Part of the problem about being an economic development buzzword is that terms often gets blurred together. Creativity and innovation are two of the terms that have often been used interchangably. The Burns Owens Partnership, one of the UK's leading culture and creative industries consultancies, feels it is necessary to make a clear distinction between the two.

Since the mid 1990s, there has been a flood of new thinking around the post-industrial economy and the changes being brought by Information and Communications Technologies. The plethora of slogans and metaphors to have appeared include The Weightless Economy, the Networked Economy, the Knowledge Economy, the Digital Economy and, most infamously, the New Economy. Swept along with this tide has been the Creative Economy, in which a set of creative industries and other activities based around the origination, production and distribution of intellectual property are seen as central to economic growth and prosperity.

In all this excitement, innovation and creativity have been conflated, and terms with quite distinct meanings are repeatedly used synonymously. Many working in economic development as well as in creativity and culture have been happy to surf the wave, enjoying the raised profile and the kind of funding that has traditionally been associated with the science, technology and manufacturing sectors.

But should we really treat creativity and innovation as the same thing? There are clear differences in meaning, but without getting into a semantic debate, it is important to consider the practical differences. We need some appreciation of the different ways in which they arise and manifest, their characteristics and needs, and how they interrelate. In particular, we need to explore the implications for decision-takers as to how best they can be approached and supported.

Innovation is associated both with delivering solutions to defined problems, and the development of new tools and products to meet a specific, often well researched, market demand. The stock in trade of such an enterprise is technical products and processes, and this has been the driving activity of the high-tech clusters and science parks that have sprung up across the UK over the last decade. Often attached to HE institutions, they receive substantial public and private sector investment. The established development model is that of the incubated start-up, spun off by venture capital investors as a market-ready proposition, and floated on a specialist technology exchange.

The creative industries on the other hand are characterised by their much more diffuse and open markets. Rather than attempting to find solutions to well-defined problems, creative professionals draw on their talents, personal ideas and surrounding environment to create new forms of expression and meaning. As a result, clusters focused around creative production, rather than existing in a rarefied academic bubble, are usually highly integrated into a cultural and social milieu - think of Soho or Manchester's Northern Quarter.

The consequence of conflating creativity and innovation has meant that development strategies, initiatives and investments have been hampered by a faulty understanding of how creativity arises, and how it can be nurtured and grown. The standard development tool-kit (incubator, business park, technology investments, VC fund etc) deployed to encourage innovation do not simply translate into appropriate policies for the creative industries.

There is a growing body of best practice, research findings and ideas around driving creative enterprise, which are starting to emerge from policy debates over the last few years. For instance, learning networks in the UK, such as CIN and New Media Knowledge, have pioneered new and successful ways of supporting creative businesses. BOP has contributed to, and draws from, this in its work. Recognising that there is no one-size-fits-approach, we can bring a much-needed level of insight and knowledge to develop and implement appropriate and effective policies for creative economies.