Creativity in Qual

A lot of not so interesting debates have been bouncing around on whether groups can be ‘really’ creative: whether all really creative people are in fact of the stroppy, eccentric loner variety who don’t work well in groups. The truth is there are lots of different ways of being creative. The trick is to work out what type of creativity is needed when – and what kind of participant you should be asking to produce this.

Qualitative researchers need to be alive to as many different creative behaviours as possible, not least when thinking about recruitment. You can’t expect a room full of Paul Wellers to make great music together or Syd Little to be funny on his own. Or with Eddie Large.

We all recognise that most “creative people” are not creative all the time. Their creativity needs certain conditions to be in place before it can flourish. It’s true for those people we label as ‘consumers’ (that is all of us) too. So what gets the creative ‘mojo’ working?