Note: This is Part-One of a two-part issue on Creativity. Stay tuned for Part Two - The Perfect Brainstorm -- How to Create Great New Ideas!

• The Perfect Storm. It is brewing in the business world! The dollar is plunging, as are the stock market and the housing market, credit is tightening, prices of commodities (oil, corn, raw materials, metals) are skyrocketing, inflation is raising its head again, jobs are disappearing, airlines are going bankrupt, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are impacting the economy, and companies and consumers are holding back on spending and investing.
• Chicken Little. While turbulence and destabilization affect the economy and the markets, the Chicken-Little-Talking-Heads of the media are screaming, "The sky is falling!"

• Don't Be. If you are willing to be creative, and change your products and services to match today's consumers' tastes and preferences, you will not only survive, but thrive in the midst of all the turbulence.
• Neanderthal Experience. Today's spooky trends are the economic equivalent of the challenges that the Neanderthal experienced over forty thousand years ago. The question is, why didn't they survive? The follow up question is what can we learn from their experience?

• Axiom. . A well-known axiom says, "If you keep doing the same things, you will keep getting the same results." That statement is not true in nature or business. Species that kept doing the same things, the same ones that had always worked in the past, and did not adapt creatively to change, became extinct. That is something we can learn from the Neanderthal experience: you have to change to survive change.
• Food Supply. The Neanderthal survived Ice Ages, and other natural challenges By living in caves, and making use of fire to cook their food and heat themselves, they survived the harsh environment. Food was whatever they could hunt. Fortunately, they could count on an abundant supply of local wildlife to hunt. So why did they disappear?
• Migration. When the last Ice Age ended, the landscape and the vegetation changed. Herds began to migrate as vegetation became seasonal with foods becoming available in different locations at different times. Hunting that had been available year around near the Neanderthal caves, became scarce when herds started migrating. Bottom line: the herds migrated and the Neanderthals didn't. Result: hunger, poorer nutrition, fewer births, earlier deaths.
• Neanderthal Companies. How does this relate to companies in today's business world? Consumer tastes are changing, they are looking for different products and experiences, purchasing them from different suppliers, the markets are migrating - and Neanderthal companies aren't. Bottom line: shrinking sales and profits, fewer resources, less growth, and earlier bankruptcies.
• Creativity. Creativity in business and in nature, share a common intent: survival of the species. Companies that keep doing the same things in today's highly competitive markets are not adapting creatively to change and, like the Neanderthal, will become extinct.

• Competition. About the time when the Neanderthal were beginning to feel the effect of climate change, Cro-Magnon, our current species, came along. Having migrated following the changing climate of Europe, Cro-Magnon were accustomed to foraging, roaming, following herds for food, and picking up and moving to keep up with everything else.
• Globalization. As the Ice Age waned and the glaciers receded, warmer weather moved further north and Cro-Magnon followed. Now the Neanderthal had competition for food supplies and firewood, as well as local forage. This was the Ice Age equivalent of Globalization; the Cro-Magnon chose to go with the flow; the Neanderthal didn't.
• The Danger of Getting Used to Things. The problem of being in the midst of so much change is that, after the initial discomfort, we get used to it; and actually stop seeing it. As a result, we do nothing about it.
• Parallel. See the parallel between the forty-plus thousand years ago Neanderthal and those of the 21st century? Look around you, and you will soon be able to identify today's Neanderthal Companies; they are everywhere.