Creative Streak

Bits & Bytes

Here's some of my week-end catch-up on posts related to creativity, innovation and communications.

Framing Is Everything - One of my favourites, Luciano Passuello writes Litemind, always a thought-provoking blog on creativity and innovation. His post Framing Is Everything speaks to the process of "framing" and its importance to problem solving and decision making. He suggests that how you articulate the problem will profoundly influence how you solve it with creative thinking.

How Good Is Your Website? -  My colleague Neil Drewitt sent this website to me - Bowen & Cragg - a company which consultants on website effectiveness. It has a terrific database of best practices, plus 1,000 articles free on its website. You can also sign up for its newsletter. Handy, practical and a beautiful website to boot (no surprise there).

Two Articles on Innovation

Six Ways to Ruin a Brainstorming Session

Re-posted from Ralph Kerle's blog at the Creative Leadership Forum, which he took from an article by Paul Sloane, author of The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.

They say brainstorms are old-fashioned and no longer effective. But the real reason for the frustrations is that the brainstorms are not facilitated properly. A well-run brainstorm is fun and energetic. It will generate plenty of good ideas. But a poor brainstorm can be frustrating and demotivational. Let's look at some simple ways to ruin your next brainstorm meeting.

1. Having no clear objectives

A brainstorm with a vague or unclear purpose will wander and lose its way. So set a clear objective. The purpose of the brainstorm is to generate many creative ideas to answer a specific goal. It is best to express the goal as a question. A wooly objective is not helpful. 'How can we do better?' is not as good as 'How can we double sales in the next 12 months?' Once the question has been agreed it is written up clearly for all to see. It is worth setting objectives for the number of ideas to be generated and the time to be spent. 'We are looking to generate 60 ideas in the next 20 minutes. Then we will whittle them down to 4 or 5 really good ones.'

Planning Successful Workshops, Part 3

This is the third in a four-part series of my conversation and brainstorm with Kate Whitehair and Tamsin Stanley, two veteran event organisers at Zing, on how to plan, prepare and manage events.

Stage Three: On-Site, Particularly for Multiple Day Events

Assign (or hire) a person to be wholly accountable for the event. All information should flow through this ‘event manager,’ and this person alone chooses how to delegate. Allow this person to make the best decision without interference. For 99% of decisions, their authority should trump the majority of others.

Establish a central area. Tell people to go to the this area (the rego desk, for instance) if they have problems or want answers. Staff the area with internal team members so they feel like they’re part of the event success.

Definitions of 'Creativity'

I was re-reading some old posts yesterday, and found one I wanted to update:  Definitions of Creativity on January 5, 2009. The original list included general statements, whereas the list below are specific definitions I've culled from a variety of resources.

Having or showing imagination and artistic or intellectual inventiveness.  Drs. Richard Paul and Linda Elder, from Critical and Creative Thinking. I've found lots of links that suggest the words "artistic or intellectual inventiveness" come from Webster's Dictionary, but the copy staring at me from my desktop has the vanilla definition: "The ability to create."

Nothing more than going beyond the current boundaries, whether those are boundaries of technology, knowledge, current practices, social norms, or beliefs. Creativity is nothing more than seeing and acting on new relationships, thereby bringing them to life.  Joseph V. Anderson, from "Weirder than fiction: the reality and myths of creativity", Academy of Management Executive, 6:4 (1992), page 41.

Planning Successful Workshops, Part 2

This is the second in a four-part series of my conversation and brainstorm with Kate Whitehair and Tamsin Stanley, two veteran event organisers at Zing, on how to plan, prepare and manage events.

Stage Two: Implementation

Create a theme that both stimulates and provokes. Themes can range from specific and aggressive to subtle and subconscious. Whichever you choose, the theme should be complementary to or elaborate upon the event's objective and the values of the organisation They should be written in active voice.

Planning Successful Workshops, Conferences

(This is the first in a four-part series. Today’s post: Pre-Planning.)

There’s a skill to planning and scheduling a brainstorm, but what about when your meeting expands to a full-day workshop (including both strategic and creative modules)? Or, spreads out over several days, such as a sales conference, an in-house employee event, or an off-site meeting?

While many of the organising tasks are similar, additional elements – more people, a bigger or more broad agenda, perhaps even an outside venue – means there's also additional preparation and implementation steps. Last week, I sat down with two experienced event planners – Kate Whitehair and Tamsin Stanley at Zing – to brainstorm some helpful tips and considerations at each stage of the event planning process.

Stage One: Pre-Planning

1. Articulate clearly the purpose or objective of the event. Think about what you want the event to accomplish. Consider how the event might support or bring to life the organisation’s vision, mission or values into the event. Also, does this event fit into other initiatives, or is parallel or complementary? If so, how should they be linked together?

Best Business Slides, by Nigel Malone

Nigel Malone has been writing a series of posts in his blog on Anthill entitled 'The Best Business Slide.' There's some great food for thought here. Slide topics range from positioning to messaging to creative development. There's seven so far, with three more to come.

At the same time, Anthill is another good source of innovation and entrepreneurship in Australia.

Characteristics of the Creative Individual

The confluence of three events – the month-long summer holiday, a broken toe, and the imminent move to a new office – meant I had the opportunity of a lifetime. I could take my time packing boxes. (Why can’t all moves be this stress-less?)

While packing the bookcase last night, I found myself sitting back to re-read one of my favourite books on creativity – Creative Thinking in the Decision and Management Sciences, by James R. Evans. (Not an easy book to find, but see details below.) While much of the book focuses on the role of creativity in quality management, it's also an excellent 'textbooks' on creative thinking.

Here's an example: Evans' characteristics of the creative individual.

1. Awareness and sensitivity to problems. Notices things others do not. Knows that nothing is perfect and that everything can be improved upon. Recognises that a problem exists or can cut through details and misleading facts to find the real problem.

2. Memory. Has good memories, and displays remarkable powers of recall. Good retention and retrieval of information. The individual has a memory bank of life’s experiences to be able to recall them for creative’s sake.

3. Fluency. Can generate a large number of ideas easily. Can judge an excellent idea by seeing it in context with mediocre ideas.

Nothing is Original?

In her post last December, Nancy King published this piece of art "in defense of bloggers," but it's just as applicable to creativity.

The act of “combining” (which I jokingly refer to as “combinotics”) is an essential element of creative thought. To merge your need, problem or issue with another an unrelated idea, concept, notion. I love too the quote from Goddard: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”

Check out Nancy's great website - See Change Happen - focusing on design, advertising and social change.

Best Books on Creativity

There's nothing like a thriving conversation on LinkedIn to inspire you to research a topic further. Well, it also helps to break two toes over the holidays so your activities are curtailed to sitting much of your day in your home office.

Anyway, I'm a member of the Outside the Box Thinkers group on LinkedIn, and Francois Lavallee of Aliter Concept in Montreal, Canada, asked for suggestions to start a collection of books on creativity. With a couple of days, he had some excellent suggestions. It prompted to me to think about what books on creativity I like.

Of course, any list of "Best of ..." is contentious by its very nature. There are a lot of great books on creativity and innovation, both from an artistic/personal and a business perspective. However, of the 200+ books I've amassed in my career, I ultimately chose just a few books, based on just one criteria. Did I use the book again as a reference after the first reading?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on other books that you've considered, or even take a suggestion to re-read another book that you've particularly found helpful or insightful.

• 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving, by Arthur (Andy) B,. VanGundy © 2005 – Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (ISBN 0-7879-7402-1)

• 101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques: The Handbook of New Ideas for Business, by James M. Higgins © 2005 – Published by New Management Publishing Company (ISBN 1-883629-00-4)

• The Artist’s Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self, by Julia Cameron © 1994 by Souvenir Press (ISBN 0-330-34358-0)