The Evolution of Creative Skills

UX Magazine is an-on-line journal devoted to the emerging field of user experience design. Whilst its content is aimed primarily at the marketing services industry, it contains some interesting articles in the area of customer experience and design. The article entitled Creativity 2. particularly caught my eye.

The author argues that the creative worker in marketing services now has to offer more than a single specialist skill such as copywriting or graphic design. These skills, talents and abilities are needed; no doubt about it. But what's also needed is the evolution of them; the next iteration. But what does this look like? An Information Architect who completely grasps Human Computer Interaction but can also think fluidly can do things like rapidly create prototypes, facilitate user testing, understand visual design and occasionally write copy. The author argues this kind of individual possesses a multi-dimensional creative brain that has evolved over time.

The Information Architect operating in the Web 2.00 world works analytically, expressively, sensually and is driven by curiosity. How Information Architects develop these skills, how they use them to collaborate and the ease with which anyone can develop these skills with the advent of the new Web 2.0 tools is nicely captured in the article.