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Creativity and Brainstorming

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What Is “Star Wars: A New Hope” (Episode IV) About?

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The Creative Person

Six traits of creative people: *1. Self-confidence (often arrogance)2. Unconventionality3. Alertness (autodidacts) 4. Ready access to unconscious processes

(incubation)5. Ambition (competitiveness)6. Commitment to work, persistence (grit)

- IQ +125 and not necessarily talent.- Deliberate practice (Cezanne)

*Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi. (1996). Howard Gardner. New York: Basic Books.

Top Guns: The Science of Winning and Losing. (2013). Po Bronoson and Ashey Merriman.

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The Explorer Know what the objective is.

Look in other fields. Camouflage came from cubist art (Picasso &

Braque). Unbreakable code in WWII came from the

Navajo language.

Look for lots of ideas.

Look behind the first right answer. “How do you stop a fish from smelling?”

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The Explorer Don’t overlook things right in front of you.

Look or ideas in places you’ve been avoiding. The drunkard’s search

The Adjacent Possible The city and the web are engines of

innovation, created for creation, diffusion, adoption of ideas. *

* Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson (2010).

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Create or find Liquid Networks. * Sharing of ideas (open, collaborative) -

double-entry bookkeeping * Use forcing mechanisms.

* Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson (2010).

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Forcing Mechanisms

Matrix, Attribute Listing, Matrix Analysis

Trigger Concepts Creative Whack Pack and Oblique Strategies apps Random words from a book Hockey puck (Google)

Imagery – Relax, ask intuition for an image, symbol. Accept whatever comes, don’t judge.

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Starbursting (Who what, where, when, why, how)

Brainwriting Work alone, independently alone for 10

minutes.

Cyberstorming Work online (e.g. Google Docs)

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Analogy - Similarity between two things otherwise dissimilar (velcro is like burdock burrs)

Create constraints – “Budget cut in half.”

Dream – (“If you can dream it, you can do it”) – (“Dune”)

Draw or doodle – Evokes images and connections.

Meditate – mind clearing

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Brainstorming SCAMPER Substitute – components, materials, people. Combine – mix, integrate. Adapt – alter, change function, use another part. Modify – increase or reduce in scale, change shape

or color. Put to another use. Eliminate – remove elements, simplify, reduce to

core functionality. Reverse – turn inside out or upside down

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Write everything down. Post-It pads

See “Creativity Techniques” on my website. See “Better Brainstorming” on my website.

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The Artist

Adapt

Imagine (“What if?”)

Reverse (backward, upside down)

Connect

Compare (metaphors, literature, music, art, sports, warfare, gardening)

Exaptation * Gutenberg, Apple

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Parody

Incubate The Slow Hunch (Darwin, Tim Berners-Lee) *

The 10/10 Rule – Ten years to develop a platform, ten years to build an audience -- used to be. Google, Facebook cut it in half because of the web.

Serendipity * In dreamwork.

Error * Make mistakes.

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The Judge

Does it meet the objective?

Positives?

Negatives?

Probability for success?

Downside?

Upside?

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The Judge

Timing?

Deadlines?

Biases? (assumptions)

Blind Spots?

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The Warrior Be bold.

Develop a strategy.

Sell it.

Persistence

Learn from victories and defeats.

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Creativity Blocks

Accepting conventional wisdom

Not taking time to investigate or elaborate

Seeking only to satisfy the perceived needs of bosses

Having tunnel vision, compartmentalizing problems

Looking for quick, yes-no answers

Fear of failure (prevention focus, fear of risks)

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Creativity Blocks

Expecting others to be creative

Being unwilling to question others

Being unwilling to collaborate Darwin: “...those who learned to

collaborate and improvise...prevailed.” The wisdom of crowds

Lost at Sea

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Creativity Enhancers

Assume every experience can stimulate personal growth. Look for positives, growth,

opportunities: Chinese character, “crisis.”

Clearly visualize a positive outcome.

Don’t react too quickly. Give yourself time (incubation), have patience.

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Methods For Killing Creativity Surveillance

Looking over creative people’s shoulder or policing them de-motivates them.

Reward Extrinsic rewards (i.e. money) tend to lower

motivation. Reward creative people with autonomy, the

opportunity to learn.

Restricted Choice- Making choices for creative people or severely

limiting their options lowers creative output.

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Pixar’s Catmull’s Rules For Collective Creativity

1. Empower your creatives. Give your creative people control over every

stage of idea development. Management’s job is to find people who can

work together.

2. Create a peer culture. Encourage people to help each other do their

best work. Ideo’s culture of helping

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3. Free up communication. The most efficient way to resolve the numerous problems

that arise in any complex project is to trust people to address difficulties directly, without having to get permission. So, give everyone the freedom to communicate with anyone.

4. Craft a learning environment. Reinforce the mind-set that you’re all learning – and it’s fun

to learn together.

5. Get more out of postmortems. Most people dislike postmortems. They’d rather talk about

what went right than what went wrong. Structure your postmortems to stimulate discussion.

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What Kind of Thinker Are You?

1. I’m most motivated by …a. A need for a clear understanding of the

facts.b. A great idea.c. An opportunity to perfect an existing

solution.d. A job to do.

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2. I learn best through…a. Facts, research, data.b. Stories, ideas, concepts.c. Evaluating options.d. Trying things out.

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3. I like to spend time…a. Working with information.b. Thinking about new possibilities.c. Making things “just right.”d. Testing, prototyping, doing.

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Score – How many times did your answer correspond to:

a.__ b.__ c. __ d. __

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A 2 or 3 score indicates a preference for:

Clarifier – cautious, structured thinker who likes to gather data to understand the reality and to identify problems, gaps and opportunities.

Ideator – playful, original thinker who likes to see the “big picture” and make new connections that may break the mold or paradigm.

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Developer – detailed planner who likes to evaluate and perfect the best version of a solution and anticipate how it will move forward with the most success.

Implementer – confident, action-oriented risk taker who likes to learn by doing.

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Clarifier, Ideator, Developer, or Implementer?

No preference? Many people are not limited to one

thinking style. More than 20 percent of respondents select a different letter for each question. Their strength is in moving evenly through the process and harmonizing a team.

“Learning to Think Differently.” NY Times Education section (February 9, 2014).