Creativity Vs Innovation

Creativity and Innovation are two terms that get used a lot.  They are very similar but can both be vague and often misunderstood.  So I thought I would do a bit of poking around using the Google Keyword Tool and see what I could discover.  What the world is searching for can give us a good insight.  Read on to see what I have discovered and what conclusions I have drawn from it.  It would be great if you'd leave a comment too and tell us your thoughts on the subject.

Formal Definitions

I figured it would be best to start off with a formal definition of both terms to help set the stage.  I do believe that many don't properly understand these terms however so we'll only use these as a base.

According to Wikipedia:

• Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, a solution, a work of art, a novel, a joke, etc.) that has some kind of value.
• Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.

Discoveries

The following are monthly searches for different keywords globally.

• creativity : about 1 million
• innovation : just over 4 million (includes 'what is innovation' as well)
• be creative : 13.6 million (includes 'how to be creative' as well)
• be innovative : 1.5 million
• ideas: 45.5 million
• inspiration: 2.7 million

Note:  Google lumps a lot of similar phrases together in the results it shows using this tool. 

Conclusions

These conclusions are really just guesses.  There is no way to tell for certain the motivations behind all these searches.  It does make for interesting thinking however.

So it seems that more people are interested in innovation than creativity but way more people are interested in increasing their creativity than ability to innovate.  We ar also very interested in ideas.

Regarding creativity and innovation.  It could be that innovation is the business buzzword and creativity is seen as the term for hobbies. 

When people are searching for ideas,  are they not seeking inspiration?  It's interesting to observe what people do and what they are actually trying to achieve.  Are other people ideas seen as a quick route to inspiration?  Or if you can use the ideas directly, a means to bypass inspiration and creativity alltogether?

At any rate.  It's great that the internet allows us to share our knowledge and ideas so freely.

If you would like to take this analysis further.  Put the terms above into Google and see what sites show up in the first page of results.  It can help to show what people find in their stumbles across the interweb.

And be sure to share your thoughts and ideas below as well.