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What Is Creativity, Innovation?

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“May the Force Be With You…Always”

What is the Force?

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Creativity Adams: “The combination of seemingly disparate

parts into a functioning, useful whole.”

Picasso: “Every act of creation is an act of destruction” and “art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.”

Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Robinson: “Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value.”

Richard Florida: “Human creativity is the ultimate economic resource.”

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Creativity

1. Traditional teaching methods are worse than useless – they stomp out creativity by trying to eliminating mistakes.

We are never as creative as when we were three.

2. Becoming creative is getting in touch with our inner child.

And getting rid of inhibitions

3. We become creative by making mistakes.

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Creativity

Creativity can be learned.

We’ll learn about the creative process. And some creativity-enhancing

techniques

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Three Creativity Perspectives

The creative person

The creative product

The creative process We’ll focus on the process.

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Three Creativity Elements

1. Expertise: In-depth knowledge about a field

2. Creative skills: Problem-finding and problem-solving skills, creative process skills

3. Intrinsic task motivation Intrinsic rewards: Love of the work, the

process involved, not extrinsic reward such as money, awards *

Teresa Amabile, Creativity in Context, Westview Press, 1996

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Innovation

Innovation is the result – the working solution – of the creative process.

Innovation is the most dominant trend in business … the key to success Non-profits, too.

Innovation = problem finding and problem solving.

Most of all, innovation is fun.

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The Creative Person

Six traits of creative people *:1. Self-confidence2. Unconventionality3. Alertness4. Ready access to unconscious processes

(incubation)5. Ambition6. Commitment to work

*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.

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Four Roles Of The Creative Process (von Oech) *

1. The Explorer Gathers information, explores for

knowledge in new places.

2. The Artist Experiments with new approaches,

combinations. Follows intuition, breaks rules,

brainstorms, takes risks.

A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, Roger von Oech, Perennial Library, New York, 1986.

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Four Roles Of The Creative Process (von Oech)

3. The Judge Evaluates ideas and solutions, critically

weighs evidence.

4. The Warrior Takes the offensive, fights for

implementation, sells the ideas, has courage.

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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 and adoption of ideas.

* Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson

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

double-entry bookkeeping *

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Forcing Mechanisms

Trigger concepts Creative Whack Pack, Creative

Strategies and 75 Tools for Creative Thinking apps

Matrix Random words

http://textfixer.com/tools/random-words.php

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

See “Creativity Techniques” paper on my website.

Brainwriting and cyberstorming See “Better Brainstorming” paper on my

website.

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Brainswarming http://hbr.org/video/3373616535001/bra

inswarming-because-brainstorming-doesnt-work

Hockey Puck (Google)

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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

* Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson

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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.

* Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson

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The Judge

Does it meet the objective?

Positives?

Negatives?

Probability for success?

Downside?

Upside?

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Timing?

Deadlines?

Biases? (assumptions)

Blind Spots?

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The Warrior Be bold.

Develop a strategy.

What are the consequences of failure?

Get started immediately?

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

Adult thinking

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Creativity Blocks Expecting others to be creative

Being unwilling to question others

Being unwilling to accept others‘ input

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

improvise...prevailed.” * The wisdom of crowds

Where Good Ideas Come From, Stephen Johnson

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Methods For Killing Creativity

Evaluation Fear of evaluation kills the love of

creative activity.

Surveillance Looking over creative people’s shoulder

or policing them de-motivates them.

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Methods For Killing Creativity

Reward Extrinsic rewards lower motivation. Reward creative people with autonomy,

the opportunity to learn.

Competition Win-lose competition kills creativity. In a competitive environment many

people think about how not to lose instead of how to win.

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Methods For Killing Creativity

Restricted Choice Making choices for creative people or

severely limiting their options lowers creative output.

Extrinsic Orientation External rewards such as prizes and

money hurt creativity. Creative people love the intrinsic

rewards of doing the job.

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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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Pixar’s Rules For Collective Creativity

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

stage of idea development. Development’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.

Creativity, Inc. Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. (2014). Ed Catmull. New York: Random House.

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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.

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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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Number-one creativity rule: Get in touch with the child you once

were.