Civis Analytics runs on data. Civis
is a big data analytics firm that uses predictive analytics and statistics to
help companies and organizations develop better business strategies. Civis was
founded by Dan Wagner with the company’s goal to “empower organizations to
unlock the truth hiding in their own data” by building a “data-driven world.”
Civis is thinking forwardly and creatively in order to make the world a better,
more efficient, place. They claim that since information is “precise, portable,
and universally available,” they can measure, make inferences, and do what’s
right over what’s easy.
Civis is a fairly small company,
founded by the analytics team from the Obama 2012 campaign. Dan Wagner worked
as the Chief Analytics Officer, overseeing a 50+ team of people. This team of
people helped the campaign understand voters and increase voter turnout.
Now, a third of the original team
works at Civis. This group of people are passionate and dedicated to their
field, which helps cultivate creative thinking to problem solve organizational
problems by developing algorithms, models, experiments, and data science
infrastructure (just to name a few.) This method of taking a problem turning it
inside-out, upside down, and twisting it around helps cultivate creative work.
According to Lubart & Sternberg, “creative work often involves taking an
existing problem,” the organization’s problem or on a larger scale, the general
lack of strategic use of information, “and redefining it by approaching the
problem from a new angle.” (Lubart, 273) This includes approaching the issue
from an analytical and mathematical perspective in the context of an
organizational problem. Additionally, in the context of the general lack of
strategic use of data, this means building a passionate team of people driven
by statistics and big data.
Creativity arises when there a
problem that needs to be addressed and the passion to act upon it. According to
the Uzzi article, “creativity is spurred when creative material in one domain
inspires or forces fresh thinking in another.” This is exactly what Civis is doing.
Civis is inspired by the power of information and technology; therefore they
are using it to bring more power to non-profits, educational systems, and
health care businesses. Civis is a “social system of actors that amplify … one
another’s creativity.” (Uzzi, 448) Civis began as a group of diverse beings
that came together with a variety of skill-sets for a specific cause they
believed in. Ultimately, this group evolved into a data company.
Sources:
Lubart and Sternberg. An Investment
Approach to Creativity: Theory and Data, Chapter 12
Uzzi. Collaboration and Creativity:
The Small World Problem
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