frank sent around a great email today. I asked him if I could post an excerpt and he agreed. If you'd like to read the whole thing, send him an email. There's plenty more good info, including suggestions on implementing the ideas:

When you think of creativity, think Cleveland Water-Works. Three basic elements are required: the faucet, the distribution network, e.g., the pipes, and the source. The world's best-designed waterworks is of no value to the people it was designed to serve if there is no water. Having an abundance of water is of no value to the community without a way to tap into it and distribute it to our faucets. Up until now, Cleveland's discussions on creativity and the Creative Class have been focusing on the faucet, perhaps a little on the pipes, and not at all on the most necessary element of all, the spring. Creativity theory notes three complementary aspects of creativity: raw, adaptive, and productive. All three are of absolute necessity. However, to borrow again from the water-works motif, as long as the region continues to remain fixed on the faucet, we like California, will forever be looking elsewhere for water, and depending upon someone else to lay the pipes. The analogy is obvious. The faucets are the producers, those who shape the idea into a usable product or service. The pipes are the adapters, those who gather the raw ideas from the source and move the flow toward production, along the way refining the raw idea.

I was at the City Club today for CrainTech's IT Breakfast. One of the speakers described their business as "Taking raw data, running it through the brains of the architects, and the output are documents". Very similar to Frank's point. What goes through your mind? What's the output?