Technology Creativity vs Cultural Creativity [translation & adaptation from Han (2012)]

I have read Han’s (2012) Design Thinking. I found is meaningful for the context in Malaysia. Thus I translated some of the texts for my teaching and sharing purposes.

Technology creativity	Cultural creativity
Aims to improve the quality of living through the enhancement of the performance of products.	Aims to improve the quality of living through the enhancement of spiritual fulfillment.
Grounded on technology.	Grounded on feeling.
Need knowledge as the basis, hence the notion of knowledge economy.	Need pleasure feeling as the basis.
The field of technology requires continuous innovation through in-depth R&D of knowledge.	Cultural innovation occurs through imagination.
Reply on relatively young PhD holders who are graduated from world leading universities to lead high-tech industry. Those who reach the age of 40 might have lost their innovative capability in R&D, thus they have to move into managerial positions.	Rely on heart-touching new styles to lead the creative industry, which might be started who one reaches the age of 40.
Intellectual property (IP) is the substance (本体) of civilization	Cultural creative industry is the appearance (外衣) of civilization
Need to go through vertical, inferential design thinking process within the profession, i.e. a R&D process.	Not limited to a specific boundary or profession, but requires a complete design process to integrate multiple resources, in order to achieve the purpose of commercialization. The commercialization process is alien to literati.

In the minds of agencies which manage culture-related affairs, particularly when they think about nurturing cultural creative industry, the prime focus is creative talents, i.e. those literati who are creative and innovative. Therefore the agencies thought this could be achieved by organizing some training courses or by inviting several world-renown speakers to talk about creative industry. These efforts are merely depleting budget and yet failing to nurture true creative talents, thus leaving the problem of revitalizing cultural creative industry unsolved. This is due to the fact that the actual dilemma is the absence of a creative environment; while the barrier to having the creative environment is a general lack of design thinking capability and habits in the society.  

For example, in recent years, for the sake of enhancing the quality of architecture, public and private sectors are keen to hire foreign renowned architects to design, mainly through organizing international competitions. Does it mean there is no creativity in the field of Taiwanese architecture? Of course, judging from the existing buildings in Taiwan, there is hardly any recommended designed by Taiwan masterpiece, but is this solely caused by the tack of architectural skills or talents? No. We all know that the performance of architecture standards can only be achieved through mutual cooperation between architects and property owners. What are the owners? They are the combination of the socio-cultural environment. If there is no vision that can uncover architectural talents in this society; if there is no tolerance that can indulge architects to show off their creativity; if there is no sufficient resources to support architects, we should not blame Taiwan for not having creative talents. In contrast, the required vision, tolerance and resources have been allocated to satisfy the sense of worshiping foreign renowned masters—how would such attitude establish the competitiveness of cultural creative industry in Taiwan?  

Therefore for the future of creative industry, we must first recognize and comprehend the barriers in our cultural environment, particularly those irrational factors, in order to identify the thinking method that can generalize all requirements for development. If everyone in the country is geared towards enhancing the attainment of the sense of aesthetics, while recognizing the importance of systematic thinking, then we can truly move forward to a highly developed society, where everybody takes the initiative to be a sensible person.

IP Issue: Who should own the copyright upon the design of the products?

I came across "Different point of view on the copyright of artwork between artist and engineer". This prompted me to reflect the scenario depicted in Steve Jobs' biography, where engineers were struggling to work with designers led by Steve. In a private company, the copyright would not be an issue as the company holds all the rights since both the engineers and the designers are the employees of the company. However, in R&D projects or creative production, the conflict of copyright ownership between designers and engineers could be a dispute that leads to zero-sum ending.