Breadth or Depth of Creativity?

If you think about it, you actually know an amazing amount of stuff about a diverse range of things.  That knowledge generally will be either broad or deep.  If it's broad knowledge then you know about a lot of different aspects of the topic.  If your knowledge is deep then you are specialised in one specific aspect of the topic (or a select few).  We tend to favor one type of knowledge over the other.  It will affect the way you think and from that influence the way you tackle problems and come up with new ideas.

Us creative types are inquisitive.  We like to find out about new things, to see how they work etc.  We have a natural tendencty towards broad knowledge as our inquisitiveness draws us to new things before we get a chance to develop deep knowledge on a topic.

We are looking sideways, across many things.  So when it comes to problem solving and new ideas we naturally look at other areas and what ideas they have come up with.  Because our knowledge is not deep, we do not have a strong connection to the current ways and thinking on how things are done (in fact we may not even be aware of them),  allowing us to easily adopt new ideas and incorporate them into what we are doing.

Now someone who is a specialist, someone with deep knowledge is looking downwards, they are drawing on experience.  When they are coming up with new ideas they will mainly know how similar things are done in this area already but also why.  They have a strong connection to the current ways and have probably invested a lot in those ways.  They don't want to move too far from what is established.  Because they have a strong understanding of both the how and the why they are adept at targeted incremental improvements.  They are great at refining solutions.

Both approaches to knowledge have advantages and disavantages.  Mixing the two is often required to produce highly creative work.  The broad thinker will often be the one that comes up with a brilliant, creative new approach but then deep thinking is required to refine the idea and the implementation to a point where it is an idea that really works.  Whichever type of thinking is you,  make sure you associate with and work with people of the other type and it will be the perfect mix to inspire creativity.

You're on your way to becoming a Highly Creative Person.