Foundational Principals of CCI

Spaces and Stimuli
- We will provide both physical and social spaces that give permission for others to think creatively. These spaces will also act as a stimuli to creativity. The physical spaces will be both private and public, permanent and temporary.
- Those participating in the life of CCI will act as a catalyst to stimulate other people's creativity.
- CCI will be an incubator for ideas and social innovation.

Partnership and Mutuality
- Ideas emerge in the brains of one or more individuals as the result of stimulation from other people and interaction with the world around. Ideas never grow in isolation in one individual brain. Our mind is therefore a 'community resource' and the products of our mind are cultivated and 'owned' by the wider community.
- Our method of engaging with ideas is therefore based in partnership and mutuality. We will give freely to others and not 'hoard' our ideas.
- We will challenge ego-driven and individualistic ideas of intellectual property.

Accessibility
- Because creative ideas often come from the margins of mainstream society, we will make CCI accessible to all regardless of economic, social, cultural, intellectual, locality, or ideological orientation.

Nurture and Mentoring
- We believe that the seeds of genius lie within us all. We will honor and nurture those seeds regardless of where we find them.
- We will invest in mentoring others.

Minimal organization
- We will keep organization to a minimum so as not to divert time, energy and resources from the central tasks of CCI.

'Futures creating' not 'problem solving'
- What are described as 'problems' are often tensions caused by paradoxical (contradictory) values and desires. While many people see these contradictory values and desires as inherently problematic, we see them as normal to healthy individuals and communities. We therefore embrace the tensions caused by paradoxical values and desires as a drive to creativity (finding more creative ways to accommodate all our contradictory needs without ignoring some). The tensions caused by these contradictory needs are not as a 'problem' to be solved.
- Our creative responses to paradoxical tension, while totally appropriate yesterday, may be inappropriate today.
- There is always a more creative and eloquent way to respond to the tension created by paradoxical values and desires than how we are currently dealing with the tension.

Personal responsibility and personal transformation
- In dealing with 'presenting problems' we will first map the underlying paradoxical tensions and examine how we are personally responding to these tensions. We will take personal responsibility for the social consequences of our choices and seek to respond in a more creative way.
- We believe that social transformation and personal transformation are intimately inter-connected.

Making room for the Non-rational
- We believe that all creativity begins in 'non-rational' activity: play, story, humor, dreaming. The role of rational processes is to enhance what is conceived in the non-rational. We will therefore make room for, and honor, these non-rational activities.

Action and failure
- We believe that for ideas to grow and mature they must be modeled. We are therefore committed to combining thinking with action.
- We are not afraid of failure as it is a greater spur to creativity than success.

Whole of life creativity
- We will model 'creativity' and 'community development' as a total lifestyle, not as compartmentalized activities.