Creativity

What is creativity?

• A way of thinking and doing

that brings unexpected and
original ideas to fruition.
 The best way to
have a good idea
is to have lots of
them.
-Linus Pauling (2-time Nobel
prize winner)
30 second class assignment
(take out paper and a pencil)

List as many uses as you can

for a paper cup.
 Fluency and Flexibility

• Fluency • Flexibility
-Ideas based on the -Ideas not based on
original concept or the original
application concept or
-Ideas generated by application.
logic -Ideas identified by
analogy
 Linear
Creat ivit y
(Logic/Knowledge)
Focus

Dept h
Fluency
Skills

Hard Work

Experience
Lat eral Creat ivit y Growt h
(Intuitive/Imagination)
Breadt h I nnovat ion Uniqueness Expansion

Analogies Out -of-t he-Box Non-Logic

Flexibility
 How the Mind Works
• Information is placed in zones (files)
• Logical links are automatically
created (index)
• Information from all the senses can
be converted and stored as regular
data
 Two minds
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the
rational mind is a faithful servant. We have
created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift."
– Albert Einstein
 How the Mind Works
• Creative lateral thinking occurs when
previously unrelated ideas are linked
– Lateral connections between different
file drawers
– Humor is unexpected connections (set
us is assumed logical (linear) but then
becomes lateral
– Art is felt (aesthetics) and that is the
combination of files where some of the
files evoke feelings (non-logical, at least
in part, in these files)
 Creativity and Humor
• Atheism is a non-prophet organization
• No sense being pessimistic, it probably
wouldn’t work anyway.
• I used to think I was indecisive, but now
I’m not sure.
• Editing is a rewording activity
• My reality check just bounced
• What if there were no hypothetical
questions?
 Creativity and Humor
Specialized Humor
• Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
• Entropy isn’t what it used to be.
• 186,000 miles/sec: not just a good idea, it’s
the LAW!
• Santa’s elves are just a bunch of
subordinate Clauses.
• Clones are people, two.
• Dyslexics have more fnu
• Help stamp out and eradicate superfluous
redundancy.
• Air pollution is a mist-demeanor.
• Microbiology Lab Staph.
Creativity and Aesthetics

Perhaps what
differentiates highly
creative ideas from
ordinary ones is some
combined sense of
beauty, simplicity, and
harmony.
– Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher,
Bach
 States of awareness of the
Mind (Brain)

• Fully Conscious
• Subconscious
Increasing Personal Creativity
• Ability to choose or balance attributes
– Depth/breadth
– Focused/relaxed
– Smart/uncertain
– Disciplined/playful
– Realistic/imaginative
– Introverted/extroverted
– Humble/proud
– Traditional/rebellious
– Objective/passionate
– Pain/pleasure
Examining the details of
Creativity
 Types of Creativity

• Small c (Personal) creativity – new and

useful only to or primarily to the individual
creator.

• Big C (Recognized creativity) – valuable

to a group as a whole. May transform society
or group.

Fox, Jon Michael and Ronni Lea Fox, Exploring the Nature of Creativity,
Kendall/Hunt, 2000, p.14.
Elements of Creativity (Big C)
• Uniqueness or Novelty - truly original,
beyond the expected.
• Value - judged to have value according to
external criteria; sometimes a body of
work is viewed collectively
• Intent - resulted from purposeful
behavior; not discovered through luck but
could be fortuitous if the mind is properly
prepared.
• Implementation Excellence and
Continuance - Well done, we appreciate
both the work and the way it is done; skill-
based accomplishment.
The creative individual is a person
who regularly [i.e., with
continuance, intent, or skill] solves
problems, fashions products, or
defines new questions in a domain
[i.e., a particular field] in a way that
is initially considered novel but
that ultimately becomes accepted
in a particular cultural setting.

– Gardner, Howard, Creating Minds, Basic Books, 1993, p.35.

 Patentability

• Unique--not part of the public domain

• Valued--has to have a practical

application

• Reduced to practice--must be more

than just an idea
“Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

— Louis Pasteur
 Historical Examination of
Creativity (Case study method)

• Look at people and times to

understand creativity better
– What traits that made them creative?
– What environmental conditions existed?
– What was the process of creativity?
 Creativity needs:
Skill, Talent, Personality
Are they in-born or learned?
Thank You
Increasing Personal Creativity
• Ability to choose or balance attributes
Choosing or balancing attributes
• Right/left brain control
• Conscious/sub-conscious control
• Adjust thinking to fit the environment
Increasing Personal Creativity
• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected
mental associations
Making Unusual and Unexpected
Mental Associations

Discovery consists of
seeing what everybody
else has seen and
thinking what nobody
has thought.
— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Making Unusual and Unexpected
Mental Associations

Creativity doesn’t create something

out of nothing but, rather,
recombines ideas that already
separately exist.
— Arthur Koestler
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes

• Practice making unusual and
unexpected mental associations
• Acquire information in many areas
 Acquire information in
many areas
• Major and general education
• Major
– Specific education directed toward an
occupation
– Depth of study
• General education
– Specific education directed toward developing
general skills of thinking and learning
– Breadth of study
 Acquire information in
many areas
• Travel
• Appreciation and study of the arts
• Appreciation and study of the sciences
• General inquisitiveness
 Study of Scientists
• Grouping of scientists
– Type 1: Innovators/creators
– Type 2: Implementers
– Type 3: Slugs
• Results
– Innovators/creators: read widely and avidly
– Implementers: read strongly within their field
– Slugs: rarely read at all
• Conclusion: Read widely and
avidly
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes

• Practice making unusual and
unexpected mental associations
• Acquire information in many areas
• Develop skills, work hard, be
passionate about your work
Those tremendously useful men, those powerful
and invincible men, Marconi, Edison, Orville
Wright, Burbank, who sit wrapped in purple robes
of creative genius, are simply men who are
capable of striking reiterated blows. They are
men who reached success because they
subjected themselves to the fierce fires of
intellectual and physical endeavor. Men never
ascend to eminence by a single leap or by growth
overnight. Longfellow gave us this: ‘The heights
by great men reached and kept were not attained
by sudden flight, but they, while their
companions slept, were toiling upward in the
night.’

— Spencer Kimball
"Diligence is the mother of good luck."

– Benjamin Franklin
 Creativity and Cooking
Creativity is like cooking a great meal. The first
essentials are the basic ingredients (such as the
meat and the potatoes) which must be of the
finest quality. This is the depth and for creativity
it is the experience and study within the domain.
The second important part involves the spices.
These lift the taste to new areas. These are like
the lateral thoughts and creative thinking skills.
They excite the mind to new things. Finally, the
chef must have passion for the meal. This is not
easily explained but is clearly understood when it
is present. It is the presentation, the choices, the
verve when everything is put together. In
creativity, it is the desire, persistence, and
implementation.
-Goleman, Daniel, et al, The Creative Spirit (New York: Plume, 1992, p.29-30
Increasing Personal Creativity

• Ability to choose or balance attributes

• Practice making unusual and
unexpected mental associations
• Acquire information in many areas
• Develop skills, work hard, be
passionate about your work
• Be confident
 Be Confident

Accept that creativity is not

something that we learn, it’s
something that we’ve forgotten but
can relearn.
— Edward de Bono
 Be Confident

Anyone who has never made a

mistake has never tried anything
new.
--Albert Einstein
 Be Confident
• Don’t be afraid to make mistakes
• Be able to assert a new concept
• Become familiar with many areas of
civilization (cultural, technological,
scientific, religious, etc.)
– Example: Surrounding a child with music
develops confidence
• Look at the unknown
• Focus on what you love to do
• Seek help in weak areas
• Be prepared for criticism
Be prepared for criticism
The reasonable man adapts himself
to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world
to himself; therefore, all progress
depends upon the unreasonable
man.
— George Bernard Shaw
 Increasing Personal Creativity
• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected
mental associations
• Acquire information in many areas
• Develop skills, work hard, be passionate
about your work
• Be confident
• Move away from normal environment
(including use of creativity tools)
 Move away from normal
environment (including using
creativity tools)

• Role play
• Use analogies
• Free association/brainstorming
• Ask-”what if you weren’t afraid to
failing”
• Turn on music or walk
• Use of “hats”
 Increasing Personal Creativity
• Ability to choose or balance attributes
• Practice making unusual and unexpected
mental associations
• Acquire information in many areas
• Develop skills, work hard, be passionate about
your work
• Be confident
• Move away from normal environment
(including use of creativity tools)
• Be perceptive
 Be perceptive
• Rely on intuition, imagination and
impetuousness
• Envision the consequences
– Mozart
– Michelangelo
• Perception precedes reason and logic
• Recognize mistakes
• Slow down, look at the big picture
 Why aren’t we creative?
• Anxious to get the “right” answer
• Become less creative with age
• Willing to reject “bad” ideas
• Do not seek alternative ideas
• Doubt that a solution exists
• Stopped asking discovery questions
– What if, why not…
• Developed habits
• Hard to suspend logic
 Why aren’t we creative?
The key to successful creative
thinking is to maintain or enact some
‘why nots’ throughout your life.
 Creativity and Spirituality
• Finding answers can be guided by
the spirit
• Inspiration and creativity (Are they
related?)
Creativity and Spirituality
Edison said that inspiration is only 1%
of creativity, but it may be a critical
factor.
-Edison

Inspiration may come as little flashes to

the mind that we can pick up if we are
receptive. (Absence if spiritual static)
 Creativity and Spirituality
• Finding answers can be guided by
the spirit
• Pondering
• Intellectual maturity
• Creativity by non-spiritual people
– Sin can block creative processing
• Creativity and truth
– Truth is the way things really are
Thank You