atw: Creativity

Steve Hudson waxed lyrical (and a trifle splenetic) over the perceived conflict 
between creativity and a rules-governed environment.

Sorry, Steve, but this conflict simply doesn't exist -- on the contrary, it's 
precisely people who think that way who produce the rubbishy "art" you so 
rightly decry.

Creativity is not anarchy. Creativity is about finding newer, better ways to do 
things. It exists in many disciplines, including programming. (Steve, do you 
consider yourself a creative programmer? If not, I won't commission any 
development work from you -- it means you're content to keep doing things the 
same way over and over again.) Great scientists, great mathematicians, great 
chess players are creative.

There's no denying that much creativity is initially seen as ignoring the 
rules. 
(Think of cubist painting, or the music of Stravinsky -- but even Beethoven 
often 
upset the conservatives of his time.) What such people are really doing, of 
course, is applying an acute sensitivity to what the rules are for, how to 
operate within them, and (sometimes) which ones can be broken when. Every 
major advance in every discipline has arisen from having a sceptical attitude 
to 
the rules, but not from ignoring them.

In technical communication (tech writing, if you prefer), there are still some 
people who write in the third person, using passive voice. Without creativity, 
every tech writer would still be doing the same thing.

When a _good_ technical communicator crafts a text, she or he is continually 
asking questions like "Can I organise this information more effectively? Is 
there a 
better way to express this information for this audience?" Good novelists also 
sweat over similar issues: "Does this sentence (or paragraph) convey exactly 
the impression I'm after?" Finding answers to those questions is what 
creativity 
is about.


Michael Lewis

--------------------------------------
Brandle Pty Limited, Sydney, Australia
www.brandle.com.au
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