Why and how are networks important for creativity?

Most of us implicitly understand that ideas develop through social interaction. As Peter Semmelhack put it: "No idea exists in a vacuum. Ideas are social. The worst punishment for any idea, just like a human, is solitary confinement." He was citing a blog post by Venture Capitalist Blad Burnham, who has found in the VC world that entrepreneurs who are aggressively open in describing their plans seem to do better than those who are protective. 


But in this blog we are saying something more than "ideas are social". Our point is that social networks matter for ideas. Your social network is the primary determinant of the ideas you encounter, how you perceive and pursue opportunities and the ways in which you involve others in the development of your ideas. 


Why should this be the case? Let's first explain what we mean by your social network. It is the set of individuals around you and the connections (or ties) between them. A focus on connections is what  distinguishes a network view from other ways of thinking about the social world. The presence and absence of connections between people that you know create both opportunities and constraints. If everyone you share ideas with also shares ideas with each other, it's likely that your ideas will readily be accepted within your immediate social circle, but also you may not have access to many new ideas as the same ideas keep circulating. If few of the people you share ideas with also share ideas with each other, you may have access to a greater range of novel ideas, but also potentially more conflicting viewpoints.  


Be clear that a social network is distinct from social networking tools like Facebook and LinkedIn. These tools help you record, visualise and communicate with people in your social network, but whether or not you use these tools, you still have a social network. For example, here is a network visualisation of all the people I am connected to today on LinkedIn, created using InMaps. This is by no means everyone I am connected to professionally, but it does give a sense of what my professional network looks like, showing connections between the people I know. 

The first thing I did, on seeing this map, is reflect on how many different communities my network spans. At 10 and 11 o'clock are my work colleagues at Henley Business School and the University of Reading. At 7 and 8 o'clock are two distinct communities of academics researching in HRM and social networks, with a few individuals attempting (along with me) to connect the two communities. At 2 o'clock on the periphery are technology people I know through my research on plastic electronics and inside them is an emerging set of connections to professional creativity facilitators. 


So why do social networks matter for creativity? Because the patterns of connections between the people you know - the extent to which ties between them are present or absent - affects what ideas reach you, how you see and solve problems, what ideas you have the potential to create, and what you can do with those ideas. By studying our networks - and crucially the connections between people in our networks - we can learn how the structure of our networks creates and constrains opportunities for us, and we can start to design our networks in ways that increase our creative potential.


Let me illustrate this with reference to my own network. In my network there are lots of weak ties. Weak ties are connections to people you know but do not see frequently, and who generally have different acquaintances to you. Mark Granovetter in a famous paper argued that weak ties act as bridges between densely knit clumps of close friends, and that people with few weak ties would be deprived of novel information from distant parts of a social system. Strong ties (those that are emotionally close and frequent) are important for other reasons, but they may be associated with a degree of redundancy because within a tight-knit group, ways of thinking and ideas are more likely to be shared.  Jill Perry Smith's research has shown that weak ties are important for creativity. She argues that through exposure to non-redundant information, weak ties enhance creativity by making it easier to combine ideas from diverse perspectives and draw unusual connections. 


Since my network is spread across many distinct communities, in theory I should have access to lots of diverse ideas and non-redundant information ... and by extension that should help my creativity. Certainly, the concept of creative networks came about because I bridge a community of professionals interested in creativity and a community of academics interested in networks. So yes, the bridging nature of my network was responsible for this creative insight. But that is only part of the story. In the blog post mentioned earlier, Brad Burnham imagines that in an entrepreneur's network, there are people in an inner circle who understand the opportunity or technology well, who can help shape the opportunity. In the further reaches of a network more distant people may be useful for passing along useful information, but less likely to be able help translate that into useful insights. 


When putting ideas into action, I have a choice about which people in my network I think should be in my inner circle. So for developing and validating the idea of 'designing a creative network' and taking it forward, which of these two communities (creativity professionals and network academics) should I refer to? Whose success criteria will be in my mind? There are people in both communities who could help me develop the idea, but which individuals I choose to work with will determine how the idea moves forward from here. Should I write academic papers on creativity and networks, or should I design practical tools to help people understand and build their creative networks? There is perhaps the potential to do both, but there is considerable scope for role conflict along the way, not only because the two communities have very different expectations about what I might do with my ideas but also because they are largely socially disconnected so the likelihood of my connections aligning behind shared expectations of me is relatively remote. In the crucible that is required to develop and implement the idea, it may be that strong ties will be far more helpful to me than weak ties. 


By examining the structure of my network, I can surface both the opportunities within it, and its inherent tensions, enabling me to think creatively about how to resolve these tensions. So today's challenge is this: how might I make use of the different communities represented within my professional network to develop the idea of 'designing your ideal creative network'?