Creativity

1
Creativity
2
What is creativity?

• A way of thinking and doing that brings
  unexpected and original ideas to fruition.

3

• The best way to have a good idea is to have lots
  of them.
• -Linus Pauling (2-time Nobel prize winner)

4
30 second class assignment(take out paper and a
pencil)

• List as many uses as you can for a paper cup.

5
Fluency and Flexibility

• Fluency
• -Ideas based on the original concept or
  application
• -Ideas generated by logic

• Flexibility
• -Ideas not based on the original concept or
  application.
• -Ideas identified by analogy

6
Fluency
Flexibility
7
(No Transcript)
8
How the Mind Works

• Information is placed in zones (files)
• Logical links are automatically created (index)
• Information from all the senses can be converted
  and stored as regular data

9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
Two minds

• "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the
  rational mind is a faithful servant. We have
  created a society that honors the servant and has
  forgotten the gift."
• Albert Einstein

12
How the Mind Works

• Creative lateral thinking occurs when previously
  unrelated ideas are linked
• Lateral connections between different file
  drawers
• Humor is unexpected connections (set us is
  assumed logical (linear) but then becomes lateral
• Art is felt (aesthetics) and that is the
  combination of files where some of the files
  evoke feelings (non-logical, at least in part, in
  these files)

13
Creativity and Humor

• Atheism is a non-prophet organization
• No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldnt
  work anyway.
• I used to think I was indecisive, but now Im not
  sure.
• Editing is a rewording activity
• My reality check just bounced
• What if there were no hypothetical questions?

14
Creativity and Humor

• Specialized Humor
• Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
• Entropy isnt what it used to be.
• 186,000 miles/sec not just a good idea, its the
  LAW!
• Santas elves are just a bunch of subordinate
  Clauses.
• Clones are people, two.
• Dyslexics have more fnu
• Help stamp out and eradicate superfluous
  redundancy.
• Air pollution is a mist-demeanor.
• Microbiology Lab Staph.

15
Creativity and Aesthetics

• Perhaps what differentiates highly creative
  ideas from ordinary ones is some combined sense
  of beauty, simplicity, and harmony.
• Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach

16
States of awareness of the Mind (Brain)

• Fully Conscious
• Subconscious

17
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Depth/breadth
• Focused/relaxed
• Smart/uncertain
• Disciplined/playful
• Realistic/imaginative
• Introverted/extroverted
• Humble/proud
• Traditional/rebellious
• Objective/passionate
• Pain/pleasure

18
Examining the details of Creativity
19
Types of Creativity

• Small c (Personal) creativity new and useful
  only to or primarily to the individual creator.
• Big C (Recognized creativity) valuable to a
  group as a whole. May transform society or group.
• Fox, Jon Michael and Ronni Lea Fox, Exploring the
  Nature of Creativity, Kendall/Hunt, 2000, p.14.

20
Elements of Creativity (Big C)

• Uniqueness or Novelty - truly original, beyond
  the expected.
• Value - judged to have value according to
  external criteria sometimes a body of work is
  viewed collectively
• Intent - resulted from purposeful behavior not
  discovered through luck but could be fortuitous
  if the mind is properly prepared.
• Implementation Excellence and Continuance - Well
  done, we appreciate both the work and the way it
  is done skill-based accomplishment.

21

• The creative individual is a person who
  regularly i.e., with continuance, intent, or
  skill solves problems, fashions products, or
  defines new questions in a domain i.e., a
  particular field in a way that is initially
  considered novel but that ultimately becomes
  accepted in a particular cultural setting.
• Gardner, Howard, Creating Minds, Basic Books,
  1993, p.35.

22
Patentability

• Unique--not part of the public domain
• Valued--has to have a practical application
• Reduced to practice--must be more than just an
  idea

23

• Fortune favors the prepared mind.
• Louis Pasteur

24
Historical Examination of Creativity (Case study
method)

• Look at people and times to understand creativity
  better
• What traits that made them creative?
• What environmental conditions existed?
• What was the process of creativity?

25
Creativity needsSkill, Talent, Personality

• Are they in-born or learned?

26
Thank You
27
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes

28
Choosing or balancing attributes

• Right/left brain control
• Conscious/sub-conscious control
• Adjust thinking to fit the environment

29
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected mental
  associations

30
Making Unusual and Unexpected Mental Associations

• Discovery consists of seeing what everybody else
  has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
• Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

31
Making Unusual and Unexpected Mental Associations

• Creativity doesnt create something out of
  nothing but, rather, recombines ideas that
  already separately exist.
• Arthur Koestler

32
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected mental
  associations
• Acquire information in many areas

33
Acquire information in many areas

• Major and general education
• Major
• Specific education directed toward an occupation
• Depth of study
• General education
• Specific education directed toward developing
  general skills of thinking and learning
• Breadth of study

34
Acquire information in many areas

• Travel
• Appreciation and study of the arts
• Appreciation and study of the sciences
• General inquisitiveness

35
Study of Scientists

• Grouping of scientists
• Type 1 Innovators/creators
• Type 2 Implementers
• Type 3 Slugs
• Results
• Innovators/creators read widely and avidly
• Implementers read strongly within their field
• Slugs rarely read at all
• Conclusion Read widely and avidly

36
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected mental
  associations
• Acquire information in many areas
• Develop skills, work hard, be passionate about
  your work

37

• Those tremendously useful men, those powerful
  and invincible men, Marconi, Edison, Orville
  Wright, Burbank, who sit wrapped in purple robes
  of creative genius, are simply men who are
  capable of striking reiterated blows. They are
  men who reached success because they subjected
  themselves to the fierce fires of intellectual
  and physical endeavor. Men never ascend to
  eminence by a single leap or by growth overnight.
  Longfellow gave us this The heights by great
  men reached and kept were not attained by sudden
  flight, but they, while their companions slept,
  were toiling upward in the night.
• Spencer Kimball

38

• "Diligence is the mother of good luck."
• Benjamin Franklin

39
Creativity and Cooking

• Creativity is like cooking a great meal. The
  first essentials are the basic ingredients (such
  as the meat and the potatoes) which must be of
  the finest quality. This is the depth and for
  creativity it is the experience and study within
  the domain. The second important part involves
  the spices. These lift the taste to new areas.
  These are like the lateral thoughts and creative
  thinking skills. They excite the mind to new
  things. Finally, the chef must have passion for
  the meal. This is not easily explained but is
  clearly understood when it is present. It is the
  presentation, the choices, the verve when
  everything is put together. In creativity, it is
  the desire, persistence, and implementation.
• -Goleman, Daniel, et al, The Creative Spirit (New
  York Plume, 1992, p.29-30

40
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected mental
  associations
• Acquire information in many areas
• Develop skills, work hard, be passionate about
  your work
• Be confident

41
Be Confident

• Accept that creativity is not something that we
  learn, its something that weve forgotten but
  can relearn.
• Edward de Bono

42
Be Confident

• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never
  tried anything new.
• --Albert Einstein

43
Be Confident

• Dont be afraid to make mistakes
• Be able to assert a new concept
• Become familiar with many areas of civilization
  (cultural, technological, scientific, religious,
  etc.)
• Example Surrounding a child with music develops
  confidence
• Look at the unknown
• Focus on what you love to do
• Seek help in weak areas
• Be prepared for criticism

44
Be prepared for criticism

• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world
  the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt
  the world to himself therefore, all progress
  depends upon the unreasonable man.
• George Bernard Shaw

45
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected mental
  associations
• Acquire information in many areas
• Develop skills, work hard, be passionate about
  your work
• Be confident
• Move away from normal environment (including use
  of creativity tools)

46
Move away from normal environment (including
using creativity tools)

• Role play
• Use analogies
• Free association/brainstorming
• Ask-what if you werent afraid to failing
• Turn on music or walk
• Use of hats

47
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected mental
  associations
• Acquire information in many areas
• Develop skills, work hard, be passionate about
  your work
• Be confident
• Move away from normal environment (including use
  of creativity tools)
• Be perceptive

48
Be perceptive

• Rely on intuition, imagination and impetuousness
• Envision the consequences
• Mozart
• Michelangelo
• Perception precedes reason and logic
• Recognize mistakes
• Slow down, look at the big picture

49
Why arent we creative?

• Anxious to get the right answer
• Become less creative with age
• Willing to reject bad ideas
• Do not seek alternative ideas
• Doubt that a solution exists
• Stopped asking discovery questions
• What if, why not
• Developed habits
• Hard to suspend logic

50
Why arent we creative?

• The key to successful creative thinking is to
  maintain or enact some why nots throughout your
  life.

51
Creativity and Spirituality

• Finding answers can be guided by the spirit
• Inspiration and creativity (Are they related?)

52
Creativity and Spirituality

• Edison said that inspiration is only 1 of
  creativity, but it may be a critical factor.
• -Edison
• Inspiration may come as little flashes to the
  mind that we can pick up if we are receptive.
  (Absence if spiritual static)

53
Creativity and Spirituality

• Finding answers can be guided by the spirit
• Pondering
• Intellectual maturity
• Creativity by non-spiritual people
• Sin can block creative processing
• Creativity and truth
• Truth is the way things really are

54
Thank You