Neil Movold's List: Creativity

Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, solution, artwork, literary work, joke, etc.) that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs. What counts as "valuable" is similarly defined in a variety of ways.

I used to believe that creativity, like the hair color on your head, was something you either had or you didn’t. The only “odds”of creativity happening was a function of the minds you tapped.

After years of podcast interviews with creative experts, reading countless books on the subject, and being in the idea business, I now believe that creativity is a changing variable. And that there are at least three different “kinds” of creativity (that I’ve seen, anyway), each of which require slightly different creative skills, and each of which can be enhanced with different methods.

Understanding these three “kinds” of creativity, particularly within the context of marketing, and understanding how we can enhance our creative skills within each, I believe will increase the odds of creativity for everyone.

his topic is being heavily debated in the design and innovation circles I’ve been traveling in lately.  Some feel we need to be thinking more before we make anything at all while others say we need to focus on making, and stop spending so much time torturing ourselves over words on a page that say what we plan to do.

‘Design thinking’ is defined as “the ability to combine empathy for the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the context.” Intuitively it makes sense to want to understand the people and the world you are designing for before you make something, and insight in itself is not a dead concept, so why all the debate around whether design thinking is dead or alive?

Innovation is the name of the game these days — in business, in science and technology, even in art. We all want to get those big ideas, but most of us really have no idea what sets off those sparks of insight. Science can help! In the past few years, neuroscientists and psychologists have started to gain a better understanding of the creative process. Some triggers of innovation may be surprisingly simple. Here are five things that may well increase the odds of having an “Aha!” moment.

"Considering I’m a creative coach, some people are surprised to learn I’m a little sceptical about creative thinking techniques.

For one thing, there’s a lot more to creativity than thinking. It’s possible to sit around having lots of creative thoughts, but without actually making anything of them. But if you start making something, creative ideas seem to emerge naturally out of the process. So if I had to choose, I’d say creative doing beats creative thinking.

And for another thing, a lot of ‘creative thinking techniques’ leave me cold. Brainstorming, lateral thinking and (shudder) thinking outside the box have always felt a bit corporate and contrived to me. I’ve never really used them myself, and after working with hundreds of artists and creatives over the last 14 years, I’ve come across plenty of other creative professionals who don’t use them. I don’t think you can reduce creative thinking to a set of techniques. And I don’t think the process is as conscious and deliberate as these approaches imply."

"For Usher, creativity is not something a lucky few are born with. Instead, it’s a skill that takes hard work and discipline to develop and hone. According to the 46-year-old, “Creativity is not a science. But it's also not magic, either. It's a learnable skill, and anyone can learn to be more creative.” Learning how to be creative, however, takes time and practice, and to that effect, Usher offered several tips to attendees to help get them started on the path to being more creative.

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According to Usher, the greatest obstacle to being creative is a combination of fear and resistance. As we grow up, we learn the rules and limits that govern our lives. That is, the codes of love, life, work, and law become intrinsic to how we function as a human being, and we quickly learn to love those rules, because they bring about predictable and dependable outcomes. After all, it’s as Usher says, “When I’m driving a car, I love the fact that you will stop at a red light.” Real-life needs rules to function properly and effectively, but being creative, by its very nature, entails stepping out of one’s comfort zone and embracing potentially disastrous outcomes. "

"What is creative strategy?

It’s a classic case of “theory to practice.” My previous book, Strategic Intuition, laid out the theory. It explained the science of how creative ideas happen in the human mind and documented how successful innovators actually came up with their innovations. This new book, Creative Strategy, is the practice: it shows how to apply that theory as an innovation method yourself.

Here’s how it works: you start with a problem or situation where you aim for an innovation, break that down in to elements of the problem, and then search for precedents that solve each element. You then see a subset of these precedents come together in your mind as a new combination that solves the problem. That idea is your innovation"

"Looking for new products or services, check and imagine if one of the 37 ways is possible for your challenge"

"We are in a period of massively disruptive and unprecedented change. One of the first victims of massive and disruptive change for many businesses today is certainty. There just doesn’t seem to be enough certainty left in the world to go around. More than ever before we are confronting uncertainty, and its two siblings ambiguity and contradiction."

"What is happening inside our craniums, amongst the cortex, hemispheres, neuroglia, and brainwaves when we feel on fire with creativity and when we don't? To find out, let’s embark upon a fantastic journey to learn in which circumstances and states the brain is most creative. At the end, we'll better understand the brain on creativity and discover unconventional methods to leverage its power for increased ideation, inspiration, innovation, and flow. Beware: the science of the creative brain challenges the standard norms around concentration, focus, productivity, and may change how you work.

Presented at SXSW Interactive, 2013"

"This is an introduction to storytelling in business and fresher communication paradigms."

"Hacking the Creative Brain"

"Thoughtful cognitive neuroscientists such as Anna Abraham, Mark Beeman, Adam Bristol, Kalina Christoff, Andreas Fink, Jeremy Gray, Adam Green, Rex Jung, John Kounios, Hikaru Takeuchi, Oshin Vartanian, Darya Zabelina and others are on the forefront of investigating what actually happens in the brain during the creative process. And their findings are overturning conventional notions surrounding the neuroscience of creativity.

The latest findings from the real neuroscience of creativity suggest that the right brain/left brain distinction is not the right one when it comes to understanding how creativity is implemented in the brain.* Creativity does not involve a single brain region or single side of the brain.

Instead, the entire creative process– from preparation to incubation to illumination to verification– consists of many interacting cognitive processes and emotions. Depending on the stage of the creative process, and what you’re actually attempting to create, different brain regions are recruited to handle the task."

"How to master the beautiful osmosis of conscious and unconscious, voluntary and involuntary, deliberate and serendipitous."