Three different perspectives on the creative process from an article in Scientific American. The contributors discuss what it means to be creative, how to capture creative ideas, and how to encourage creativity.

The contributors include:
John Houtz is a psychologist and professor at Fordham University. His most recent book is The Educational Psychology of Creativity (Hamptom Press, 2002).

Julia Cameron is an award-winning poet, playwright and filmmaker. Her book The Artist’s Way (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002) has sold more than three million copies worldwide. Her latest book is The Writing Diet.

Robert Epstein is a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego. Contributing editors for Scientific American Mind and former editor in chief of Psychology Today, Epstein has written several books on creativity, including The Big Book of Creativity Games (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

read article

“Dancing with Garbage: The Art and Science of Making Stories Work”

A two-part workshop on organizational storytelling (6/23 and 6/30 from 1-5pm)

Register here: http://soar.ois.psu.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/SOAR.woa/wa/campusRegister?productId=200708SP107631

If you think stories are mostly about entertaining tall tales and fairy stories at bedtime, come to this Open Mind session to learn more about their power in organizational settings such as Penn State Outreach. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to express your experiences as compelling stories. You’ll listen powerfully to the stories others tell, and you’ll begin to develop the skill of noticing the gaps and parallels between the public stories that the organization tells about itself, and the organic stories that emerge from doing the work of the organization. In this two-part workshop, we’ll bridge the art of constructing stories and listening deeply to the broader implications stories have for active innovation and organizational change.

For more info on organizational storytelling en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_storytelling)

About the presenter:
Jo A. Tyler is Assistant Professor at Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg, where she teaches in the M.Ed. program in Training and Development. A corporate practitioner for 25 years, most recently as a vice president of organization and management development at Armstrong World industries, she now consults with organizations interested in the influence and interplay of their stories, storytelling and organizational narratives. She has published articles and book chapters on storytelling in organizational settings and other topics related to organizational development. She received her Ed.D. in adult education and leadership from Columbia University in New York City.

This Open Minds Session is sponsored by:
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded FOCUS for Engagement Project
And

The Outreach Innovation Initiative: Question anything. Listen closely. Solve collaboratively.

innovation.outreach.psu.edu/

Check out this video of a flashmob freezing in Grand Central Station:

The Open Secret of Success

From The New Yorker
In the current atmosphere of economic tumult, the announcement that Toyota sold a hundred and sixty thousand more cars than General Motors in the first three months of this year might seem like a minor news item. But it may very well signal the end of one of the most remarkable runs in business history. For seventy-seven years, in good times and bad, G.M. has sold more cars annually than any other company in the world. But Toyota has long been the auto industry’s most profitable and innovative firm. And this year it appears likely to become, finally, the industry’s sales leader, too.

Calling Toyota an innovative company may, at first glance, seem a bit odd. Its vehicles are more liked than loved, and it is often attacked for being better at imitation than at invention. Fortune, which typically praises the company effusively, has labelled it “stodgy and bureaucratic.” But if Toyota doesn’t look like an innovative company it’s only because our definition of innovation - cool new products and technological breakthroughs, by Steve Jobs-like visionaries - is far too narrow. Toyota’s innovations, by contrast, have focused on process rather than on product, on the factory floor rather than on the showroom. That has made those innovations hard to see. But it hasn’t made them any less powerful.

read the rest

Another intriguing article from The New York Times:. here’s a teaser

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?
By JANET RAE-DUPREE
Published: May 4, 2008

So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.

Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try - the more we step outside our comfort zone - the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

read the rest ….

Great interview.

Read the whole article here.

Some highlights:

In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget 0 but never shows up in a budget - is morale. [what's true for a movie is true for a startup!] If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.

The first step in achieving the impossible is believing that the impossible can be achieved. “You don’t play it safe - you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail. That’s what gets you up in the morning.”

via John Gruber

If you need a five minute break, check out www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/235. Absolutely brilliant.

And, for more mind food, Here’s

Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide?
www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/250

I’ve never really been a video game person per se but I’m loving my wii. This video on ted.com lists some nifty hacks for the wii remote - using the technology in the wii remote, with inexpensive addons, to create a white board, touch screen, & 3d viewer.

The researcher (Johnny Lee) makes some interesting points about getting technology out of the lab into people’s hands and the power of video in academia/research. He put a video on YouTube about this hack - it was view 1 million times in the first week. People from around the world started posting their own hacks on Youtube. His software was downloaded half a million times in 3 months.