Creativity/Innovation An Easy Way to Increase Creativity Creativity is commonly thought of as a personality trait that resides within the individual. We count on creative people to produce the songs, movies, and books we love; to invent the new gadgets that can change our lives; and to discover the new scientific theories and philosophies that can change the way we view the world. Over the past several years, however, social psychologists have discovered that creativity is not only a characteristic of the individual, but may also change depending on the situation and context. The question, of course, is what those situations are: what makes us more creative at times and less creative at others? One answer is psychological distance. According to the construal level theory (CLT) of psychological distance, anything that we do not experience as occurring now, here, and to ourselves falls into the “psychologically distant” category. Why does psychological distance increase creativity? A prisoner was attempting to escape from a tower.
Idea Person’ 10 TIPS In an age where new ideas quickly becomes commodity, creativity is a must. It is creativity that continuously give us new ideas to keep us ahead in the competition. Regarding this, I recently found an interesting book: Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko. This book contains a lot of actionable ideas on how to become an idea person and get our creative juice flow. In chapter 2 of the book, Michalko gives us 10 tips to become an idea person which I find very useful and thought-provoking. Here are the summarized explanation of the 10 tips: 1. Set yourself an idea quota for a challenge you are working on, such as five new ideas every day for a week. 2. Fighter pilots say, “I’ve gone tone” when their radar locks onto a target. 3. Deliberately program changes into your daily life. For example: take a different route to work, change your working hours, make new friends, and read fiction if you normally read non-fiction. 4. Creative thinkers read to feed their minds new information and ideas. 5. 6.
6 Powerful Tools for Generating Ideas Have you ever experienced having no idea come to your mind when you need them? Such moments can be frustrating, especially if you have spent quite a lot of time to think and still get nothing. In such situations, getting external inputs to stimulate your mind is a good solution. They can break down your idea brick walls and make your creative juice flow again. Of course, not all kinds of external inputs are useful. There are tools that can help you get these diverse inputs and I will describe six such tools. Create connection between an input you get and the problem at hand. Without further ado, here are six tools you can use to break down your idea brick walls and generate ideas: 1. This is the only offline tool in this list. 2. StumbleUpon allows you to get random pages whenever you press the Stumble button in the toolbar. 3. TDBSpecialProjects Idea Generator is a three wheel tool that gives you random three-word phrases. 4. Another good inputs to feed your mind with are quotes. 5. 6.
Brainstorming Description: Brainstorming is the name I have chosen to use to describe techniques aimed at generating new ideas (e.g. game concepts, features, game mechanics, play mechanics, etc.) or solving design problems (e.g. imbalances, loopholes, control schemes, etc.) through spontaneity. As a game design tool, brainstorming is not isolated to the beginning of the game design process but recurs throughout the entire process. · Escape old convictions and assumptions. · Find new and unique solutions. Use: To use brainstorming effectively, there are several questions that you should ask yourself before using it as a tool. (1) How innovative do the results need to be? If not a game designer can better use a different set of design tools (i.e. generative research, patterns, game taxonomy, etc.). Is the brainstorm about new ideas or solutions to problems? If the brainstorming is about new ideas then the techniques chosen should allow for a blue sky approach to creating the new ideas. · Game Concepts · Theme
Developing Your Creative Practice: Tips from Brian Eno Current neuroscience research confirms what creatives intuitively know about being innovative: that it usually happens in the shower. After focusing intently on a project or problem, the brain needs to fully disengage and relax in order for a “Eureka!” moment to arise. It’s often the mundane activities like taking a shower, driving, or taking a walk that lure great ideas to the surface. Science journalist Jonah Lehrer, referencing a landmark neuroscience study on brain activity during innovation, writes: “The relaxation phase is crucial. The ebb and flow of concentrated focus and total disengagement has been a subject of particular interest to the composer, musician, and producer Brian Eno (U2, Talking Heads, Roxy Music). …a practice of some kind … It quite frequently happens that you’re just treading water for quite a long time. There’s no point in saying, ‘I don’t have an idea today, so I’ll just smoke some drugs.’ 1. Grab from a range of sources without editorializing. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Reverse Brainstorming - Brainstorming techniques from MindTools A Different Approach to Brainstorming © iStockphoto/Diva_Nir4a Reverse brainstorming helps you solve problems by combining brainstorming and reversal techniques. By combining these, you can extend your use of brainstorming to draw out even more creative ideas. To use this technique, you start with one of two "reverse" questions: Instead of asking, "How do I solve or prevent this problem?" Instead of asking "How do I achieve these results?" How to Use the Tool Clearly identify the problem or challenge, and write it down.Reverse the problem or challenge by asking, "How could I possibly cause the problem?" Tip: Reverse brainstorming is a good technique to try when it is difficult to identify solutions to the problem directly. Example Luciana is the manager of a health clinic and she has the task of improving patient satisfaction. There have been various improvement initiatives in the past and the team members have become rather skeptical about another meeting on the subject. And so it went on.
Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way The three dumbest guys I can think of: Charles Lindbergh, Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill. Why? Because any smart person who understood how impossibly arduous were the tasks they had set themselves would have pulled the plug before he even began. Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.How do we achieve this state of mind? By staying stupid. A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. Don’t think. We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. Be Stubborn Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop.What will keep us from stopping? We’re in till the finish. We will sink our junkyard-dog teeth into Resistance’s ass and not let go, no matter how hard he kicks. Blind Faith Is there a spiritual element to creativity? Ask me my religion. Passion
Think.com, Oracle Education Foundation, Projects | Competition | Library How to be Creative Looking for the last piece of the puzzle? Try these 7 research-based techniques for increasing creativity. Everyone is creative: we can all innovate given time, freedom, autonomy, experience to draw on, perhaps a role model to emulate and the motivation to get on with it. But there are times when even the most creative person gets bored, starts going round in circles, or hits a cul-de-sac. So here are 7 unusual creativity boosters that research has shown will increase creativity: 1. People often recommend physical separation from creative impasses by taking a break, but psychological distance can be just as useful. Participants in one study who were primed to think about the source of a task as distant, solved twice as many insight problems as those primed with proximity to the task (Jia et al., 2009). ◊ For insight: Try imagining your creative task as distant and disconnected from your current location. 2. Like psychological distance, chronological distance can also boost creativity. 3. 4.
John Cleese on the 5 Factors to Make Your Life More Creative by Maria Popova “Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.” Much has been said about how creativity works, its secrets, its origins, and what we can do to optimize ourselves for it. In this excerpt from his fantastic 1991 lecture, John Cleese offers a recipe for creativity, delivered with his signature blend of cultural insight and comedic genius. Specifically, Cleese outlines “the 5 factors that you can arrange to make your lives more creative”: The lecture is worth a watch in its entirety, below, if only to get a full grasp of Cleese’s model for creativity as the interplay of two modes of operating — open, where we take a wide-angle, abstract view of the problem and allow the mind to ponder possible solutions, and closed, where we zoom in on implementing a specific solution with narrow precision. A few more quotable nuggets of insight excerpted below the video. Creativity is not a talent. We need to be in the open mode when pondering a problem — but! Thanks, Simon
How to Exercise an Open Mind Edit Article Edited by Sam Rawlins, Krystle C., Richd, Erika Altek and 105 others One hour of increased brain activity via innovative thinking or experiencing new stimuli can make you smarter, more energetic, more creative, more sociable, and more open to new experiences and ways of thinking. The key ingredients are to be open to new experiences and to make changes in previous ways of thinking about these experiences. Here are some of the endless numbers of activities that can stimulate your brain. Ad Steps 1Don’t allow yourself any dead time. 20Browse something that you are not familiar with the internet. Tips Become more like an inquisitive child. Warnings Exercising an "open" mind and "stimulating" your mind are different.
Understanding & Growing Your Creative Mind Pt. 1/3 This is a very difficult and abstract topic. Even though it’s one we know well, there is no question the core aspects of this concept are difficult to grasp. Creativity is a foundational and highly celebrated part of our reality and a critical factor of many modern-day careers, passions and hobbies. As we wander into this abstract wonderland of thought, we need to prepare to deal with some rather grey areas. It’s worth nothing that as a direct and independent topic of study, the concept of creativity as a whole effectively received no attention until somewhere around the 19th century! Unfortunately, I cannot tell you these will be your keys to creativity because it is something that relates to every person in their own unique way. Let’s try and remember a simple point – creativity is in everything! 1) Am I Creative? Many people seem to feel they are not “naturally creative”. 2) Break Down The Process This is why creativity itself is so difficult to pinpoint.