The imagination economy: To keep wages rising, American workers need to get creative

[5 July 2006 - FORTUNE Magazine] The U.S. economy faces a historic problem, and how it is resolved will drive major consequences for managers, investors, politicians, and especially workers. The problem is that Americans' pay isn't going up. That's remarkable because the economy is booming - growth is strong, unemployment low, productivity rising smartly. Yet the latest figures show that the broadest index of pay (inflation-adjusted wages, salaries, benefits) is no higher than it was at the end of 2003. This is serious trouble because America's great economic story is that living standards keep rising, especially when times are good. But living standards are not rising right now. That is the kind of deep disruption that over time can lead to economic and political crisis. The conventional response is to urge greater achievement in science and technology, long our economy's foundation. In his most recent State of the Union address, President Bush announced "an American Competitiveness Initiative, to encourage innovation throughout our economy and to give our nation's children a firm grounding in math and science." There is much argument about how to do that. But a contrarian school argues that the whole debate is wrong - that focusing on science and technology is fighting the last war. They hold that the very basis of value creation is shifting from the disciplines of logic and linear thinking to the intuitive, nonlinear processes of creativity and imagination. Tech advances will cease to confer much competitive advantage as they circle the world almost instantly. More

Meditation in the classroom promoted

[30 June 2006 - The Press (New Zealand] Transcendental meditation may bring a new school of thought to New Zealand education. An American educator has told his Kiwi counterparts that a daily dose of transcendental meditation (TM) can be a positive lesson in ensuring peace rules in the classroom and the playground. In a move towards consciousness-based education, Ashley Deans, the director of the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment in Fairfield, Iowa, advocates awakening the brain. Deans, who addressed an educators' conference in Christchurch last night, believes there is plenty of space for some TM among the three Rs as part of education for enlightenment. Deans, who is a guest of the Stress-free Schools group, outlined the benefits of two 10-minute daily sessions of TM in schools. He said the technique created "stressless schools" where learning was boosted and violence and aggression disappeared. He said research over the past 35 years showed that TM encouraged creativity, intelligence and academic performance. Research had also shown the benefits of TM to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Deans said schools in the United States that had adopted the practice had reported the same leap in students' academic performance and a reduction in violent and aggressive behaviour. More

Bringing strategy and creativity closer together

[24 July 2006 - University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (South Africa)] Can creatives also be good strategists and good strategists be more creative? The UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB) thinks yes and to prove its point this August launches a brand new course that will allow people from both worlds to break the mould, learn from each other and grow. The course, aptly titled Creategy, will invite participants to push the limits of what innovation in strategy means in order to develop themselves and their organisations. According to Elaine Rumboll, Director of Executive Education at the UCT GSB, the course aims to set up a vital ideas exchange between two disciplines that are usually considered to be worlds apart, believing that it's only by creating unexpected links that new ideas will flourish. "Many of the world's great inventions have come about as a result of creating unusual links between disparate disciplines," says Rumboll. "It is in this same spirit of collaboration that this course will invite delegates to explore how innovative companies and organisations become that way, and what lessons can be learned from the arts, design, creative industries and sciences about innovation." More

Creativity seen as economic key: Strategy aimed at luring the best and brightest; Report urges creative thinking to involve youth

[25 July 2006 - Toronto Star] If Toronto invests time, money and energy to turn itself into a creative city, the economic and social benefits could be huge, especially for at-risk youth in need of good-paying jobs. That's the message from Karen Carter of Education Connections, a non-profit organization that focuses on arts education for youth across Toronto. Carter was pointing to tangible results that could come from the implementation of a new report, Imagine a Toronto ... Strategies for a Creative City, released yesterday, that urges better strategic planning and funding to make the creative economy stronger. More

More retirees opting to launch startups: Baby boomers aren't just heading to the links - they are starting new businesses in record numbers
[5 July 2006 - Business 2.0 Magazine] Terry Alderete and Leonard Liu don't seem to have much in common. She's the owner of a special events firm in Newark, Calif., and he's chairman and chief executive of a software development company split between Silicon Valley and Shanghai. But Alderete, 61, and Liu, 65, are both part of a booming demographic: retirement-age entrepreneurs. For the past 10 years, adults ages 55 to 64 have been the group most likely to start a new business, according to a study released in May by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship. And now that baby boomers are reaching retirement age, the trend is only going to grow. More

Aging Populations Shy Away From Entrepreneurship
[10 July 2006 - Babson College] Countries where aging populations are increasing faster than younger people may also see  a decline in entrepreneurial business activity according to new research from Babson College Professor Maria Minniti, Research Director of The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) which annually measures entrepreneurial activity worldwide. Minniti and colleague Moren Levesque, University of Waterloo, Canada, found that individuals select career paths according to the dynamic interplay of age, risk, and wealth.  Older workers in waged-labor have less incentive to start a new business because their current income is likely to increase over time with experience and seniority.  Younger workers are free to take risks….they can afford to wait for economic security, expect to live longer, and have fewer responsibilities -- family, mortgages, etc. -- to hold them down. Their research entitled, The Effect of Aging on Entrepreneurial Behavior, was published in the Journal of Business Venturing 2006. "The study," according to Minniti, “has important policy implications because it suggests that, unless things change, countries with aging populations—like most European countries—may expect a decline in entrepreneurial activity and possibly growth.” Minniti says that the United States has never experienced this problem because of its historical embrace of new immigrants.  “Immigrants tend to be younger and have more children to help build new businesses,” says Minniti.  “Obviously, our research can impact and contribute to the recent US debate on immigration.” More

The Smith Institute Arts Lecture: Arts in the core script - writing ourselves in
[17 July 2006 - New Statesman - By Peter Hewitt, CEO, Arts Council of England] ... The arts are about releasing the imagination, about finding ways to understand our deepest feelings and motivations, about making sense of our most personal instincts and behaviours. The arts are about freedom, about unlocking creativity in ways that can produce unpredictable, sometimes shocking, results. The arts are, by nature, ground shifting and often disruptive. More

Q&A with Robert D. Austin: The Accidental Innovator
[10 July 2006 - Harvard Business School Working Knowledge] Many important innovations are the byproduct of accidents. The key is to be prepared for the unexpected. Professor Robert D. Austin discusses his research and practical implications on the concept of accidental innovation. More

Nothing as unpredictable as predicting the future

[15 May 2006 - Ventura County Star] Educators are already rethinking curriculum and pedagogy in light of the World Wide Web. Beyond the traditional three R's, students will be expected to excel in the three C's (communication, collaboration, and creative problem-solving), to locate and process real-world information, to exhibit technological fluency, and, most importantly, to develop the aptitude and attitude of a lifelong learner. You see, today's kindergartners will rack up at least five different careers before retirement — the majority in fields that have yet to be imagined. More

A Red Flag In The Brain Game

[1 May 2006 - BusinessWeek] America's dismal showing in a contest of college programmers highlights how China, India, and Eastern Europe are closing the tech talent gap. ... The poor showings should serve as a wake-up call for government, industry, and educators. The output of American computer science programs is plummeting, even while that of Eastern European and Asian schools is rising. China and India, the new global tech powerhouses, are fueled by 900,000 engineering graduates of all types each year, more than triple the number of U.S. grads. Computer science is a key subset of engineering. "If our talent base weakens, our lead in technology, business, and economics will fade faster than any of us can imagine," warns Richard Florida, a professor at George Mason University and author of The Flight of the Creative Class. More

IKEA's Head of Design Touts Creativity

[18 May 2006 - Fast Company - From the DMI Branding Conference - Day Two] The Design Management Institute kicked off day two of this year's conference, Design + Brand + Experience, with two presentations from global brand leaders. ... Lars Engman, Design Director at IKEA, spoke next, offering a broad look at the evolution of the IKEA brand and discussed where the company finds new ideas. ... Engman, from IKEA, was less concerned with branding strategy, instead emphasizing the importance of building creativity into the company. "Beautiful products are not all that difficult to develop," he says. "Producing them at an affordable price is what takes work." To inspire new associations in IKEAs design work, he reaches out to fellow designers at other global companies - places like cell phone maker Sony Erikson, clothier H&M and French auto-maker Renault. More

Brain research offers insight into mechanisms of prejudice

[17 May 2006 - News-Medical.Net] By scanning subjects' brains while they were thinking about people either politically like or different from them, researchers have found that different areas of the brain are active in the two cases. The researchers said their findings offer insight into the neural machinery that gives rise to perceptions that other racial or ethnic groups are different from one's own. They concluded that their work offers insight into prejudice and that one way to reduce prejudice is to emphasize how alike different groups are, rather than highlighting their differences. The researchers, Jason P. Mitchell and Mahzarin R. Banaji of Harvard University and C. Neil Macrae of University of Aberdeen, reported their findings in an article in the May 18, 2006, Neuron. More

Creativity Overflowing

[8 May 2006 - Business Week] After its initial efforts stumbled, Whirlpool is reaping big dividends from its push to jump-start innovation. David R. Whitwam had run out of tricks. The chairman and chief executive of Whirlpool Corp. (WHR ) had built the company into the world's No. 1 maker of big-ticket appliances, achieving unmatched economies of scale. He had also cut costs by hundreds of millions of dollars, again and again. Yet here it was 2000 and, judging by everything from stock price to profit margin to market share, Whirlpool was no better off than it was a decade earlier. The company's problem was not hard to diagnose: Its machines had been reduced to commodities. Prices for its most important products were actually falling each year. Nor was the solution a mystery: Whirlpool had to come up with exciting new products that could command premium prices. But the appliance maker had never paid much attention to innovation. During most of its 95-year history, it excelled at operating plants and distribution channels efficiently and at turning out washers and dryers that were solid and long-lasting. From time to time, research and engineering (R&E) technicians would tweak Whirlpool's Kenmore, KitchenAid, and namesake appliances to lower costs or boost performance -- by better insulating a freezer, say, or adding another washing cycle. But that's about as exciting as product development ever got. It was clear that Whirlpool needed to reinvent its corporate culture. To do so, it had to figure out the answers to basic questions that managers everywhere struggle with: How do you define innovation? How do you measure success? How do you teach people to be creative? "We knew from a strategic point of view what we needed to do, but from a practical point of view we didn't know how to do it at all," confesses Jeff M. Fettig, 49, a 25-year veteran who succeeded Whitwam as chairman and CEO in mid-2004. So Whitwam put out a broad call for help. Believing that brilliant ideas were buried in the corporate hierarchy, he invited each of the company's 61,000 employees to unleash their creativity: Everybody everywhere, he exhorted, Go out and innovate! More

Whirlpool's Future Won't Fade
[8 May 2006 - Business Week] The appliance giant's CEO, Jeff Fettig, has a favorite word: innovation. His company has used it to set earnings records and build a cutting-edge brand. These days, Jeff Fettig is getting the glory. Since mid-2004, Fettig has been chairman and chief executive of Whirlpool (WHR ), which as the world's No. 1 maker of big-ticket appliances, has set records for sales and earnings. The housing boom in the U.S. certainly has helped. But the real numbers booster, says Fettig, is innovation. Thanks to new products, Whirlpool not only has logged outsized growth in demand; it has been able to command higher and higher prices. More

UN-Habitat wants regional SME proposals submitted...
[5 May 2006 - IPP Media] The UN-Habitat intends to promote creativity and innovativeness among prospective small and medium scale entrepreneurs’ (SMEs) projects in East Africa. The country’s UN-Habitat Programme Manager, Philemon Mutashubirwa, said this on Wednesday, adding that the region’s economic projects would be run through the organisastion’s Mashariki Innovations in Local Government Awards Programme (MILGAP) which fund it. ’’The award programme aims to recognize, reward and promote innovative projects, thereby improve the living status of poor men and women in the region,’’ said the UN official at the Media Awareness Workshop on MILGAP in Dar es Salaam. More

A Creative Crossroads
[7 May 2006 - Washington Post - Richard Florida] No more a quaint government town with a reputation for Southern sleepiness, today's Washington is a booming, far-flung region that's a key node in what I call the Creative Economy. Now if it could just act like a grown-up metropolis. More

Don't run with your first idea!
[8 May 2006 - The Jakarta Post] When we look for ideas, the first batch of ideas are the most common ones. This is because the way our brain works is rather similar to a computer. The latest documents we have worked on in a computer are retrievable through "my recent documents". Similarly, our brains can easily retrieve the information we most often use -- things that are most relevant in our daily lives in order to function efficiently. We need to purge these ideas to get beyond them and access those ideas that are more original. Alex Osborn, the originator of brainstorming and father of creative problem solving, reveals that of so many ideas generated, the second half of the output, in comparison with the first half, provided 78 percent more good ideas. ... So what it means is that the more ideas we come up with, the more likely we are of getting better quality ideas. More

Creativity is all in the mind
[6 May 2006 - The Scotsman (UK)] TODAY, SCOTLAND'S FIRST GALLERY devoted to Art Extraordinary - also known as Art Brut or Outsider Art - opens in the town of Pittenweem in Fife. The gallery is the first of its kind anywhere in the UK. Run by the former art therapist Joyce Laing and simply called the Art Extraordinary Gallery, it will be opening its doors for two days a week from now until 29 October, thanks to a modest grant from the Scottish Arts Council. It will also be open throughout this year's Pittenweem Arts Festival, which runs from 5 to 13 August. So what is Art Extraordinary? Laing defines it as "visionary imagery inspired directly from the unconscious". Many of those who produce it suffer from mental illness, but by no means all. Some are simply recluses, making art in private with no intention of showing it to anyone else. But Laing has identified certain traits common to all the artists. More

Conference promotes meditation in school
[6 May 2006 - Boston Globe] Twenty minutes of deep breathing and silence twice daily can help boost students' grades, improve their social skills, and ignite their creativity. That's the message Transcendental Meditation practitioners brought to more than 100 Boston-area educators yesterday during a three-hour conference on how to help students overwhelmed by social pressures and the stress of getting into college. More

As Global Tech Competition Rises, Ability To Manage Innovation Key
[1 May 2006 - Investor's Business Daily] Paul Camuti oversees Siemens Corporate Research, the U.S. research arm for a company that's involved in such fields as communications, power generation, factory automation, transportation, lighting and medical technology. Amid the fast pace of globalization, companies must foster a culture of innovation in order to succeed, says Camuti. This involves developing new products and technologies, but also new services, processes and business models. "There is no single correct approach to managing innovation," he said. "We constantly evolve the ways that our central research labs are managed and run." Camuti recently spoke with IBD about innovation.
IBD: How is the role of innovation changing these days?
Camuti: For a long time in industrial research, innovation has been driven around invention and the discovery of coming up with something new. But that's a pretty product-centric view of innovation. Today, there can be new ways of doing business processes or services, or new business models. The idea is to think of creative ways that the business can be conducted, and not only about an invention-centered product view. More

The Paradoxical Creative Brain (PDF - Page 8)
[January-February 2006 - The Dana Foundation's "BrainWork: The Neuroscience Newsletter"] To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing, must be competitive while afflicted by self doubt. These and other paradoxical ideas about creativity and the brain were explored by a panel of two leading neuroscientists and two nationally known creative artists during a public meeting Nov. 14 at the Dana Center. ... Education is failing creativity as well. “I think it is mostly inhibition of creativity that we see,” said Pierre J. Magistretti of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Nancy C. Andreasen of the University of Iowa, and author of The Creating Brain, agreed: “Boundaries are created artificially that shouldn’t be there. We need to train kids to see fewer boundaries, more integration across things." ...

• See also the Webcast of "The Creating Brain" panel (Real Media video)
  [14 November 2005 - The Dana Foundation - Dana Center, Washington, DC] The participants were: Dana Alliance member and author of the new book, The Creating Brain, Nancy C. Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D., University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and MIND Institute, University of New Mexico; Janet Eilber, Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and principal arts consultant to the Dana Foundation; Michael Kahn, Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre; and European Dana Alliance for the Brain Vice-chairman Pierre Magistretti, M.D., Ph.D., University of Lausanne Medical School and Brain and Mind Institute, in Lausanne. William Safire, chairman of the Dana Foundation served as moderator.
  

ON CREATIVITY, EDUCATION AND CHANGE

Those interested in creativity, education and educational change might also be interested in this new book, Education is Everybody's Business: A Wake-Up Call to Advocates of Educational Change (Rowman & Littlefield Education). It's by educator Berenice Bleedorn ( http://www.creativityforce.com ), who was the gifted consultant for the Minnesota State Department of Education, a professor of creativity in the business and education schools at the University of St. Thomas, has taught creativity to inmates in the state prison, is a colleague of the Creative Education Foundation, and writes and speaks about creativity throughout the world.

This book really makes the case for the deliberate teaching of thinking - creative and critical - in education. It also links the importance of education to a thriving democracy. A great idea in the book is that "democracy deserves the best thinking possible" - which offers a great place to begin one's thinking about any number of political issues in the world today. Some other good quotes from the book include:

• Children and youth are all much smarter than we think. They are smarter than the standardized test scores tell us. They have a longer tomorrow than adults, and most of them think about it more than we realize. Students have a right to understand what is happening to the world that they are inheriting. 
• The hope is that educational programs will become better designed to make the best possible use of the natural power of the human mind to grow and develop and to be significantly active in service to a cause beyond oneself. 
• There are no limits to the intellectual resource of the human mind when it is provided with an atmosphere for personal growth. 
• The idea that `Creativity=Capital' is not a facetious one. The capacity of the human mind for creativity and innovation is unlimited. Harvesting the creativity in a business translates to money in the bank. 
• Creative thinking can be taught if learners can practice the art of being serious and playful at the same time. 
• The educational problem of a disparity between average achievement scores of white students and black students may have some of its origin in the nature of schooling that neglects programs that identify creative talent and fails to provide for its appropriate expression in problem solving and other creative thinking activities. 
• Educators have not only an opportunity but an obligation to open the "doors of perception" for all students. The enduring purpose of education is to provide students with a perception of the outer reaches of their talents and possibilities and, ideally, to give them a reason to continue to learn and contribute to their society for all of their lives. 
• The mandate is undeniable. The future of the environment can be guaranteed only with the determined effort of all the players in the world drama in every society, and there is no time to lose. It is a perfect project for the integration of schools and society, the community and the education profession. It is a time for personal action and resolve. 
• Initiatives from concerned citizens and business interests have a vital place in developing educational outcomes that can be competitive with the rest of the developing world and can continue to contribute to a better life for all. 
• Paradoxical thinking is a prerequisite for a society and world steeped in a diversity of cultures, religions and ideologies if we ever hope to achieve a more sane and peaceful world. If complex thinking were taught, practiced and modeled during the process of education everywhere, the people of the world would understand more and fight less.

Bringing Schools Back to Life: Schools as Living System
[1999 - Creating Successful School Systems: Voices from the university, the field, and the community - Margaret Wheatley] In public education, how many members of a geographically determined school district share a core of beliefs about the purposes of education? Most districts contain a wide spectrum of beliefs about the role of education. There are those who believe that education should support the talented elite, which includes their child. Those who view education as the foundation of a pluralistic society where education should open doors for all. Those who believe in a rich life of the mind. Those who want their children taught only the values of their parents or church. The startling conclusion is that most school systems aren't systems. They are only boundary lines drawn by somebody, somewhere. They are not systems because they do not arise from a core of shared beliefs about the purpose of public education. In the absence of shared beliefs and desires, people are not motivated to seek out one another and develop relationships. Instead, they co-inhabit the same organizational and community space without weaving together mutually sustaining relationships. They co-exist by defining clear boundaries, creating respectful and disrespectful distances, developing self-protective behaviors, and using power politics to get what they want. More

Creativity Is a Habit

[22 February 2006 - EDUCATION WEEK - By Robert J. Sternberg - Reprinted by Mass Cultural Council | Education News] The increasingly massive and far-reaching use of conventional standardized tests is one of the most effective, if unintentional, vehicles this country has created for suppressing creativity. Creativity is a habit. The problem is that schools sometimes treat it as a bad habit. And the world of conventional standardized tests we have invented does just that. Try being creative on a standardized test, and you will get slapped down just as soon as you get your score. That will teach you not to do it again. It may sound paradoxical that creativity-a novel response-is a habit, a routine response. But creative people are creative largely not by any particular inborn trait, but because of an attitude toward their work and even toward life: They habitually respond to problems in fresh and novel ways, rather than allowing themselves to respond in conventional and sometimes automatic ways. Like any habit, creativity can either be encouraged or discouraged. The main things that promote the habit are (a) opportunities to engage in it, (b) encouragement when people avail themselves of these opportunities, and (c) rewards when people respond to such encouragement and think and behave creatively. You need all three. Take away the opportunities, encouragement, or rewards, and you will take away the creativity. In this respect, creativity is no different from any other habit, good or bad. More

Creativity Pays. Here's How Much

[24 April 2006 - BusinessWeek] So you're one of the 25 Most Innovative Companies in the world, but what about the bottom line? Does innovation really deliver? You bet. More than half of the Top 25 with histories as public companies scored big, with better profit margins and higher stock prices over the past decade. ... "Innovation is allowing companies to grow faster [and] have a richer product mix," says James P. Andrew, who heads BCG's innovation practice. Many companies could use the encouragement to push for it: Some 48% of businesses surveyed by BCG said they were dissatisfied with their returns on investment from innovation. More

Books on the brain: These 3 offer an update on the fledgling science of the human mind

[14 April 2006 - Houston Chronicle - By MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI] During the past half-century or so, we have seen enormous advances in mapping the brain and its functions. We now know which area of the brain controls the movement of each finger and how religious ecstasy looks when translated into colored patches on a computer screen. No wonder scientists are beginning to feel ready to communicate the fruits of their labor to a general audience and to explain how knowledge of the brain will help us understand what we do, how we do it and why. Three slender new books are part of this recent trend of popularizing the brain sciences: All were written by professionals trained in the intricacies of gray matter. More

Give Wyatt Jackson a Grammy!

[22 March 2006 - Dan Pink | A Whole New Mind] Wyatt Jackson is a Boston-based hip-hop artist and entrepreneur who's worked with Warner Brothers Records, BET, and VH1. Last week he read A Whole New Mind. This week he sent me an email saying, 'I was so inspired by the book, I wrote and produced a rap song about it.' You can listen to Wyatt's creation here. Turning a business book into a hip-hop anthem? Now that takes ... a whole new mind. More

The Whole Child

[23 March 2006 - ASCD] What happens if despite all our emphasis on leaving no child behind, we fail to inspire children to move forward? Proficiency in basic skills and adequate yearly progress are not the only measures of success. A comprehensive approach to learning supports the development of the whole child—one who is healthy, knowledgeable, motivated, and engaged.

Plus: What Does It Mean to Educate the Whole Child?
In a democratic society, schools must go beyond teaching fundamental skills.

Here's an Idea: Let Everyone Have Ideas

[26 March 2006 - New York Times] LIKE many top executives, James R. Lavoie and Joseph M. Marino keep a close eye on the stock market. But the two men, co-founders of Rite-Solutions, a software company that builds advanced — and highly classified — command-and-control systems for the Navy, don't worry much about Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. Instead, they focus on an internal market where any employee can propose that the company acquire a new technology, enter a new business or make an efficiency improvement. These proposals become stocks, complete with ticker symbols, discussion lists and e-mail alerts. Employees buy or sell the stocks, and prices change to reflect the sentiments of the company's engineers, computer scientists and project managers — as well as its marketers, accountants and even the receptionist. ... According to Tim O'Reilly, the founder and chief executive of O'Reilly Media, the computer book publisher, and an evangelist for open source technologies, creativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but who has the most compelling "architecture of participation." That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products? ... The next frontier is to tap the quiet genius that exists outside organizations — to attract innovations from people who are prepared to work with a company, even if they don't work for it. An intriguing case in point is InnoCentive, a virtual research and development lab through which major corporations invite scientists and engineers worldwide to contribute ideas and solve problems they haven't been able to crack themselves.More

The Problem With Brainstorming

[28 March 2006 - Wired News] From time to time I find myself invited to brainstorm for people. This usually involves coming up with new ways my hosts might "add value to their revenue chain" or "leverage their brand." To be perfectly honest, I'm not very good at it. I'll explain why in a moment. First, though, here's a little history of brainstorming. Brainstorming is a creative problem-solving strategy launched in 1953 in a book called Applied Imagination by Alex F. Osborn, an advertising executive. The basic idea is that when judgment is suspended, a bold and copious flow of original ideas can be produced. It's very much a team effort -- rather than getting bogged down in the judgments, personal criticisms and ego clashes that accompany the ownership of, and investment in, certain ideas, the team acts collectively. When you're brainstorming, ideas belong to no one and come from anywhere. Anything goes. ... I pointed out how Bob Dylan's scattershot liner notes to his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, wouldn't have been possible without Osborn's ideas about suspending judgment to encourage ideational fluency; even the term freewheeling is Osborn's, one of the advertising man's four stages of brainstorming (deferring judgment, striving for quantity, freewheeling and seeking combinations). ... Thinking in teams, and pitching other people's ideas rather than my own, I quickly found my freshest thoughts blending into a kind of generalized banality, a dollar-green cookie dough. Quantity there was, but the lack of a personal moral framework and the impossibility of being negative took quality off the agenda. Like the Sundance Kid, I wanted to ask the facilitator, "Can I move now?" Why, 50 years after Osborn's book, do I find that brainstorming, far from unleashing hidden originality in me, blocks and banishes all my most interesting ideas? Put it down to the most important difference between 1953 and 2006: the internet. More specifically, the way the internet has encouraged games with personality and personae, with avatars and animus. More

Special Project Brings Artists, Ambassadors To the U.N.

[27 March 2006 - Skidmore College] What if Picasso had painted Guernica, — possibly modern art's most powerful antiwar statement — before the bombs fell on the town of Guernica? Might the outcome have been different? Can art and the creative imagination have the force to effect change? These are some of the questions that inform the most recent work of artist Richard Kamler. A longtime artist, activist, and curator Kamler will discuss “Seeing Peace: Artists Collaborate with the United Nations,” at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, at the Tang Museum. “Seeing Peace” seeks to bring artists to the table of the General Assembly, seated along side their respective ambassadors, from each of the 191 member nations of the United Nations. They will enter the General Assembly, pair by pair, the artist and the ambassador, declaring the presence of the imagination as a crucial element in international dialogue. Kamler's work, including public installations, sound pieces, events, drawings, sculptures, and public presentations, have dealt with many important social issues and environmental considerations. They have been exhibited nationally and internationally in venues ranging from Art Space in New York to the Experimental Video Festival in the Netherlands to Alcatraz Island. Kamler currently chairs the Visual Arts Department of the University of San Francisco, where he also directs the art outreach program, Artist as Citizen in Contemporary Society. He has been in residence at Blue Mountain Center for the Arts in New York, Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, and Millay Colony for the Arts in New York.

Creativity Comes to B-School

[26 March 2006 - BusinessWeek] As more institutions set up courses stressing innovation, students are learning all sorts of techniques to help them think outside the box. ... Innovation and creativity courses were slow to catch on but have spread like wildfire. Only 29% of MBA and EMBA programs have freestanding courses in creativity and innovation, according to a Kennesaw State University study released in November, but the number of schools offering these courses has doubled in the past five years, and nearly 92% of those that did not have a course or module said they were at least somewhat likely to offer one in the next five years. Clearly, schools are trying to keep up with the real world. The best job candidates in the future will possess a creative ability that comes from working with different kinds of people on challenging projects, says Bob Sutton, professor of engineering at Stanford and author of the book, Weird Ideas that Work (Simon & Schuster, 2002). "If you just have an MBA, that's nice, but it's not enough," he argues.
More

Creativity should be weapon of choice in war for talent

[24 February 2006 - Personnel Today] HR professionals need to identify more creative approaches to talent management to stay ahead of the competition, a new report suggests. The survey, by HR consultancy Hewitt Associates, asked senior HR professionals at just under 140 organisations how they believe economic, demographic and technological developments will affect the workplace. While it is clear that some HR professionals are already rising to the challenge, only a few are coming up with the far-reaching solutions needed, the survey says. One of the key findings is that the battle for talent is intensifying, with 60% of companies currently experiencing significant problems in recruiting key talent from traditional sources. More

Robert Greene: Teacher remembered for humor, commitment

[25 February 2006 - Press & Sun-Bulletin - Greater Binghamton, NY] Robert Greene put a rug in his home for his wife, but when he was done there was a small lump in the middle. Thinking it was a pack of cigarettes, he beat on the lump until the rug was smooth. Soon, he discovered his pet bird was missing. That was one of the jokes Mr. Greene used to tell, a staple of the humor he used to teach people about thinking creatively and gathering all the facts. Mr. Greene - whose friends joked that his hometown, Greene, was named after him - died Wednesday at Wilson Memorial Hospital in Johnson City at the age of 79. ... A close friend and professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, Frank Maraviglia said Mr. Greene's sense of humor made him a superior professor. "A great sense of humor unlocks a certain creativity in the human brain," Maraviglia said. Maraviglia first met Mr. Greene through the Creative Education Foundation's Creative Problem Solving Institute. Maraviglia said Mr. Greene had a subtle approach to teaching creative thinking and always tried to set a good example. More

Forging a Creative Community for the New Creative Economy - Government Technology

[17 February 2006 - Government Technology] Creating a twenty-first-century city is not so much a question of technology as it is of jobs, dollars and quality of life. A community's plan to reinvent itself for the new, knowledge-based economy and society therefore requires educating all its citizens about this new global revolution in the nature of work. To succeed, cities must prepare their citizens to take ownership of their communities and educate the next generation of leaders and workers to meet the new global challenges of what is now being termed the "Creative Economy." ... But at the heart of such efforts must be a recognition of the vital roles that art and technology play in enhancing economic development and, ultimately, defining a "creative community" -- a community that exploits the vital linkages among art, technology and commerce. A community with a sense of place. A community that nurtures, attracts and holds the most creative and innovation workers. More

EU urged to take radical action on research & innovation 'before it is too late'

[23 January 2006 - PublicTechnology.net] The European Commission has received a final report from an independent Expert Group which calls for a Pact for Research and Innovation to be signed by political, business and social leaders to show their commitment to creating an Innovative Europe. The experts state that current trends are unsustainable in the face of global competition. Therefore a new vision is needed to address a series of productivity and social challenges faced by Europe. The group was set up by the European Commission following the European Council held at Hampton Court in October 2005 and asked to advise on ways of boosting the EU’s research and innovation performance. More - Read the "Creating an Innovative Europe" Report

World Economic Forum closes with new initiatives that seize "the creative imperative"

The World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting 2006 has closed with participants detailing new projects in disaster relief, hunger, anti-corruption, financing for development and public-private partnerships. "I was particularly impressed by this notion of 'I will'," said Founder Klaus Schwab. "That's what the purpose of this meeting is. The Forum will provide platforms for collaborative efforts so the new initiatives or ones that have been enhanced will be implemented," he told participants in Davos. Held under the theme "The Creative Imperative", participants used workshops and discussion groups to generate innovative solutions to global challenges. "There was a new effort to bring together people to discuss the big themes, and brainstorm action," reported Laura Tyson, Dean of the London Business School. Peter Brabeck, Chairman and CEO of Nestlé, urged participants to take individual responsibility to act. "I think sometimes we are not translating what we are discussing in virtual terms into action which would really reflect the 'spirit of Davos'. I think the Forum is here to help us to find out what the main issues are and then it is up to us to act individually," he said. "Some of what we achieved in the trade sessions, discussing the education divide and others, we got excellent inputs to create a more balanced world," added Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries. The panelists agreed that the rise of the developing world is changing the balance of power. This makes it imperative that social imbalances are redressed, said James Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank. "If we don't do that, we will not have a stable planet… and I think Davos is approaching these questions," he said. Webcast

WEF puts on its creative-thinking cap

[25 January 2006 - swissinfo] Ahead of the annual World Economic Forum meeting, WEF managing director Ged Davis tells swissinfo there needs to be greater creativity in problem solving. Davis says all possibilities must be exhausted to successfully meet the challenges of a shifting global landscape. More

Creativity Survivor at Davos

[26 January 2006 - Fast Company Now] In yesterday's post, I described a creativity face-off at Davos. Participants were asked to describe their vision of the keys to creativity, and the audience voted on those ideas until two finalists remained. As promised, here's the outcome.

Last to be voted off the island was Ideo's Tim Brown, who suggested that creativity is spurred by approaching problems with a beginner's mindset, and by exploring ideas through the use of rapid prototyping.

And the winner is: Google's Marissa Mayer, who argued for "a healthy disrespect for the impossible" combined with the virtues of constraints. In other words, aim high, but focus. Mayer described how an artist friend once told her that it was much easier to paint on a canvas that already had something on it--a mark or a line of some sort--than to begin with an entirely blank canvas. The existing mark is a constraint, something the artist has to think about and work around. And product developers at Ikea begin with a different sort of constraint, she said. They start with a price they have to meet--say $49--and then think about what they can make for that price. More

Secret to future growth: be creative

[27 January 2006 - Richard Florida - The Financial Express] As the world’s elite gathers for the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, the focus is on harnessing creativity to make nations and businesses more competitive. That sweeping question tends to produce narrowly tech-centric discussions. One favorite approach is to project the raw numbers of science and engineering grads into the future, highlighting the rapid rise of India and China. The issue, then, becomes how to keep up. That’s true, as far as it goes. But the economic advantage of the US, in particular, derives from much more than technical prowess. The real key is the rise of its creative economy, in which growth comes as much from entrepreneurship and entertainment as from engineering. More

What Is Happiness?

[28 January 2006 - Newsweek] World leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, couldn’t quite agree on the answer.: Enough of weighty questions of global economics, finance and geopolitics. Once in a while, even hard-charging CEOs and statesmen at the Davos global talk-fest need to kick back and relax. So what do they do? Why, change the subject and talk some more, of course. The other night the topic was happiness. What is it, how to find it, and what to do with it if found? More

World Economic Forum: Interview with Kenneth Rogoff, Thomas D Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics, Harvard University

[January 2006 - World Economic Forum] Harvard University: Thomas D Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics, Kenneth Rogoff, says there is a greater premium than ever on creativity in all walks of life. More

World Economic Forum: Leaders urged to seize "The Creative Imperative" at Annual Meeting

The Creative Imperative, 25-29 January, Davos, Switzerland
[January 2006 - World Economic Forum] A working list of Annual Meeting sub-themes is listed below:

* The Emergence of China and India
The shift of gravity to Asia and the challenges and opportunities for the global community

* The Changing Economic Landscape
Managing and dealing with economic imbalances, increased oil prices, excessive demand for natural resources, disruptions

* New Mindsets and Changing Attitudes
Global freedom and democracy, the impact of technology and digitalization, the emergence of the open society, responding to extremism, expectations of the next generation

* Creating Future Jobs
Understanding the changing nature of growth and job creation, global employment, new skill requirements, labour mobility, and resulting social and economic consequences

* Regional Identities and Struggles
Political crisis in Europe, instability in the Middle East, the future of Latin America and Africa

* Building Trust in Public and Private Institutions
The need to reconnect with constituents, build trust and legitimacy, and demonstrate effectiveness

* Effective Leadership in Managing Global Risks
Addressing the leadership deficit; fresh approach to complex issues; resisting short-termism

* Innovation, Creativity and Design Strategy
Business, government and social innovators are taking on new creative capabilities and innovation strategies in response to a rapidly changing global landscape

Scientists debate culture's role in creativity

[9 December 2005 - The Daily Yomiuri - Japan] In trying to imagine how the 21st century will evolve and how the problems that will arise can be overcome, it is perhaps best to listen to the wisdom and experience of experts from various fields. This was the subject of the 17th annual forum 'Creativity in the 21st Century with Nobel Laureates,' which brought together six laureates in science. The series was jointly organized by The Yomiuri Shimbun and NHK. The forum series began in Kanazawa on Nov. 8 with a session on science and was followed by further science sessions in Tokyo on Nov. 17 and Kyoto on Nov. 26. More

Design Centres: Emphasis is on fostering innovation and creativity

[6 December 2005 - The Independent (UK)] A national network of 'innovation centres' is to be set up to help foster new design talent. It will include a showcase for British design in London. But there will be also reforms to tax credits for research and development to encourage early and innovative use of design in manufacturing and industry. ... The Chancellor said: "The design of new products and services is now such an important sector that we propose a network of creativity and innovation centres - one in each region offering start-up help to new design talent and supported by an expanded national centre in London to showcase British design." The Lighthouse in Glasgow already acts as a design talent showcase. More

Innovation, creativity needed to sustain growth

[6 December 2005 - China Daily] Are local Chinese industries ready to design and innovate, or is it easier and more cost effective just to copy others like other Asian economies are doing? Those were the questions raised by delegates at the 20th China Daily CEO Roundtable meeting held on November 30, 2005. The questions provoked ardent discussion at the "Next Generation Design, Innovation and Creativity for China" meeting, co-hosted by China Daily and the Illinois Institute of Technology. More than 30 CEOs and senior executives from prestigious companies in the design, media, lifestyle, technology, communications, education and legal sectors sat down at the Peninsula Palace Beijing with one objective: to exchange views on China's capacity and challenges in rising to the global stage of design and innovation. Mary Ma, a former national model and now president of her own fashion design company, was among the distinguished delegates that attended the prestigious event. More

Creativity Lab: Where some dreams come true

[6 December 2005 - Taipei Times] Founded last year, the lab answers Taiwan's need as it struggles to move from being simply a manufacturing hub to a creative force in the business world ... Some of us probably had the experience of walking during a heavy downpour and struggling to stay dry in our raincoats while trying to look out for oncoming vehicles through our rain-drenched vision. What if we had a raincoat that is able to sense how heavy the downpour is and glow in different shades of color and varying intensity. This would surely be a good device to catch the attention of passing cars and greatly enhance pedestrian safety. Many single ladies living alone probably find it hard to do their hair at times, because of the constraints of their bathroom mirror. What if we had a bathroom mirror that allowed us to see the back of our torso or even magnified parts of our faces, making it easier for ladies to apply their make-up. These ideas, impractical though they may sound, are totally encouraged at the Creativity Lab (³Ð·N¤¤¤ß), a division under the quasi-official Industrial Technology Research Institute. More

RESILIENCY: WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED

[2 December 2005 - PEN Weekly NewsBlast] Ten years ago, resiliency theory was relatively new to the fields of prevention and education. Today, it is at the heart of hundreds of school and community programs that recognize in all young people the capacity to lead healthy, successful lives. The key, as Bonnie Benard reports in this synthesis of a decade and more of resiliency research, is the role that families, schools, and communities play in supporting, and not undermining, this biological drive for normal human development. Of special interest is the evidence that resiliency prevails in many extreme cases. In most studies, the figure seems to average 70 to 75 percent and includes children who were placed in foster care, were members of gangs, were born to teen mothers, were sexually abused, had substance-abusing or mentally ill families, and grew up in poverty. In absolute worst case scenarios, when children experience multiple and persistent risks, still half of them overcome adversity and achieve good developmental outcomes. An understanding of this developmental wisdom and the supporting research, Benard argues, must be integrated into adults’ vision for the youth they work with and communicated to young people themselves. Read sample chapters online.

Not All Innovations Are Equal

[5 December 2005 - HBS Working Knowledge] So many bright ideas fade away at the execution stage—but it doesn’t have to be that way. This excerpt from a new book, 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators, tells how to forge ahead based on four different types of innovation. ... There is no shortage of published ideas on how best to manage innovation. Empower employees. Encourage initiative. Cultivate risk taking. Overcome mindlessness such as, "We do it this way because it has always been done this way." But managers need more than such generic advice because there are many different kinds of innovation, and each requires a profoundly different managerial approach. This book focuses strictly on strategic innovation, which differs sharply from three other categories of innovation:
* Continuous process improvement.
* Process revolutions.
* Product or service innovations.
* Strategic innovations.
More

CHILDREN OF BIPOLAR PARENTS SCORE HIGHER ON CREATIVITY TEST, STANFORD STUDY FINDS

[8 November 2005 - Stanford University School of Medicine] Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown for the first time that a sample of children who either have or are at high risk for bipolar disorder score higher on a creativity index than healthy children. The findings add to existing evidence that a link exists between mood disorders and creativity. The small study, published in the November issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, compared creativity test scores of children of healthy parents with the scores of children of bipolar parents. Children with the bipolar parents—even those who were not bipolar themselves—scored higher than the healthy children. More