We always say that we work in a creative industry.  (Or, I do, at least — a self-defense mechanism?)

So if that’s true, is there something to be learned about our own work from how other creative industries function?

Louis Menand, of The New Yorker, recently reviewed “The Program Era” by Mark McGurl, a look at how creative writing is taught in universities in America.  McGurl’s premise: “…given that most of the fiction that Americans write and read is processed through the higher-education system, we ought to pay some attention to the way the system affects the outcome.”

The overarching question posed by the review, however, was whether creative writing can be taught in the first place.  It is taught, of course, but is that teaching fruitful?  Can we really (oxymoronically?) institutionalize creativity?

As a marketer, this is the interesting corollary for me.  Because we have, in effect, institutionalized our corner of the creative world as well.  So shouldn’t we pay some attention to the way our system affects the outcome?  Or put another way, does our form institutionalization produce truly creative work?

Even among proponents of the current system of creative writing programs (they tend to be the ones who already have a vested interest in their success) admit that the truly creative, the people who are able to truly inspire, tend to be the exception to the rule.  They cannot be taught; they have “it” innately within them already.

While many are content to crow about the success of their graduates, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, the preeminent creative writing program in the country, stakes no claim on the success of their writers — they say they encourage, rather than make, good writers.  (They have always said this; this is not a new thing.) From their website:

If one can “learn” to play the violin or to paint, one can “learn” to write, though no processes of externally induced training can ensure that one will do it well. Accordingly, the fact that the Workshop can claim as alumni nationally and internationally prominent poets, novelists, and short story writers is, we believe, more the result of what they brought here than of what they gained from us. We continue to look for the most promising talent in the country, in our conviction that writing cannot be taught but that writers can be encouraged.

I admire this point of view, and think the world of marketing can potentially take a page out of their book. Some thoughts on implications for marketing folks:

1. Talent needs disparate sources. If talent cannot be taught — if it can be discovered anywhere — then we should broaden our horizons of where we look for talent.  Better talent isn’t necessarily the one who have a traditional background, but rather who have been influences by disparate sources.  Faris has written about a need for “renaissance” planners and BBH has put out a call to “mash up & mutate our teams and approaches.”

2. We need an appropriate structure first. Here’s the crucial corollary to the prior point: Once we have found these people, the things that made them exceptional to begin with cannot be thrown away. Their talent needs to be encouraged. Which means that we need to create a structure in which these renaissance planners and their ideas can continue to be influenced and nurtured.  We need to learn to let go more, like the Iowa Writer’s Workshop has managed to do.

I fervently believe that the second point above is actually the most important thing to get right.  Get the structure right and you can start to unlock the “renaissance” in every one of us.

(I’ve written before about the idea of a business structure that makes IMC work, and that IMC really is about process, not output.)

Because we all have some modicum of talent and interestingness somewhere within us, right?  I hope? So maybe it’s just about making sure the structure of our jobs helps to unlock it, rather than forcing us down the assembly line yet again.