When Small Ideas Add Up to Something Big

[15 September 2004 - HBS Strategy & Innovation] Managers in hot pursuit of innovative ideas -- ideas that have the potential to jump-start growth and increase profits -- often assume that bigger is always better. Not so, Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder argue in Ideas Are Free: How the Idea Revolution Is Liberating People and Transforming Organizations. In the authors' view, a single-minded focus on blockbuster insights blinds managers to the numerous contributions small ideas can afford. Robinson and Schroeder note that by ignoring or discounting small ideas, managers may be shutting the door to an assortment of benefits, such as improved in-house and external processes, increased competitive advantage, a variety of cost-saving devices, and the possibility of building on small ideas to foster larger ones. Learn how heeding minor suggestions could help you foster growth and gain a competitive edge. More

Want Better Results? Boost Your Problem-Solving Power

[October 2004 - Harvard Management Update] As more and more firms begin to recognize that problem-solving skills form the invisible structure that undergirds high performance, they also realize that there's no such thing as a quick fix-no intensive program that can give organizations rock-hard problem-solving muscles in six weeks. Improvement occurs one manager at a time. Today, firms across a broad range of industries are seeking to supply their managers with the tools and training to excel in problem solving. In doing so, they aim to embed problem-solving proficiency in the organizational fabric so that it becomes a competitive differentiator. Read about the three things organizations must do well if they wish to succeed in this endeavor. More

New Center for Creative Arts up and running

[25 September 2004 - The Japan Times Online] "We want the center to be vital to Tokyo's health and well-being as well as to provide innovative bilingual art and music education for all ages from 2 to 100. Many people think the arts are just time-filling hobbies, but they teach you about life, to look at things from all angles and dimensions. We know Japanese people are especially keen to explore new avenues of learning to inspire individuality and creative expression. Well, here we are." More

Book chronicles evolution and success of world renowned school development program

[5 October 2004 - Yale University] An education without a focus on test scores that promotes development of the whole child -- psychologically, socially and environmentally -- will prepare children for successful adult lives, James P. Comer, M.D., contends in his eighth book "Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today's Youth for Tomorrow's World." "A focus on higher test scores alone cannot produce the outcomes we want and need for our children or our nation," Comer, the Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center and associate dean at the Yale School of Medicine, writes in the new book. "But good child and youth rearing and development can do so, and can simultaneously produce good test scores." These principles are the basis of Comer's School Development Program (SDP), founded in 1968 in two underachieving public schools in New Haven. Thirty-five years later, the SDP has evolved into what many call the "Godfather" of school reform. SDP is based on the premise that all youngsters -- regardless of race, geography or cultural and economic background -- can learn at high levels. The programs and services that fall under the SDP umbrella help schools ensure that students achieve their highest academic potential. Throughout his book, Comer cites incidents, projects, programs and research that demonstrate support for good development can prevent the high social, emotional and financial costs of problem behaviors, even among students from very difficult circumstances. "We must do a better job of rearing all our children well in our formative institutions, in preparing them to meet adult responsibilities in this complex age," Comer writes. "Neither the farm nor the factory is available to save them as in past eras. Down the road we will pay the ultimate price -- loss of our open and democratic society -- unless we pay now to better prepare families, schools and other resources." In the book, Comer said America is a better democracy and superpower in large part because of polices and practices that enabled many people to benefit from access to economic and educational conditions that made personal, family and community well being possible. "Great civilizations begin to decline when they stop doing what got them there," he said.

School development program celebrates 35th anniversary with symposium October 11-12

[5 October 2004 - Yale University] Linking brain research and child development is the theme of the Comer School Development Program (SDP) 35th anniversary celebration banquet and symposium October 11 at 4 p.m. and October 12 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale, 155 Temple St. Keynote speakers include Arthur Levine, president of Columbia Teachers College, Kenneth Kosik, professor of neurology and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, and Mariale Hardiman, educator and author of "Connecting Brain Research with Effective Teaching." The School Development Program was founded in two underachieving New Haven public schools in 1968 by James P. Comer, M.D., the Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center and associate dean at the Yale School of Medicine. Thirty-five years later, the SDP has evolved into what many call the "Godfather" of school reform. SDP is based on the premise that all youngsters--regardless of race, geography or cultural and economic background--can learn at high levels. The programs and services that fall under the SDP umbrella help schools ensure that students achieve their highest academic potential. The symposium/celebration focuses on the implications of brain research for child development, schooling and teacher preparation. The symposium will also address the question of how students are prepared to protect and promote democratic institutions. "These are fundamental issues for high academic achievement and responsible student behavior that are being neglected in our national rush to raise test scores," said Comer. "This an unparalleled opportunity for educational practitioners, researchers and policy makers to explore what it will take to prepare students for success in school and in life," Comer added. After an awards dinner on the first evening, the keynote discussion will address the challenges facing the national teacher preparation system, especially the readiness of the system to integrate and transmit knowledge gained from brain and development studies to the present and future education work force. Three presentations on the second day will address aspects of what is now known about brain and mind functioning and how this knowledge can be used in school organization, management, and classroom teaching and assessment. The presentations will also explore brain function and its link with six developmental pathways: physical, social-emotional, psychological, ethical, linguistic and cognitive intellectual.

The Great Creative Class Debate: Revenge of the Squelchers

[Issue 5 - THE NEXT AMERICAN CITY] Along the Amtrak ride north of Baltimore, a 875,000 square foot Rite Aid distribution warehouse has sprouted from cornfields. Some might point to this as a sign of healthy market growth. But considering that $7.1 million in taxpayer money went to help build the warehouse -- and hundreds of millions more may come in the future in the form of new roads and subsidies to transport workers from distant Baltimore neighborhoods -- it sounds a lot more like state-sponsored socialism than the free market. Many of Richard Florida's critics try to marginalize his theory of the creative class as being just about a few kooky artists in Austin. They are wrong. Florida promotes a vision of economic development that returns government to its core functions-building the civic infrastructure necessary to attract and retain people and businesses. As governments take a serious look at his ideas, billions of dollars spent on subsidies of politically-connected industries hang in the balance. Readers of TNAC know that Florida's ideas have encountered serious criticism in these pages, too. But our writers engage in the debate with an understanding that the issues that Florida raises matter. Where those billions go make a big difference for the future of cities. This issue kicks off a three-issue series on "The Great Creative Class Debate." Here, we present a response by Richard Florida to his critics. In coming issues, we will feature Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Martin O'Malley discussing the role of arts institutions in cities and take a look at how cities throughout the country are reacting to the Creative Class Debate. More

Report urges that Vermont embrace production of ideas over things

[4 October 2004 - WCAX-TV 3 News] A new economic report recommends that Vermont move toward a "creative economy." That involves embracing the production of ideas over the manufacture of things. More

Stability Verses Creativity

[4 October 2004 - About.com] Bipolar disorder and creativity very much go hand-in-hand. Review any list of successful artists - be it poets, musicians, painters, writers, etc. – you will find countless examples of the juxtaposition of creative minds and bipolar disorder. Consider some of the greats – Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Francis Ford Coppola … Even our own community right here has many wonderful examples (see our About Bipolar Disorder Art Gallery). Unfortunately, many individuals feel that their creativity is lessened or even negated by medications and stability. However, this is not necessarily true. PaulaHOST, a long-time member and volunteer on this site, disagrees wholeheartedly with this view. She writes More

Mind Maps May Chart the Way

[4 October 2004 - The Malaysia Star] “Since a decade ago, the increasing focus on the works of the mind had resulted in an emphasis of 20% for physical training and 80% for conditioning the mind when preparing athletes for world events," says Tony Buzan. More

The Challenges of Paradigmatic Change

[4 October 2004 - HBS Working Knowledge] Paradigmatic change is very important in business. It has the potential to create major new value and to renew a company, but it is very difficult to accomplish in the absence of a business crisis. Managing paradigmatic change is fundamentally different from managing incremental improvements to the existing business. ... How then can a manager create paradigmatic change before crisis? Kuhn's observations, coupled with the experience of many businesses, suggest three key points of leverage. More

Xerox brings 'Innovate 2004' show to Dubai

[4 October 2004 - AME Info] Revolving around the theme of 'Innovation changes everything, both in Xerox and in the Olympics (Xerox was the an Official World-wide sponsor of the Athens Olympic Games), the event will show that medals are not just a reward for athletic achievement, but also a tribute to creative problem solving and the power of innovation. More

America's Looming Creativity Crisis

[October 2004 - Harvard Business Review - By Richard Florida] The strength of the American economy does not rest on its manufacturing prowess, its natural resources, or the size of its market. It turns on one factor--the country's openness to new ideas, which has allowed it to attract the brightest minds from around the world and harness their creative energies. But the United States is on the verge of losing that competitive edge. As the nation tightens its borders to students and scientists and subjects federal research funding to ideological and religious litmus tests, many other countries are stepping in to lure that creative capital away. Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and others are spending more on research and development and shoring up their universities in an effort to attract the world's best--including Americans. If even a few of these nations draw away just a small percentage of the creative workers from the United States, the effect on its economy will be enormous. In this article, the author introduces a quantitative measure of the migration of creative capital called the Global Creative-Class Index. It shows that, far from leading the world, the United States doesn't even rank in the Top 10 in the percentage of its workforce engaged in creative occupations. What's more, the baby boomers will soon retire. And data showing large drops in foreign-student applications to U.S. universities and in the number of visas issued to knowledge workers, along with concomitant increases in immigration in other countries, suggest that the erosion of talent from the United States will only intensify. To defend the U.S. economy, the business community must take the lead in ensuring that global talent can move efficiently across borders, that education and research are funded at radically higher levels, and that we tap into the creative potential of more and more workers. Because wherever creativity goes, economic growth is sure to follow. More

In New England, a city revival built on creativity

[28 September 2004 - Christian Science Monitor] "Cities are embracing arts and artists [because they see] a creative environment as a cutting edge in the 21st century," says Ann Galligan, a professor in the Department of Cooperative Education at Northeastern University in Boston. She says cities can no longer depend on a single factory or company for municipal success. "A city has to rethink how it attracts and maintains workers ... without alienating its traditional [working-class] base." From Portland to Pawtucket, R.I., cities have embraced this model. More

How to free your creativity

[20 September 2004 - The Hindu Business Line] "IDEAS are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen," said John Steinbeck. Most of us have the ability to come up with ideas and problem-solve fairly easily, but may not know how to go about it. Using certain techniques, you can learn to `free your creativity', making the whole process of generating ideas become quicker and a lot less painful. More

Artists and creativity in the globalisation process

[15 September 2004 - RADIO THE VOICE OF VIETNAM] Respecting cultural values means we solidify the aspects of its creativity and enjoyment. It does not run counter to the freedom to develop their creativity in artists, neither does it diminish the people’s desire for more cultural entertainment. More

The Highest Goal

[15 September 2004 - Stanford Knowledgebase - PDF file] The latest book by Professor Michael Ray discusses goals that give meaning to life, motivate and sustain us. It has nothing to do with success, he says. More

Sacks Lectures on Human Creativity

[3 September 2004 - The Cornell Daily Sun] Renowned neurologist and A.D. White Professor at Large Oliver Sacks attracted students, faculty and residents to Statler Auditorium last night for a lecture entitled "Creativity and the Brain." After a brief introduction by Prof. Roald Hoffman, chemistry and chemical biology, Sacks stepped up to the podium. He described himself briefly before embarking on a multidisciplinary commentary on perception and creativity as it involves living creatures. More

ADVOCACY FOR CREATIVITY - Creativity by Choice, Not by Chance: Developing Imagination In the Intelligence Community

[9 August 2004 - Creative Education Foundation] This piece responds to the 9/11 Commission Report that declared it is “crucial to find a way of routinizing, even bureaucratizing, the exercise of imagination” and the House of Representatives Committee on Intelligence hearings that followed in August to discuss the intelligence community’s “failure of imagination” and the “requirement for imagination and creativity” going forward. More

Opting for Optimism

[September 2004 - Darwin Magazine] Optimism is a gift that many leaders possess. Optimism is often intertwined with hope, and rightly so, but there is a difference. Hope is the process of becoming, of seeing and striving for positive outcomes. Optimism is the emotional component that brightens the prospects, and makes it possible for hope to flourish. More

Perplexing Problem? Borrow Some Brains

[16 August 2004 - HBS Working Knowledge] You’re smart ­but not that smart! Teams often defer to their best decision maker, but more is better than less when it comes to brain power. More

Natural born learners

[2004 - Learning Lab (Denmark)] For years, psychologists have attempted to describe all learning as a function of external reward and punishment. But their models fail to properly take into account play, which clearly is a natural way for humans and animals to obtain vital learning. GOOD LEARNING MUST, IN THE NATURE OF THINGS, STEM FROM INTERNAL MOTIVATION, AS MOTIVATION IS THE ONLY THING THAT WILL MAKE YOU VOLUNTARILY SPEND A LONG TIME MASTERING A GIVEN ACTIVITY. IT IS VITAL TO SUPPORT CHILDREN IN LEARNING TO CONTROL THIS INTERNAL MOTIVATION. More

U.S. lacked imagination in predicting terror attacks

[15 August 2004 - Post-Gazette] WASHINGTON -- It may be one of the most unusual job descriptions ever devised: "Wanted: people with creative minds to sit in a U.S. government office, day after day, and use their imaginations to help keep the nation safe.'' Yet that's one of the main anti-terrorism proposals recently outlined by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. As they investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed more than 2,900 people, the commissioners became convinced that "the most important failure was one of imagination." More

The Best Ideas in Business -- Revealed!

[23 August 2004 - Resilience Report - Booz Allen Hamilton] More than 8,000 people visited the strategy+business/Booz Allen Hamilton Leading Innovations Web site to vote on the best of a dozen fresh ideas for organization, innovation, branding, transformation, and more. Rating the 12 candidates in three areas -- originality, value, and impact -- voters picked "Org DNA: Building the Four Bases of an Execution Culture" as the top entry of the six winners. More

What Toyota can teach the 9/11 commission about intelligence gathering

[5 August 2004 - Slate] The most publicized recommendation of the 9/11 commission—and one President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have raced to endorse—is that the United States create a national director of intelligence. Centralizing is an understandable response to the pre-9/11 intelligence fiasco. But as organizational science and history show, it's also a misguided one. When organizations fail, our first reaction is typically to fall into "control mode": One person, or at most a small, coherent group of people, should decide what the current goals of the organization are, and everyone else should then efficiently and effectively execute those goals. Intuitively, control mode sounds like nothing so much as common sense. It fits perfectly with our deeply rooted notions of cause and effect ("I order, you deliver"), so it feels good philosophically. It also satisfies our desire to have someone made accountable for everything that happens, so it feels good morally as well. But when a failure is one of imagination, creativity, or coordination—all major shortcomings of the various intelligence branches in recent years—introducing additional control, whether by tightening protocols or adding new layers of oversight, can serve only to make the problem worse. More

Good attitude adds years

[20 August 2004 - Detroit Free Press] ... A study at Miami University by Dr. Suzanne Kunkel of the Scripps Gerontology Center suggests that the most important factor could be our attitude toward aging. The major finding: A positive attitude about aging can extend life by 7 1/2 years. That's longer than gains made by exercising and not smoking. It's doctor's orders: Don't worry, be happy. More

Holding ground means losing ground when it comes to policing

[23 August 2004 - Business Day (South Africa)] High-density crackdown operations might make the news but they could be getting in the way of the improvement of local crime-prevention services. On a sweltering summer afternoon in early 1999, Meyer Kahn, about to complete a thankless two-year stint as police CEO, paced about his office, shaking his head and lamenting his lot. "How do you repair a machine and keep it running at the same time?" he asked. ... At the end of last year, police headquarters issued a directive that police stations across the country should begin to implement "sector policing", which entails dividing police station jurisdictions into geographical sectors, each staffed by a dedicated team. The idea is that grassroots cops will begin to understand microlevel crime patterns and tackle them with creative problem-solving techniques; this will draw police into constant communication with their constituents and help them understand the public as clients and themselves as service providers. The aim is to improve neighbourhood policing, which the police have been struggling to accomplish for the past decade. Will it work? Many doubt it. More

Teamwork, creative problem solving are keys to career success

[23 August 2004 - Design News] Great minds think alike, or at least great engineering minds do. Asked what advice they'd offer to engineers just entering the profession, two Design News award winners stressed the importance of interdisciplinary work. "There are still some 'spec book' engineering schools, but most engineering programs today are focused on creative problem solving and interdisciplinary research," says Design News' 2004 Special Achievement Award winner Tony DiGioia. ... "The most important skills you can learn in an undergraduate engineering program are creative problem solving, and the discipline of lifelong learning," DiGioia adds. Those two will allow you to go into any area, whether medicine - like I did - or business or engineering." More

Imagination Takes Kids' Mind Off Pain

[12 August 2004 - Reuters] Guided imagery, along with medication, can reduce post-operative pain and anxiety in children, new study findings suggest. "The need for interventions that reduce children's acute pain on a short-term basis is growing," Dr. Myra Martz Huth, at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, and colleagues point out in their report, published in the medical journal Pain. Hospitals stays being shortened, and dealing with kids' pain at home is difficult. Their study was designed to test the effectiveness of a professionally developed program, "To Tame the Hurting Thing," comprised of booklets, videotapes and audiotapes. More

Jobs linked to Alzheimer's risk

[10 August 2004 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel] People who developed Alzheimer's disease tended to hold jobs with lower mental demands during their 30s, 40s and 50s than people who did not get the disease, according to new research. The study is the latest in a growing body of research suggesting that higher levels of education as well as mentally stimulating activities may offer some protection against a disorder that now affects 4.5 million Americans, a number that is expected to grow dramatically in the coming decades. ... "Not everybody can be an astrophysicist," said lead author Kathleen Smyth, a researcher at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "(But) you want to keep your mind active. Some people call it novelty seeking . . . things that get you thinking in a different way." More

Innovation: A Diagnostic for Disruptive Innovation

[9 August 2004 - HBS Working Knowledge] You have three potential innovations, but resources to develop just one. Here are diagnostics to help you make the best decision. More

Diverse, Not Divided

[9 August 2004 - BusinessWeek] The workplace has become America's melting pot, and the resulting exposure to difference and the tolerance is a powerful economic force. ... Economists have documented how creativity has become increasingly important in our economy, especially with the spread of manufacturing techniques and service occupations to the developing world. The market value of creative people in everything from high-tech computer science to machine-tool assembly to devising financial plans for an aging baby boomer has gone up in recent decades. More and more companies are eager to employ well-educated, inventive workers. In The Rise of the Creative Class, Carnegie Mellon economist Professor Richard Florida makes a convincing case that creative occupations are growing and to successfully compete, companies and regions need to embrace diversity -- immigrants, gays, bohemians, and other minorities. The social philosopher Jane Jacobs observed that great cities thrived because they were places that welcomed ambitious, bright people from all walks of life and backgrounds and allowed them to turn their energy and insights into new products and services. Similarly, social scientists from a number of disciplines have documented that creative people prefer working in an environment that celebrates difference and risk-taking. A diverse workforce increases the odds of employees coming up with innovative ideas that are commercially profitable. The payoff: better jobs and sustained economic growth. More

Programmers Devise New Ways to Make the Pieces Work Together

[8 August 2004 - New York Times] It's software time again. Four months ago, I wrote in this space about the growing variety of programs that in one way or another could be considered tools for thinking. Some of them enhanced the part of thought that involves factual recall by making it easier to retrieve information from the recesses of your computer's hard drive. Others allowed you to put existing information together in ways that might stimulate new perceptions and ideas. More

Talent, technology, tolerance drive creativity and growth

[6 August 2004 - National Business Review (New Zealand)] The Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a hotbed of creativity and innovation. Barry Vercoe, a founding member and speaking on National Radio this week, is convinced that what he describes as 'the clash between disciplines' results in innovation. More

CURIOUS MINDS: HOW A CHILD BECOMES A SCIENTIST

CURIOUS MINDS: HOW A CHILD BECOMES A SCIENTIST (Edited, with an introduction, by John Brockman; Pantheon, August 2004; available at Amazon)
[5 August 2004 - EDGE 144] A fascinating original collection of essays from twenty-seven of theworld's most interesting scientists about the moments and events in theirchildhoods that set them on the paths that would define their lives.What makes a child decide to become a scientist?.....

• For Robert Sapolsky-Stanford professor of biology - it was an argumentwith a rabbi over a passage in the Bible.
• Physicist Lee Smolin traces his inspiration to the volume of Einstein'swork he picked up as a diversion from heartbreak.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist and the author of Flow, foundhis calling through Descartes.
• Mary Catherine Bateson - author of Composing a Life - discovered thatshe wanted to be an anthropologist while studying Hebrew.
• Janna Levin-author of How the Universe Got Its Spots -f elt impelled bythe work of Carl Sagan to know more.

Murray Gell-Mann, Nicholas Humphrey, Freeman Dyson, Daniel C. Dennett,Lynn Margulis, V. S. Ramachandran, Howard Gardner, Richard Dawkins, andmore than a dozen others tell their own entertaining and often inspiringstories of the deciding moment. Illuminating memoir meets superb sciencewriting in essays that invite us to consider what it is-and isn't-thatsets the scientific mind apart and into action.

Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By (Book)

[2 August 2004 - HBS Working Knowledge: Organizations] If you think financial capital is all you need for happiness, think again. According to Danah Zohar, a physicist, philosopher, and management thinker, and Ian Marshall, a Jungian-oriented psychiatrist, capitalist culture and the global business that extends from it are not sustainable. Zohar and Marshall call for leaders to use their “spiritual intelligence” to create spiritual capital. They define spiritual intelligence as the core sense of meaning, values, and purpose by which we live, and they recommend this intelligence be used to build wealth—thus generating spiritual capital. More

Making Tea: Iterative Design through Analogy

[2004 - University of Southampton - ECS] The success of translating an analog or manual practice into a digital interactive system may depend on how well that translation captures not only the functional what and how aspects of the practice, but the why of the process as well. Addressing these attributes is particularly challenging when there is a gap in expertise between the design team and the domain to be modeled. In this paper, we describe Making Tea, a design method foregrounding the use of analogy to bridge the gap between design team knowledge and domain expertise. Making Tea complements more traditional user-centered design approaches such as ethnography and task analysis. In this paper, we situate our work with respect to other related design methods such as Cultural Probes and Artifact Walkthroughs. We describe the process by which we develop, validate and use analogy in order to maximize expert contact time in observation, interviews, design reviews and evaluation. We contextualize the method in a discussion of its use in a project we ran to replace a paper-based analytical chemistry lab book with an interactive system for use in a pervasive lab environment. More

Schools failing on imaginations

[1 August 2004 - Sun-Sentinel] Considering the fact that the 9-11 commission has determined that the tragedies of 9-11 were caused by 'above all, a failure of imagination,' and considering that participation in high quality arts programs -- including educational ones -- is probably the best way to develop imagination, what image could be more powerful to bring this message home than a picture of the destroyed World Trade Center with the 9-11 commission's assessment: 'Above all, a failure of imagination'? More

Mind games: Play them now, build brain power for later

[3 August 2004 - Miami Herald] OK, we're getting our bodies in shape. Now, it's time to do a boot camp for your brain. A growing body of research has concluded that by keeping your mind active, you may stave off the memory loss and diminished brain functions associated with aging. Physical exercise and a healthy diet can boost the brain, too. ''If you start in your 30s or 40s, you have four or five decades to control these factors that come into operation that can have a very dramatic effect,'' says Dr. Ranjan Duara, medical director of the Wien Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorders at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. More

Creativity, problem-solving skills vital for architects

[3 August 2004 - Kansas City Star] About 50 years ago, they kept construction crews busy building schoolhouses. Now, they're doing it again. Baby boomers are making their needs felt in the construction industry. But today, the building boom involves senior housing and health care facilities. That's good news for architects. Architects are artists who design buildings. Their structures must do more than please the eye, however. A building must be safe, functional, affordable and serve a purpose — whether the occupants are senior citizens in retirement apartments, patients in a hospital, shoppers in a retail store, dogs and cats in an animal shelter, families in houses, spectators in a stadium or prisoners in a correctional facility. “Architects solve problems through the design or renovation of a structure,” said Mark Spurgeon, president of Williams Spurgeon Kuhl & Freshnock Architects Inc. in North Kansas City. The firm specializes in retail, health care, hospitality, senior living and education designs. More

Sylvan and soulful

[30 July 2004 - The Hindu Business Line] The Krishnamurti Centre, at Brockwood Park in Hampshire, is a shared home away from home — across gender, cultures and continents. -- Nothing in my experience had prepared me for meeting a Hindu Inspector of Police in London — no, I don't mean a turbaned Sikh or an Indian but a white Anglo Saxon Hindu. He went on to teach me a thing, or two, about spirituality, which were reinforced by my three-day stay in the Shangri La in the south of England that is the Krishnamurti Centre at Brockwood Park. During the self-introductions session in the three-day workshop on creative problem solving, which was the main excuse for my visiting the UK this summer, one of the participants identified himself as a Detective Inspector of the Military Police, and added most casually and without any outward sign of embarrassment, "and I am almost a Hindu". This was from a man who had the measured and cultivated tones you would expect from an Inspector Morse saying "and anything you say may be taken down and used as evidence against you in court". More

Vital Visionaries Program: ‘Serious Fun’ that Improves Medical Students Attitudes towards Older People

[27 July 2004 - National Institutes of Health] Creating art with older 'teammates' made first-year medical students more sensitive to older people, according to results of the Vital Visionaries Collaboration (VV), a pilot program developed by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) in Baltimore, MD. More

Innovation: Time Pressure and Creativity: Why Time is Not on Your Side

[29 July 2002 - HBS Working Knowledge] Even as time pressures increase in corporate life, the need for creative thinking has never been greater, says Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile. More

Teach Children Creativity With a Smile: Kalam

[23 July 2004 - New Kerala] President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Friday called on parents and teachers to teach children creativity with a smile to shape them as responsible citizens. Opening a national conference on 'Enhancing Learning in Elementary Schools', Kalam said it was the responsibility of parents and elementary or primary schoolteachers to ensure children did not lose their smiles and innocence when they entered the higher education system. ... 'Towards this end, I will be working with state governments, social organisations and the human resource development ministry to decrease the load of books and to increase creativity of the students,' Kalam said. ... Stressing the importance of elementary and primary education in making India a developed country by 2020, he said on an average, children spend about 25,000 hours in schooling, the most important part of their life and the only phase where they were in an environment that could foster creativity with joy. 'We have to ensure continuity of education while kindling creativity in the children as they are the future of our society, state and the country,' Kalam noted. More

Lawyers Who Heal?

[21 July 2004 - The Christian Science Monitor] Maurine Holland's transformation has led her to join a small but growing group of lawyers, judges, and educators who practice law holistically - working to empower and heal themselves and their clients and to spread civility and good will. In the world of holistic law, the minds and bodies of the clients are as important as their pocketbooks; losing sometimes means winning in the long run; and words like blame, right, and wrong have no home. ... While each holistic lawyer works in a different way, they draw common inspiration from Eastern traditions, New Age writers, and native American spirituality. Much like holistic doctors who seek to treat the whole patient instead of the symptoms, explains Holland, holistic lawyers think of their clients as complex people in need of counseling, not entities with narrow legal problems. More

Handouts and Resources About Creativity

Handouts are available from two recent conferences:
* The Creative Education Founation's 50th Annual Creative Problem Solving Institute 2004

* HOW Design Conference

A Clear Eye for Innovation (HBS Working Knowledge)

How did a weakening contact-lens company set its sights on a series of breakthroughs? A Harvard Business Review excerpt by Charles A. OReilly III and HBS professor Michael L. Tushman. More

Barry Diller is Tough on Creative Conflict (HBS Working Knowledge)

[By Martha Lagace - 26 April 2004] Barry Diller, the media powerhouse and storied entrepreneur, discussed the pleasures of risk-taking and the necessity of conflict at Harvard Business School. More

Changing Directions at BP - CHANGE MANAGEMENT (Darwin Magazine)

[By Howard Gardner - March 2004 - Excerpted from Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People's Minds ] The British oil giant had to face the fierce reality of a big change in direction—or die. BP did the former, but not without having to change the minds of its staff. More

At CPSI 2004, participate in ... Grow or Die author George Land's Birthday Spotlight Presentation on "The Heart of Creativity"

Getting from Oranges to Apples - Q&A | Howard Gardner (CIO Magazine)

[April 2004] Howard Gardner says it is possible to get others to see things differently. But as the Harvard professor tells CIO Senior Editor Edward Prewitt, it takes perseverance and finesse. More

At CPSI 2004, consider participating in ... Pre-Institute Workshop on "The Inventivity Factor: Learn to Think Like a Toy Inventor"

Creativity By Choice, Not By Chance: A Mindset for Surviving the Ageing Workplace (Knowledge Management News, UK)

[By Steven Dahlberg - April 2004] If we learn to live with a creative worldview – where we suspend judgment, think divergently, seek many alternatives, become aware of this moment, and connect beyond ourselves – we can radically transform the way we choose to engage in life and meaningfully create joy-filled vocations and careers. More

At CPSI 2004, consider participating in ... Immersion in Applied Creativity - Meaningful Work, Meaningful Life: Developing a Plan for Purpose Through Creativity