I must be one of the two people Suw thought of (the other is in the comments) when posting a link to Hugh Macleod’s piece on how to be creative.
For me creativity and innovation are intensively interconnected, hence it’s important in knowledge work. If you’re wondering how, read the weblog by John Moore (you once had a specific post on this John, but I can’t find it), or think of one of my former clients who looked at me after presenting my thoughts and said “You never have done this in this way before?” Yup, I came up with this plan specially for you! 🙂
Anyway, go read what Hugh has to say:
gapingvoid: how to be creative
A sentence that struck a chord with me was point 6:

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “I�d like my crayons back, please.”
When I was a little child I thought of the world as a place where all kind of treasure was hidden just for me to go and find it. In elementary school that was hammered out, and the world became darker for it. When I left the beaten track due to depression ten years ago, I slowly succeeded in regaining that feeling of wonder when I was a toddler. Got my crayons back as Hugh says.