Curation enables creation
When discussing the Create-Curate-Consume pyramid, we treat creation and curation as separate entities. The processes inherent in these acts are different, so why not?
These discussions gloss over how past curation drives the creative process. The current usage of the word ‘creative’ in reference to the generation of new ideas did not start until the post-World War II era.1
Creativity now mostly refers to generating novel ideas, even though most creative pursuits involve some form of “connecting the dots”. Here, curation can serve as a starting point for the act of creation.
James Clear outlines the creative process as follows:2
- Gather new material.
- Thoroughly work over the materials in your mind.
- Step away from the problem.
- Let your idea return to you.
- Shape and develop your idea based on feedback.
The process of actively gathering new material and analysing it, then finding trends and connections to what you already know, is the basis of creating something new. But connecting these dots requires an existing arsenal. And this is why curation is so important.
By seeking things out, you curate. Curation, in its simplest form, is organizing and collecting based on taste. Your taste creates curated collections of memories, experiences, and knowledge.3
Curation demands a robust system for organizing knowledge - even though knowledge management is hard. You never know when an idea in a book you read will seem related to content you’ve already read, so it is important to be able to retrieve that from your collection.
Following this train of thoughts, the Create-Curate-Consume pyramid dissolves. It becomes a linear progression instead. You consume content. From what you’ve consumed, filter it by quality, then save and organize what meets your standards – this is curation. From this curated collection, you create connections between disparate pieces of content.
Consumption is easy – we are surrounded by content. Creation demands time and effort – which is why the curation process needs to be rock-solid. This curation of past experiences and memory is what leads to those “moments of creative outbursts” that society worships.