I still don't see what "having fun" has to do with "solving customer needs": often customer needs are boring, esoteric, poorly-specified, and technically uninteresting -- exactly the opposite of the sort of thing you'd do to "have fun".
Creativity is just one way, and not necessarily the most
effective to achieve perspective shift. In fact I am increasingly
of the opinion that creativity is not a cause of innovation,
but a property of innovation processes, its something that
you can use as evidence of innovation, but not to create it.
This might be true, but coming up with solutions to customer needs is a very small part of making software. Most of the day is filled with programming, i.e. translating your vision into actual software.
Creativity is often the result of great adversity. But in a roundabout way, you're right (but probably not in the way you think). See, by having fun, you're wasting time you should be spending solving the problem. Then just before the deadline, you miraculously solve the problem. Your fun beget your laziness,which beget your desperation,which beget your creativity.
