Is Everyone Creative?

This TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson is one of the most popular videos about creativity on the internet. In it, Robinson argues passionately that as children we are all naturally creative, yet by the time we reach adulthood, our creativity has been ‘educated out of us’ by the barriers of school, society and corporate business.

The talk has evidently touched a chord – as well as being enthusiastically received at TED, the video has been been viewed, downloaded re-posted and discussed countless times. As a creativity writer and consultant, hardly a month goes by without someone asking me whether I’ve seen ‘the Ken Robinson video’.

It’s not hard to see why Robinson’s video is so popular – he’s an engaging and very funny presenter, who somehow manages to be both down-to-earth and inspiring at the same time.

And his message is immensely appealing. It presents a vision of humanity as inherently creative, with new ideas and possibilities bubbling up inside us, waiting to be used – if only we would stop blocking ourselves.

But is it true?

Not according to Gordon Torr, a former Creative Director and author of the recent book Managing Creative People:

The truth is that creative people are different from other people – special, for better or worse, in a way that we’re only beginning to understand. And everything we know about them suggests that they’re creative because they’re different, not that they’re different because they’re creative. It’s a vital distinction.

Believing that everyone has the capacity to be just as creative as the next person is as ludicrous as believing that everyone has the capacity to be just as intelligent as the next person, yet it has become almost universally accepted as a truism. It’s also relatively new, taking root in only the last 30 or 40 years, coinciding much too precisely to be accidental with the popularisation of creativity as an essential ingredient of social and business success.

(Gordon Torr, Managing Creative People, 2008)

What makes creative people different? Torr highlights three factors in particular:

• Biology
  Torr cites scientific studies that suggest creative people have different brain activity than others – specifically, lower levels of cortical arousal, which means their thinking is less inhibited and they are more likely to come up with ‘more absurd, dreamlike and just plain weird’ ideas than other people.
• Motivation
  Building on the work of Harvard Business School Professor Theresa Amabile, which demonstrates that creativity is strongly linked to intrinsic motivation, Torr argues that creative people are distinguished by ‘an all-consuming preoccupation’ with creative work, regardless of whether it brings them money or fame.
• Personality
  We all recognise the classic description of the creative personality as childlike, impulsive, fantasy oriented, emotionally sensitive, anxious and ambitious. Torr cites several personality studies as evidence that ‘creative people conform almost perfectly to their popular stereotype’.

Torr admits that he is swimming against the tide in this view of creativity – but argues that that is what creative people have always done:

for almost the entire duration of human life on earth, the popular conception of creative people was that they were born that way, with unique gifts that obliged them to seek out and fulfil the singular vocations of their destiny…

They were shamans, priests, prophets, storytellers, poets, witches, troubadours, jesters, Giottos, da Vincis, romantics, lunatics, misfits, outsiders, strangers, village idiots, inventors, novelists, artists and, eventually, advertising people. They were vilified as often as they were revered, and reviled as much as they were respected.

(Gordon Torr, Managing Creative People, 2008)

This view may not be universally popular, but it does fit pretty closely with the image of the stereotypical creative person: someone who is different, rebellious, individualistic and resistant to society’s attempts to shoehorn them into conformity.

Are Creative People Different?

Are we all creative, or is there something inherently different and special about creative people?

If you believe creatives are different – what are the differences?

If you believe we all have the same creative potential – what are the implications for society? Education? Business? The arts? And for those who like to see themselves as special ‘creative people’?

About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a poet, creative coach and co-founder of Lateral Action. Subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.

How Can I Be Creative?

How to Generate Better Ideas

By Jonathan Vehar

How Can I Be Creative?

So now that you’re done laughing at those foolish people who were wrong about new concepts, take a look at the following symbol and say what you see:

What do you see, a black dot? Good.

What else do you see? How about a very large period? What else can you think of? Here's some other things you might see:

• Overhead view of a cup of coffee (no milk, two sugars)

• A very dirty basketball (probably from playing on blacktop)

• An open sewer cover (that doesn’t smell as bad as the real thing)

• A tire that hasn’t had the hole cut out of it yet (try putting that on your car)

• A train in a tunnel that forgot to turn on its headlight (look out!)

• A bad thing to find in the bottom of a boat (where’s my lifejacket?!)

• That bullet thing over there (oh yeah, and also a bullet hole in your computer screen)

• That secret place in the washing machine where one sock will hide, never to be found again (the only exception to the scientific laws of conservation)

Did you notice what just happened? Instead of accepting the first answer that came out, we went beyond it to come up with more ideas. This is the first principle of our process for being creative, be open to and create lots of ideas.

How to Create a Lot of Ideas

“Alex Osborn created the concept of brainstorming which is a way for a group come up with many, many ideas in a short period of time, and the same guidelines apply for working by yourself to come up with many new ideas.”

If you want to impress your friends, you can call this “divergent thinking”. It’s based on the way that your mind naturally works when you’re being creative, and it is something that you can do intentionally when you need to create more options or ideas for a given situation.

Alex Osborn (the advertising guy, remember?) created the concept of brainstorming which is a way for a group come up with many, many ideas in a short period of time, and the same guidelines apply for working by yourself to come up with many new ideas. In his book, Applied Imagination, Osborn provides us with four guidelines for doing this:

1. Defer judgment — no criticism right now. Remember the people who said that airplanes were impossible? Don’t be one of them. Yes, at some point it is important to judge an idea, but don’t do it while you’re trying to generate ideas.
   
   
2. Strive for quantity — Osborn said that, “quantity breeds quality,” or the more ideas you come up with, the more likely it is that one or more of them will be a great idea.
   
   
3. Seek unusual or wild ideas — Osborn said, “it is easier to tame down than to think up.” In other words, we can worry about how to make it work later, so look for as many seemingly “crazy” ideas as you can — the wilder the better.
   
   
4. Combine and build on ideas — “piggyback” or “hitch-hike” one idea to another to create a new idea. An example of this is the combination of a combining an engine with a horse carriage to create the concept of the horseless carriage, or what we now call an “automobile.” Sound familiar?

By using these principles when we look for new ideas or options, you give yourself permission to come up with ideas you might not otherwise pay any attention to, but that actually make sense when you think about them, tame them down, or add something else to them.

Give it a try on a real problem and see if you can’t come up with many ideas. Before you do though, tell yourself how many ideas you want to come up with, maybe 30 ideas if your problem is well defined or 100 ideas if you want some really bizarre ideas, and then don't stop until you come up with that number. Alex Osborn pointed out the value of creating many ideas by assigning a value of one cent to the first idea. If the next idea is worth twice the previous idea, (for example the second idea is worth two cents, the third idea is worth four cents, and so on), by the time you get to the 30th idea it is worth $5,368,704. The moral here is to stretch for one more idea, because it may be worth a lot!

Of course this isn’t the only way to find ideas or options to solve problems or challenges, merely one way that has been proven to work. When you’re working on trying to create ideas or options to help you solve a problem, feel free to add some other tricks, tools or techniques that you may have used in the past to help you.

The only thing that you can’t change in this process is the concept of not giving up. When we’re faced with a challenge or a particular problem, it’s easy to say, “I can’t do it,” or “I don’t know how to solve it,” or it’s impossible.” Nothing is impossible, with the possible exception of skiing through a revolving door. So give yourself the chance to look for ideas before you judge them. You’ll find that your ability to create solutions may surprise you. •

© 2004 Jonathan Vehar

(http://www.creativity-portal.com/articles/jonathan-vehar/how-can-i-be-creative.html)

Creative Thinking

Article

#10 from R&D Innovator Volume 1, Number 3 October 1992

Creative Thinking—Make It a Habit!
by Jack Oliver, Ph.D.

Dr. Oliver, a geophysicist, is the Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering at Cornell University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and former president of the Geological Society of America and the Seismological Society of America. Dr. Oliver is author of The Incomplete Guide to the Art of Discovery, (Columbia University Press, New York 1991).

There is something mysterious about creativity. We can describe it, admire it, strive for it and experience it, but we can never understand just how or why a certain innovative idea springs up at a particular time in the mind of a particular individual. Indeed, most people never expect to understand or master that process. Let's hope we do not, for our world would be far more dreary if we ever fully harnessed the creative process and learned to produce results only on schedule or on demand.

On the other hand, we can imagine a brighter future if we were able to stimulate the creative process and produce more innovations. Can we, indeed, take action to stimulate creativity?

Some say "no," that due to their mysterious origins, creative acts can only arise without warning to those blessed by fate. According to this line of thinking, it's inappropriate or even futile to encourage creativity.

I don't subscribe to such a dismal view; I think investigations in the history of innovation show that we can, indeed, enhance our creativity. These studies show that creativity is repeatedly associated with certain types of behavior and reasoning. I do not mean to imply that a simple formula can be derived, or that one technique will work for everybody, or that success is guaranteed. But based on the historical record, certain steps seem likely to increase your creativity.

Restless?

Begin by conditioning yourself to be restless and uneasy about the status quo. Don't overlook the familiar just because you've seen it so often. Rather make yourself even more aware of it, then change the pattern slightly. If you invariably drive to the supermarket along a particular route, try a new one. If your spouse always buys the groceries while you return books to the library, switch jobs. If you eat a grapefruit like everyone else — one half at a sitting — eat both halves and compare the taste. (This exercise may astonish you!). If you always make a measurement or an evaluation in a fixed manner, change your routine. Sooner or later — I'd bet quicker than you expect — breaking your routine will help you invent an improved process or idea.

Force your mind to see things differently — in a new light, from a new angle, from another scale of time or distance, or from the perspective of someone with a different background. Explore beyond the bounds of your expertise — you may have the exact perspective needed by a colleague in another field.

If you have the germ of a good idea, preserve it by jotting it down immediately. Then, when you have time, think the idea through until you discard it as worthless or elevate it to the "significant" category. Great writers often scribble inspired thoughts when they arise, then subject them to the time-honored writer's formula: "l) revise 2) revise and 3) revise again." Consider your idea a rough draft that needs to be polished by a few cycles through the idea-processor.

Getting Useful Ideas

Bare bones ideas are plentiful, but the trick is to identify the good ones. Ideas derive their importance and durability in relation to data, problems and other ideas. In other words, ideas must be tested against reality. Good ideas will have two effects. They will be useful in their original context and they will create surprising, intriguing connections among things that once seemed to exist in separate contexts.

Divide your thinking into two distinct styles. One style should promote carefree, blissful dreaming. Would these compounds rapidly combine if "A" were true? What wonderful process could we invent occur if "B" were correct? Questions like these help you outline the fragile essence of an idea.

Then, once the idea is fleshed out, energize your analytical thinking. Test your idea against the data in the most dispassionate, objective manner. Most dreams deserve to fail, and it's best that you scuttle them, rather than allowing someone else the chance.

Do not be constrained by the critical side while you dream, but be sure to use those "reality-checks" once the idea has taken shape. In other words, learn to bounce back and forth from dreamer to critic.

Adapt an idea from elsewhere if necessary. (Naturally, be sure to give the originator credit in an ethical manner.) If you admire a new product in another field, immediately try to apply the underlying idea as a springboard for improving something else.

Creative-thinking Time

Schedule regular times for creative thinking. I walk to and from work daily, about 35 minutes each way. After many years of following the same route (sometimes I do vary it!), the journey is routine, but I've dedicated the walk as a scheduled time for free, creative thinking, for dreaming, for envisioning what might happen, for devising imaginative solutions. I jot down my ideas immediately after reaching my destination.

I also use sporadic, spontaneous times for creative thinking. At meetings of scientific societies, for example, I'm often so stimulated by news and unconventional events that I have difficulty sleeping. Those sleepless nights usually produce lots of ideas, some of them quite usable.

I think the fundamentals for improving creativity are pretty clear from the literature on history's successful innovators. If this is true, then why not follow their lead — and improve upon their techniques?

In its essence, my advice is, "to be creative, think creatively". Don't muddle around hoping for a great idea to strike like a bolt of lightning. Train yourself to think in ways that have worked for others. Everyone knows a habit can be acquired through repetition. Why not make thinking creatively a habit?

(http://www.winstonbrill.com/bril001/html/article_index/articles/1-50/article10_body.html)