Seth Godin's recent post "grave new world" got me thinking about the role of creativity in business.  Working in agency land, where a long time ago we turned creative from adjective to noun, it's the lifeblood of our business.  However it's not often that we give ourselves the free reign to think of solutions to problems beyond our advertising mandate. In Seth's post he states:

Creativity demands exposure to market needs, and insulation from market fears. Give it some time to work, some support, some breathing room. That's when creativity has a chance to change the game.

Now more than ever, we need to be exercising creativity in order to navigate a rapidly changing economic and social landscape.  The old rules have been on notice for a while now, and over the past few years we have seen power and control move away from brands, corporations and even governments, back into the hands of ordinary mortals like you and I. We've helped create new superstars from among our own number, forced business and government to adopt far greater levels of transparency and started exercising our individual voices on a global stage. Our philosophers and thinkers can once again be heard, and ideas without the bonds of legal constraint are being spread for all to share and modify.  

Check out Faris Yakob's posts on recombinant culture to understand how this is specifically working for smart digital marketers. Our existing political and economic constructs have backed us into a corner which only Big Thinking will extricate us from.  As marketers, I believe the challenge for many of us over the next few years will be an internal one.  We need to re-frame how we think about virtually everything, our customers, our brands and the tools we use.  We can't take anything for granted and we can't afford to stop learning.   Through impeccable timing, it seems fate has delivered us with the technology necessary to navigate our way through this recession and other fundamental global problems.  I believe that creativity, together with unity of purpose, will provide us the key to unlocking the solutions.