Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is in Davos, Switzerland this week, chairing the Media, Entertainment and Information Governors Meeting at the World Economic Forum.  This blog is cross-posted from the Forum Blog.

We are living in a world of “big data”; every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data that flows to and from smartphones, PCs, tablets, TVs and innumerable other connected devices. As chair of the Media, Entertainment and Information (MEI) Governors Meeting in Davos this year, I’ve been reflecting on what this may mean for our society in the future.

We know more, we do more, we’re more connected.  We have real-time access to content and information we never could have imagined.   And yet, I’m concerned that lost in this rising tide of data is the essence of what makes us human:  Creativity.  It goes far beyond the traditional world of art and music.  Creativity is the essence of invention and inspiration, and it is what fuels our economy.

Indeed, global research we conducted in 2012 showed that 8 in 10 people feel that unlocking creativity is critical to economic growth and nearly two-thirds of respondents feel creativity is valuable to society.  But only 1 in 4 people – a strikingly low percentage – believe they are living up to their own creative potential.   Respondents revealed that productivity, not creativity, is what employers currently demand.

How did productivity trump creativity?   Macroeconomic conditions have certainly created pressure on companies to produce results.  But has more emphasis on technical skills, operational improvements and hard numbers devalued creativity in the workplace?  Or does it start much earlier, in our schools, where the race to improve science, technology and math (STEM) abilities in students has overtaken time once spent on “softer” subjects?  Are we stifling our children’s imagination?

In a follow-up study we conducted in the United States, nearly three-quarters of respondents said creative thinking should be “taught as a course – like math or science.”  We as business leaders should advocate for this type of thinking both in our schools and our companies as we grow our next generation of employees.

Companies like ours who are in the business of content must also take responsibility for encouraging creativity.  All of us in the MEI community need to encourage creativity among our young people and in our enterprises large and small.   Whether it’s investing in small businesses with big ideas, entrepreneur in residence programs or educational scholarships like the Adobe Youth Voices Creativity Scholarship, we must keep creativity front and center.

We live in an extraordinary time where a treasure trove of content—data, photographs, books, music, video—can be made by and shared with the world.  Today, everyone can be a creator.   Everyone can share their creations and gauge the impact of that creativity whether it’s financial, cultural or societal.  What a gift to us all.

Our top 12 moments of 2012 countdown continues. We’re closing out the year with the final 6. If you missed part one, you can catch up here.

Moment No. 5 – Cannes Lions

Our team was back at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival this year. We centered the conversation around data and creativity, and a look at creativity ‘Then & Now.’ We had the chance to connect with leading creative professionals and marketers, and even an inspiring entrepreneur, Jordan Casey – Europe’s youngest developer.

Moment No. 4 – Digital Marketing Summit

We hosted two Summits this year – one in Salt Lake City, Utah and another in London, England. Both Summits focused on ways customers can better measure, manage and optimize their digital marketing investments. Our Salt Lake City event boasted speakers such as Biz Stone, Arianna Huffington, and the Grammy-winning band, Foster the People. Check out a recap of our favorite moments on our Digital Marketing Summit blog.

Moment No. 3 – Social Media Week

Our CMO, Ann Lewnes, kicked off Social Media Week at Adobe with her keynote, “Confessions of a Digital Marketer.” Throughout the day, we hosted great conversations about the impact of big data on social media with guest speakers Jeremiah Owyang and Susan Etlinger from Altimeter Group, as well as other social practitioners from across the Silicon Valley. Check out our image ‘Bird’s Eye View of Social Media Week,’ and revisit some of the event panels and presentations on our Adobe TV channel.

Moment No. 2 – Sundance Film Festival

At this year’s festival, we had a digital reporting team on the ground capturing all of our favorite moments during Sundance. From our panel, ‘How Technology is Influencing Storytelling and Film,’ to movie premieres and even bus rides around town, Matt Rozen and Meagan Keane reported on the sights and sounds of the festival for all of us who could not be there in person in their ‘Adobe at Sundance’ series.

Moment No. 1 – Connecting With You

Our favorite moments every year revolve around connecting with you, our fans. This year, we’ve expanded the ways we can communicate with you where you are. We’ve introduced our presence on Pinterest and Instagram, and expanded our footprint on LinkedIn.

Thank you all for a great 2012. Here’s to an exciting 2013! From all of us here at Adobe, we wish you the very best in 2013.

Although we’ve been back from the Cannes Lions Advertising festival for a few weeks now, the conversation
continues. I reached out to the talented winners of the Young Lions competition to learn about their creative inspiration and how they think creativity has changed today.

We’ll be sharing thoughts from this year’s winners throughout the next few weeks. First up – Laura Robinson and Rosie Duncan from the United Kingdom!

1. Have you always been compelled to create? Was the instinct there from a young age or did this happen later in life?

Laura – I’ve always had an artistic flair from a young age. Creativity and art is a passion for me and I always find myself having brain waves, normally when I least expect them. I could be on the treadmill at the gym or listening to someone presenting and then all of a sudden an idea will come into my head and I’ll become fixated on it. I get bored really easily so when I was young I would always fill my time making things from designing clothes to decorating cakes – I guess I always like to be busy and even though now I have a career in media I will always be thinking of business opportunities and ideas for starting my own business.

Rosie – Creation for me is about the satisfaction of the end result. It’s about seeing your idea turn into a tangible object that you can share, be proud of or (often) laugh at. The ideas that come to fruition over the course of your life reflect your growing up and life stages – whether it be from a fashion you were wearing to a song that you wrote which is reminiscent of a particular moment. Creativity is a release, whether it be writing, singing, painting or capturing the moment, and has been an essential reason to the sanity of my life so far.

2. What are your thoughts about how the creative process has changed in the past 50 years? What do you think are the differences between Then (such as the 1960’s, “Mad Men” style) and Now?

Laura & Rosie- Now it feels like there is a lot more background research and proving why we are proposing certain ideas to reach our target audience. There is a lot of data and in-depth reasoning behind an idea. Now we live in a world fuelled by instant gratification and technology which changes faster than we can keep up with. It’s a challenging time to work in advertising but also an extremely vibrant and inspirational time. We have so much choice from what devices we use to what media channels we can reach our audience on. Cross-media and multi-platform brand solutions are a standard now and every agency claims to be a fully integrated communications agency. Yes there are specialist departments but it is far more integral now to work much closely together.

3. What are your thoughts on how creativity and marketing data have to work together? Page views, clicks, and other metrics are a big part of the creative world – not just “why” but “how” ads are created today. Do “Mad Men” need to become more like “Math Men”?

Laura & Rosie – There’s no reason why data can’t be creative. In Cannes we saw an inspirational talk from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo who showed us a visual map of the global tweets which were sent during the England vs France Euro match and it was an extremely visual representation of some standard numerical stats. Data can be used to create ads and ads can be used to collect data but what may be interesting is visualizing that data in an ad format. People like to see that they are a part of something, have their voice heard and their contribution accounted for. It makes them feel part of what’s going on.

We just wrapped up day 2 at Cannes and so far, so great! Yesterday, the festival kicked off with a cocktail sponsored by Adobe, and we got a chance to interview attendees about their thoughts on creativity, Then and Now, and whether or not today’s increasing focus on data is killing or cultivating creativity. Watch highlights from our favorite moments below.

This morning, we hosted a panel to a full house, titled “Is Data ‘Killing or Cultivating Creativity?” The panel was moderated by our SVP of Global Marketing, Ann Lewnes. She was joined by fellow panelists Jon Vein, Linus Karlsson, and Jim Stengel who shared their thoughts on how we need to strike a healthy balance between focus on data and our own gut and intuition.  During the panel, scriberia artists illustrated the conversation. Check out the cool scribe illustration below and stay tuned for panel highlights and a full recap, which we’ll post tomorrow.

Scribe illustration of panel created by scriberia artists

And don’t forget, each day we’re asking you a different question about creativity, Then and Now. Today’s question is, “What’s your competitive edge? Data or Creativity?” Tweet your answer using #ThenAndNow and we’ll feature it on our digital billboards here at the festival. You can also vote in our daily polls on Facebook. Believe it or not, the response to yesterday’s question, “How do you prefer to communicate, through the phone (Then) or Twitter (Now), was tied! 50% of people chose to communicate via phone while 50% chose Twitter.

If you’re at the festival, be sure to stop by the Adobe booth and get your picture taken with the Adobe ampersand as a souvenir of your visit.

Example of a photo souvenir at the Adobe booth

Signing off for now – more tomorrow! In the meantime, enjoy the highlights below.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since Cannes Lions 2011, but we’re so excited to be back this year with a presence that’s our biggest ever at the Cannes Lions festival.

This year, we’re talking about creativity, Then and Now. How has creativity and the creative process changed over the past few decades? Were we more creative in the Mad Men era, or today’s era of Modern Media? How has the increasing focus on data impacted our creative process? Watch our SVP of Global Marketing, Ann Lewnes, along with panelists Jim Stengel, Jon Vein, and Linus Karlsson debate this very subject tomorrow at our seminar, “Is data killing creativity?” at 9:30 a.m. in Theatre Debussy.

This week at Cannes, some of the most talented creative professionals from across the world have come together to celebrate creativity; what better audience to pose our questions to about creativity, Then and Now? We’ll be having this conversation throughout the festival with attendees and our video crew. We’ve also got a booth on the Parvais, where you can get your picture taken as a souvenir of your Cannes visit so be sure to stop by and say hello!

We know not all of you could make it out to the festival this year, and we want to hear your thoughts too. Each day, we’ll be posting a different question about Then and Now on the Adobe Twitter channel. Voice your opinion by tweeting your answer to @Adobe with #ThenAndNow or voting in our Facebook application. We’ll capture the results and showcase them on our digital displays here at the festival!

Stay tuned here for updates from our events each day, including footage from awards ceremonies and interviews with winners of MOFILM, the Young Lions Competition, and the Creative Effectiveness Lions, three award categories that we are sponsoring again this year.

With that, signing off for now. We look forward to continuing the conversation with you throughout the week!