Do you think that us creative people are really that different from all you business minded people?

No. Maybe you just have a problem communicating. No one uses one side of their brain to do anything.

Business people are always complaining that “creatives” just have no clue about business, and about what we can afford to do. Creatives are always complaining that business people have no imagination, and don’t know what can be done.

Some creatives are really different from business types. Others are more in the middle. As always, if you walk in the other person’s shoes, you’ll have a greater appreciation and understanding of their problems.

I think there are very creative business people, especially those who are successful.

It’s not a difference between creative vs. business mindsets. They’re not mutually exclusive. Many have both.

Rather, it’s a difference in people applying specific ideas vs. those only suggesting general themes.

If you are smart you will be able to learn how to communicate to the other group. Be creative about it and you will be successful as either a creative business person, or a businesslike creative type.

Just as an example, I actually took a design class, based on the relationship between creative people and business people trying to communicate efficiently to one another.

Just what is this an example of, exactly? Do you have any actual examples of this rift in communication?

I think it’s a little presumptive to assume that art types and analytical types have nothing in common. Each of us have different skills, abilities and talents but I think we’ve more in common with each other as humans than we are different.

I’m a creative type but I have no problems communicating with non-art types.

@Zen Great damn answer. Im sure that the most successful people were both business savvy and very creative with the ways they made there money.

Rags to riches stories are great examples of this.

@Triiiple Just what I was thinking when I wrote it.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic I agree with you. First of all, I wouldn’t put myself in one or the other category, I feel like I have attributes of both ‘types’. But also, my best friend is the artsy-est person on the planet, and I lived with her for 3 years. As long as you know how the people around you work (e.g. what sets them off, how they like to compromise, etc.), then you’re golden.

I’ve struggled with the same complaint and still get annoyed with Beaver Business people, as I call them. However, I’m now using both my talents working for myself which prevents much of the turmoil employers used to cause my right brain personality. I will admit 4 outta 5 closest friends are all artist, musicians of sorts. But hey Im in an educational arena.

I would say that it is a learned skill, not intelligence that allows some to bridge the gap.
I’m a creative type, and agree there is a huge difference in language, work process,hierarchy, and measurement of success. Alot of left-brained thinker can’t handle open-ended tasks. Alot of right-brained thinkers will always fight restrictions. I expect alot of playground fights start that way. I also think genious is a sort of ambidextrous ability to fuse both.

@bezdomnaya Sometimes the artsy creative types need to embrace an analytical mindset, not only to produce their own work, but also in finding a way to make a living using those skills.

I don’t think of those traits as opposite ends of a spectrum though. They’re just different traits. For example, there’s no reason a person can’t go paint a picture after filing their taxes online.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Thanks! That’s a good way to put it. Although, I think that the same fits for business types, you need to embrace artistic/creative mindsets as well. I also don’t think it is being “presumptive” of me to assume this, if this is what I personally feel in my relationships with people. There is nothing that I am presuming at all.

@kruger_d As for what makes genius, it often seems the opposite to me: people who are just on one wave length to the point where they can’t even get on the other one makes genius, but I guess the definition of genius is pretty open…although I would agree that people who get rich are probably ambidextrous. So, they are smart in my opinion, not necessarily a genius.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic I second that. I know a (subjectively, great) artist who sits in a barren room and paints all day, doing not much else. He lives alone, and doesn’t really do anything except paint.

I don’t think an artist that sells his work to a gallery, promotes his work, and makes a nice living from it is any less creative.

How about us business people who are creative thinkers? I have a degree in art and run a cleaning company as well. What do you think about them apples? expand Expand EXPAND

I don’t get this dichotomy between “creative” and “business”.
Are we talking about intuitive versus analytical?
Or are we talking about values?

I do theatre (direct, act, choreograph, etc). I find that it requires a great deal of organisation. I write and do tai chi. I find that it requires an immense amount of discipline if I am to be any good at it. So good art, if it’s not a fluke, requires analytical skills and discipline. I wouldn’t make it the exclusive aim of business.

Now where there is conflict, I feel, comes in a matter of values. Do I make theatre for money? Do I make it for the community, or for myself?
Certainly where there are business models where they think of the user and social impact, at the root of business is profit. I have to be very clear with myself that this is not why I create. Money is good, money pays the bills, money is energy. But money should never rule my creative expression.

There will be compromises that I would reject making (e..g, product placement, when it has no room in the play; grants/sponsorship that sets down too many rules and interferes with the integrity of the work)—and I have to say in today’s world, it can be a fight to insist on certain working conditions. Heck, it’s a fight to make theatre viable over here. Far too many productions are produced too quickly, and are determined by production cycles and audience sizes that are determined by $$. They become commercial.

As a director, I am aware of the box office and community support, but I also make sure that I am in a place where I don’t have to depend on box office income. I don’t want to make a play worrying if I will fill seats. Argh, I have enough to worry about creatively as it is. I’ll pull my weight on the publicity (and as I’m in small theatre, the directing/producing roles often overlap), but I’d much much rather pitch my battles on the creative battlefield.

I think it all depends on the personality. I consider myself a creative person, I almost majored in design, but I am an accounting major with a passion to open my own business. Sometimes I have a hard time understanding WHY people can’t just TRY be a little creative but I guess it just comes more naturally to some than others. I guess I just lucked out because I seem to be able to talk to anybody, for a while at least. However, I do seem to be drawn more to the creative type simply because they’re much more interesting than many money hungry business people.

I tend not to get along with people who have different priorities than me. It’s hard to be friends with someone when they can’t comprehend that I actually do want to stay home with my son. It’s not a business vs creative thing for me.

Yes

Interesting…I never thought that one was exclusive of the other, but it would make sense that it is our priorities and our lifestyles that make us different (not that creative people can’t have a business and vice versa, but perhaps we do them in different ways).

I found that in the class I took, it was difficult for the designers to show the business people what we were talking about and vice versa. I thought it was fun though, figuring out how to communicate with different people.

interesting, @ronski.
Do you think it was business people in particular that the designers had trouble communicating with, or was it a general difficulty to articulate their ideas to people who don’t use their jargon?

@lifeflame Perhaps a little bit of both. Both are taught very different ways of handling information, so it was hard to communicate your reason for something without there being a very definite answer and showing them numbers with graphs. I think it’s just different ways of processing information, one being very concrete and the other being not as much.

The funny thing was that the business people gave all the designers in my group really low scores and didn’t think we had done any work, while we thought we had done quite a lot. It was a great learning experience.