Last week was Toronto’s Creative Places + Spaces conference – a very dynamic gathering of speakers from not-for-profit and educational sectors, with some CBC talent and Toronto City Hall employees thrown in for good measure.

The theme of the day was collaboration. Presenters explored the unconventional ways that individuals, communities, and institutions can work together to create better: Better cities, better citizens, better media, and better experiences. With such lofty goals, it was impressive that the organizers scheduled a day that didn’t focus on just theoretical and potential possibilities.

Sir Ken Robinson kicked off the morning with a keynote about leading a culture of innovation. “Doesn’t technology get in the way of the experience you’re trying to have at the time?” he asked – as we all twittered and typed notes feverishly.

Internationally recognized for his work in the development of creativity, innovation, and human resources, Sir Ken spoke about how we want citizens who can be creative, collaborative, etc., but our education system is failing to teach the skills necessary to achieve this. We view science and art as two separate worlds, he argued, but conceptually they’re not so segregated.

It’s not enough to seek creativity. Creativity needs a strategy.

Like science, you must plan for creativity to make it happen. We can’t hope that creative things will just develop on their own. Innovation needs to become a habit – and to do so, creativity needs to become systematic.

He used Las Vegas an example of this systematic creativity. It’s a city that has no reason to exist. (It’s in the middle of a desert! There are no natural resources or environmental features to make Vegas a likely candidate for development.) Instead, it illustrates the most distinctive feature of human intelligence: the power of imagination. Only humans have the ability to stand outside of our own circumstance and imagine a different future.

“Cultivate your imagination if you’re interested in innovation,” Sir Ken advised. But that’s not just it. The process of creativity means putting your imagination to work and actually producing value. Great ideas are often suggestive – you can’t predict the outcome. But with a little practice and discipline you can dictate the course of your creativity, and produce more ideas while doing so.