For Creatives
The innovationtool is built on the scenario that an artist, or creator, or representative of a creative field, works as a facilitator, or moderator, for a group of people involved in innovation work.
The innovationtool is a source for inspiration and material for innovation work. The idea is not to force artists – creators – to use a concept they are not comfortable with. Rather, the tool aims at providing some common ground for creators and industry representatives from which to approach innovation work.
The innovationtool can also be used for marketing purposes: the artist can approach a company and offer e.g. a workshop based on a certain topic in the tool. Thus, the company has a clearer idea about what will be worked with during a possible workshop.
Traditionally, artists have been included in industry work processes such as brainstorming and other idea generation activities – not to forget the already infamous “thinking outside the box” phrase.
But artists can also bring about confrontation, create friction, break taboos, and provoke by speaking the unspeakable – a bit like the court jester. Jesters have been known to speak out truths that no one else dared tell, to kings and other powerful persons.
Artists can also apply their artistic core competencies and practices e.g. for visualizing challenges or dramatizing different situations, such as service processes and negotiations.
Other possible aims for artistic thinking and activities are:
- Creating rapport, a feeling of “hygge”, when people meet for the first time
- Diminishing hierarchies using artistic means
- Generating a positive sense of inspiration for teams.
Artists are encouraged to combine their own field of expertise – such as photography, painting or puppeteering – with the topics that the innovationtool introduces. The tool aims at opening up questions that organizations can work with – it is then up to the artist to enrich the experience with their own expertise. Recommended reading (in Finnish) to the process.
If you wish to know more about artists and industry cooperation, you can listen to a discussion with artists Heini Aho and Oona Tikkaoja (in Finnish). The artists refer to a project with actors in the Finnish maritime cluster. Read more: How to solve maritime challenges through art? Piloting co-operation process with the Arts Promotion Centre Finland
The IRM-Tool project has focused on the maritime and creative industries. Both can be divided into subcategories such as shipbuilding and transport or film and music. The wide spectrum of subcategories is presented in these two videos:
