Creativity Professionals: What’s our limit?

After viewing the clip below, I started to wonder if Creativity Professionals have a duty to influence clients’ decision making with regards to the new ideas they choose from which to create new futures.

If creativity is about using new ideas to make new decisions, and, its base comes from our innate human character to make things better and solve challenges to make life better for our children, and theirs, do we have the responsibility to influence client’s decision-making to include ‘green’ as a necessary criteria?

As facilitators, many Creativity Professionals do their best to be a ‘guide by the side rather than a sage on the stage’ working to guide and encourage fresh thinking and propel new action, supporting the client’s agenda for innovation.

We do this is in two basic stages, by leading activities and providing training, tips, tools and techniques to

1. Expand thinking, access imagination, and put new combinations together for new considerations to emerge.
2. Establish a new focus, by limiting the scope of ideas generated using specific criteria so that new plans can be made to carry out new actions.

Given the challenge of data available with regards to physical environment (air quality, water quality, etc) is it also our role to guide client decision-making to include planet care among the criteria for selecting ideas or place it within the planning stage?

Are Creativity Professionals also guardians or spokespeople for the quality of life on the planet?  Should we be?

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Imagination Triggers

Einstein’s most often quote “imagination is more important than knowledge” is partially true. Both are important at different times as appropriate. Balance is good.

I didn’t know what imagination was when growing up, I’d ask what it is and teachers would say, just pretend.  “Pretend what?” I’d reply.  So, I did some research and found this in Webster’s dictionary.

Imagination is a function of memory, and there are two kinds: reproductive and productive.  Reproductive reproduces experiences from the past, productive puts two things together that haven’t in experience, been put together before (as in the photo).

Rob Brezny’s Freewill Astrology column provides clues for stirring imagination – both reproductive and productive. Below is an adaptation of some of the copy.  Works for me.

When one’s imagination cannot provide an answer, one must turn to a greater imagination.

Imagination triggers

• Are you doing the work you love? Are you engaged in ongoing efforts to transform your darkness? Do you practice compassion with wit and style? Are you saving the world in some way? Are you skilled at taking care of yourself? Define your ideal human.

• Circle back and reclaim an early part of you that got lost along the way.

• Avoid attacking a small problem in a way that causes a bigger problem.  Don’t seek a quick fix that causes a complicated mess.

• Take some original creation you really like, and add a shot of your own unique approach to generate a completely new thing.

• If you feel the itch to tell friends and loved ones that they should be different from how they actually are, stop and ask yourself whether maybe you should transform yourself instead.

• Think big and dream of accomplishing amazing feats, and respect your limitations. Feats first.

Make sure to check out Imagine it Project (imagineitproject.com) to view inspiring imagination statements from world leaders.  Great clips.

Related Articles

• The new currency: Imagination – Why artists will rule the future (dontgetburnedblog.com)
• Our Imaginings (dragonintuitive.com)
• Book Review: Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life by Shelley Carson, Ph.D. (blogcritics.org)

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Are these powerful questions powerful for you?

While cleaning out file drawer today I found a non referenced handout from a conference a few years ago, Powerful Questions.

According to the tiny description on the green sheet, the purpose of these questions is to stimulate new knowledge and creative thinking.

They don’t work so much for me.  It’s hard for me to connect with more than  20% of them.  Maybe they work better for you.

An important question for Creativity Professionals: are the questions we use ones that work for us, given our style preferences?  And if so, then what are some ways to we expand our repertoire to ensure the people we work with connect with them rather than zone out?

So, if these work for you… go for it. And may the blessings of new ideas and new decisions to create a satisfying future rain upon you.  If they don’t work, no worries, there are others that do.  They are just not included in this post.

Powerful Questions

For Collective/group/team, Attention to a Specific Situation

• What question, if answered, could make the most difference to the future of your situation?
• What’s important to you about your situation, and why do you care?
• What draws you to this inquiry?
• What is our intention here? What’s the deeper purpose that is really worthy of your best effort?
• What opportunities can you see in your situation?
• What do we know about the situation and what do we still need to learn?
• What are the dilemmas/opportunities in the specific situation?
• What assumptions do we need to test or challenge in our thinking about this situation?
• What would someone who had a very different set of beliefs than we do say about this situation?

Questions for Connecting Ideas and Finding Deeper Insight

• What’s taking shape? What are you hearing underneath the variety of opinions being expressed? What’s in the center of the table?
• What’s emerging here for you? What new connections are you making?
• What had real meaning for you from what you’ve heard? What surprised you? What challenged you?
• What’s missing from this picture so far? What is it we’re not seeing? What do we need more clarity about?
• What’s been your major learning insight or discovery so far?
• What’s the next level of thinking we need to do?
• If there was one thing that hasn’t yet been said in order to reach a deeper level of understanding/clarity, what would that be?

Questions that Create Forward Movement

• What would it take to create change on this issue?
• What could happen that would enable you/us to feel fully engaged and energized about (the specific situation)?
• What’s possible here and who cares? (rather than ‘what’s wrong here and who’s responsible’?)
• What needs our immediate attention going forward?
• If our success were completely guaranteed, what bold steps might we choose?
• How can we support each other in taking the next steps? What unique contribution can we each make?
• What challenges might come our way and how might we meet them?
• What conversation, if begun today, could ripple out in a way that created new possibilities for the future of this situation?
• What see might we plant together today, that could make the most difference in the future of our situation?

Overall, I like these points for reference. It would never occur to me to ask people what’s on the table unless I didn’t know what the centerpiece was made from.  There are many illusive metaphors and abstractions that require effort to understand, let alone respond to.  I’m holding on to these though – for client groups I’ll be working with in the future who speak in metaphors and abstractions.  Thank you anonymous author!

Related Articles

• The new currency: Imagination – Why artists will rule the future (dontgetburnedblog.com)
• Powerful Questions (teachstreet.com)
• Does Your Language Shape How You Think? (nytimes.com)

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Moving forward by saying goodbye. REM’s anthem.

Cover via Amazon

While beginnings are often inspiring, fresh, full of possibility and potential, endings can be sad. Emotional investments for  comfort are cashed in, replaced with anxiety of the new.

Creativity Professionals owe it to their clients to help build confidence in the transition.  Successfully moving forward involves also saying goodbye.

Wouldn’t it be nice if as each ending occurs it does so with a bang, like REM’s classic line – “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine?”

Here’s one creativity exercise for you to welcome a new way of doing business, living life, moving house…

Write your own words to replace the song’s lyrics, and keep the chorus. Then, as a group or team, sing the revised song together.  Put pictures to it to make it more meaningful.  It’s a wake of sorts that eases the transition into the new. I used this as a closing program for a client group not so long ago.  Worked like a charm.  Everyone was up out of their seats applauding and dancing.  What a kickoff to a new way of doing business, eh?

What other exercises do you use?

“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” is a song by the rock band R.E.M., which appeared on their 1987 album Document, the 1988 compilation Eponymous, and the 2006 compilation And I Feel Fine… The Best of the I.R.S Years 1982–1987 It was released as a single in 1988, reaching #69 US Billboard Hot 100 and later reaching #39 in the UK singles chart on its re-release in December 1991.

Lyrics

That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes,
an aeroplane – Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn,
world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak,, grunt, no, strength,
The ladder starts to clatter with fear fight down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site.
Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing!
Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it’ll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right – right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.Six o’clock – TV hour. Don’t get caught in foreign towers.
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn.
Locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood letting.
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate.
Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step down.
Watch your heel crush, crushed. Uh-oh, this means no fear cavalier.
Renegade steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies.
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it. (It’s time I had some time alone)
It’s the end of the world as we know it (It’s time I had some time alone) and I feel fine.
(I feel fine)

Related links

• Assessing Transition Readiness (wmbridges.com)

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Brains, dopamine and gadgets: are faciliation and leadership practices changing?

Great insight into what’s happening to our wired techno-addicted brains from NPR’s program, Fresh Air, describing findings from New York Times technology and telecommunications reporter Matt Richtel.

The findings triggered my thinking: is the dopamine squirt that accompanies the immediate feedback from our current gadgetry being accounted for by facilitators and leaders?  How much of the ‘aha’ experience is accounted for by the release of dopamine?

Do new ideas and new decisions, i.e. creativity, imply that a dopamine release is promised?  To create new futures, must we ensure a good time is had by all?

Snippet

“…one study conducted at Stanford University,  showed that heavy multimedia users have trouble filtering out irrelevant information — and trouble focusing on tasks. Other research, he says, says that heavy video game playing may release dopamine, which is thought to be involved with addictive behaviors.

“When you check your information, when you get a buzz in your pocket, when you get a ring — you get what they call a dopamine squirt. You get a little rush of adrenaline,” he says. “Well, guess what happens in its absence? You feel bored. You’re conditioned by a neurological response: ‘Check me check me check me check me.’ “

Transcript here.

Questions for facilitation

• What do facilitators do to trigger the dopamine response?  How is the boredom that occurs after the rush of the ‘aha’ handled?
• What percentage of time during the creative process should be dedicated toward participants getting a ‘dopamine squirt?’
• What kinds of immediate feedback/attention are available during facilitated sessions that have the same impact as tweets?
• Does each person experience the ‘high’ under the same conditions at the same time?
• Does personality style provide insights into the dopamine activators for participants?
• How might the ‘high’ of connecting new ideas to respond to a challenge be extended into the action to make the new idea real?  What apps are out there for that?
• What are ways to work with ‘dopamine’ addicts during ideation sessions and how important is it to achieving the desired outcome?

Questions for leadership

• How are organizational leaders, supervisors, managers, etc accommodating the dopamine release, do they perceive it as a worker need for engagement and motivation?
• Does creative leadership imply a higher release of dopamine among workers, colleagues, suppliers, customers?

Related Articles

• Links to Flood Your Brain (smartbitchestrashybooks.com)
• Too Much Digital Too Much For Your Brain? (psychologytoday.com)
• Dopamine and Vacations: 8 tips for enjoying your time off (psychologytoday.com)
• Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price (textually.org)
• This Is Your Brain on Computers (neatorama.com)
• Brain Chemical Makes Us More Impulsive (livescience.com)

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Elitism in Creative Class literature. Help or hinder creativity?

The Martin Prosperity Institute is redefining society into three classes: Creative, Service and Working.  This graphic shows their percentage representation in Toronto.

Their classification does not support the notion that all people have creative ability or are creative. This troubles me.

Implications:

• Service and Working Classes are asked to use their creativity at work, they can easily say, “I’m not creative.”
• Dan Pink‘s voice of others’ work on welcoming people to generate new ideas and make new decisions by paying attention to the affect that influences this kind of thinking may not be encouraged to treat Service and Working Class people with regard to their feelings of satisfaction.
• Support for creativity will only be given to people occupying positions who belong to the Creative Class.
• The education of children among Service and Working Class members may be receive less encouragement to develop their talents and creative thinking capabilities due to geography. Educational focus may be influenced by the neighbourhoods highlighted below.

My questions:

1. Does recognizing a Creative Class in society help or hinder creativity diffusion; it’s spread, it’s support, and it’s use?
2. Shouldn’t all people have confidence, comfort, commitment and competence in generating new ideas and making new decisions to create satisfying new futures?
3. How might this class distinction influence the role and services of Creativity Professionals?

World Creativity and Innovation Week (WCIW)  April 15 – 21 is a time for everyone to bring their creativity into the spotlight; to use new ideas and make new decisions that make the world and their experience in it a bit more satisfying, without causing harm.  Ignore that the Martin Prosperity Institute is advocating that creativity exists among certain classes… What might you do during WCIW in 2011 make the world a better place and to make your place in the world better too?

Related Articles

• The Creative Class struggle (economist.com)
• Creative class versus working class in Seattle? (seattlepi.com)
• Intelligence Density and the Creative Class (news.slashdot.org)
• Do We Need a New Definition of Creativity? (adage.com)
• American Creativity in Decline (ideas.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Initial Thoughts on America and Its Elites, Cont’d (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)

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Creativity 1 and Creativity 2

Image via Wikipedia

Creativity 1: It’s Always

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. – Louis L’Amour

“Each one of us is a blend of life and death. In the most literal sense, our bodies always contain old cells that are dying and new cells that are emerging as replacements. From a more metaphorical perspective, our familiar ways of seeing and thinking and feeling are constantly atrophying, even as fresh modes emerge. Both losing and winning are woven into every day; sinking down and rising up; shrinking and expanding. In any given phase of our lives, one or the other polarity is usually more pronounced.”

Creativity 2: Question: Creativity = new ideas + new decisions.  How else do we name it and where is it used?

Introduction

“The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them,” wrote novelist Margaret Atwood. “There ought to be as many for love.”

Here are a few that the ancient Greeks devised, according to Lindsay Swope in her review of Richard Idemon’s book Through the Looking Glass.

Epithemia is the basic need to touch and be touched. Our closest approximation is “horniness,” though epithemia is not so much a sexual feeling as a sensual one.

Philia is friendship. It includes the need to admire and respect your friends as a reflection of yourself—like in high school, where you want to hang out with the cool kids because that means you’re cool too.

Eros isn’t sexual in the way we usually think, but is more about the emotional gratification that comes from merging souls.

Agape is a mature, utterly free expression of love that has no possessiveness. It means wanting the best for another person even if it doesn’t advance your self-interest.”

Quotes from Rob Brezny, author of Freewill Astrology and PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Other names for creativity

• invention, innovation, humour, entrepreneurship, surprise
• unexpected, novelty, originality, new, improved, game changer
• personal expression, new uses, new perspectives
• evolution, revolution, incremental change, disruptive change
• improvisation, negotiation, stabilization, facilitation, strategic plan

Where used

• research, product development
• raising children, teaching, budgeting
• relationship building, health and lifestyle
• caring for others, caring for self
• politics, sport, entertainment, media, business
• science, technology, psychology, urban planning
• travel, sustainability, economics, arts
• networking, questioning, hypothesizing, wondering
• speaking, writing, learning, playing
• at home, at work, at school, in community, when shopping, when selling…

How else is creativity referred to?  Where else is it used?

World Creativity and Innovation Week (WCIW) is April 15 – 21.  It’s a time for you to bring your creativity into the spotlight; to use new ideas and make new decisions that make your world a bit more satisfying – without, of course, causing harm.  What might you do during WCIW in 2011 make the world a better place and to make your place in the world better too?

Related Articles

• Muscles Remember Past Glory (wired.com)
  

  Pumping up is easier for people who have been buff before, and now scientists think they know why — muscles retain a memory of their former fitness even as they wither from lack of use.  hm…Do we have same capacity for our creativity?

• Book Review: Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life by Shelley Carson, Ph.D. (blogcritics.org)
  

  Your Creative Brain shows how to expand the marvelous human brain to move from ordinary problem solving to great creative skill. Author Shelley Carson’s concept of creativity recognizes a creative idea or product needs to be novel or original, and has to be useful or adaptive. We should be able to apply these elements to any aspect of life to increase our productivity and happiness.
• We Need to Rethink How We View Creativity (futurelab.net)
  

  When we think of creativity at an individual level we think of moments of inspiration, big ideas, free-flowing associations, uninhibited thinking.

• After the Show: The Many Faces of the Performer (psychologytoday.com)
  

  Creativity researchers aren’t so confused. They have long-ago accepted the fact that creative people are complex. Almost by definition, creativity is complex. Creative thinking is influenced by many traits, behaviors, and sociocultural factors that come together in one person (see “Could Michael Jackson Have Created Twitter?”). It would be surprising if all of these factors didn’t sometimes, or even most of the time, appear to contradict one another.

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Creativity Crisis in the US – a rebuttal

Image by patrick h. lauke via Flickr

What a fresh perspective.  Just read Micheal Schrage’s Harvard Business Review blog post “Creativity Crisis, What Creativity Crisis” and absolutely adored his commentary.  You’ve got to read it for yourself.  New ideas and new decisions for creating exciting new futures in creativity.  Thanks Michael!

A few highlights

“Yes, America’s economy is awful. But so what? Hard times haven’t nicked, dented or damaged this country’s creative core competence. To the contrary, they’ve made more people more interested in being more creative. Spend serious time at research university labs. Or sit in on 10K business plan competitions. Or wander through Silicon Valley incubators and Texas industrial parks. Or listen to top-tier venture capitalists. You’ll be impressed. There’s no shortage of creativity and ingenuity here.”

___________

“America has a creativity glut. Over two decades, I’ve not heard a single venture capitalist suggest any perceptible decline in the creative quality and content of the business proposals they see. If anything, their innovation buffet has expanded. Aspiring pundits shouldn’t confuse macroeconomic malaise with creative constipation.”

___________

“My bet is that the overwhelming majority of today’s children and adolescents will be getting all kinds of creative stimulation and challenge from the video-games they play and the social networks they manage via their digital devices. Needless to say, traditional tests of convergent/divergent creative thinking probably aren’t well-suited for capturing these new genres and modes of creative development.”

___________

Michael Schrage, a research fellow at MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business, is the author of Serious Play and the forthcoming Getting Beyond Ideas.

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Facilitating client creativity: who owns the results?

Here’s an example of a client creative process in action.

In this clip a designer is meeting with the client group to achieve a desirable outcome.  Even though design as shown may not be your discipline, I’m wondering if you have had similar experiences when working with others.

Creativity Professionals’ work requires them to not have a stake in the outcome and to be satisfied with the results. True?

Related Articles

• How to Navigate Design by Committee (sixrevisions.com)

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Want to inspire children’s creativity? Read this.

Image via Wikipedia

Culture shift time. When I was growing up creativity was considered bad manners unless it was in the arts or sciences.  That’s changed.  Now we want children to embrace their creativity and expect teachers to nurture students’ capacity to generate new ideas and make new decisions.

Herein begins a new movement to inspire creativity daily.  It’s simple and it’s all of our responsibility to engage children’s curiosity to make up answers rather than look for the ‘right’ one 100% of the time.

Simple steps:

1. Reinforce what creativity is when you or your children use new ideas to make new decisions.
2. Instead of asking “what do you want to be when you grow up” ask, “how would you like to apply your creativity when you get older?” The logic behind this is obvious – many of today’s jobs won’t exist 15 – 20 years from now.  This approach prepares children to pay attention to their curiosity and articulate their sense of wonder.
3. When children say they are bored, ask, “what are you curious about, and want to know more of?”  Then, find ways to help them access the information or experience they want to have.

Of course, you can do this at work too, for yourself and your colleagues, particularly if you are a team leader and if you are not.  When a new challenge is presented, ask,  “how might we apply our creativity to this?” Again, it’s important to reinforce that creativity means using new ideas and making new decisions to create a more desirable future.

What do you suppose would happen if you did?

Your creativity can be tapped into daily.  New ideas. New decisions. At home, at work, at school.  Rather than making do with what is, why not apply a little creativity juice to spice up the mundane and bring happiness through achieving even minor accomplishments?

It’s important to allow new thinking rise up to serve you instead of pushing your creativity away. See what happens when you use these suggestions. New ideas, new decisions. You may notice a difference.

Here’s some advice from Dan Pink:

Let me know what you discover.

Related Articles

• The Top 5 Websites To Spark Your Creativity (makeuseof.com)
• Ultradian Rhythms, Music to Your Creativity and Problem Solving Skills [Phil Shepherd] (ecademy.com)
• John Kao Is Now A Daily Beast (aoprep.blogspot.com)
• 2010′s Top Five Creativity Links (my-creativeteam.com)
• Enhance Your Creativity with Mental Tools (socyberty.com)
• Get Inspired, Take Action (stacyknows.blogspot.com)
• Five Ways Creativity Can Enhance Your Career (distance-education.org)
• RPGs and the Creativity Crisis from The Escapist Blog (theescapist.com)

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