1. THE NEW SCHOOL Creativity and Brainstorming

2. THE NEW SCHOOL What Is “Star Wars: A New Hope” (Episode IV) About?

3. THE NEW SCHOOL The Creative Person Six traits of creative people: * 1. Self-confidence (often arrogance) 2. Unconventionality 3. Alertness (autodidacts) 4. Ready access to unconscious processes (incubation) 5. Ambition (competitiveness) 6. Commitment to work, persistence (grit) - IQ +125 and not necessarily talent. - Deliberate practice (Cezanne) * Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi. (1996). Howard Gardner. New York: Basic Books. Top Guns: The Science of Winning and Losing. (2013). Po Bronoson and Ashey Merriman.

4. THE NEW SCHOOL The Explorer Know what the objective is. Look in other fields. Camouflage came from cubist art (Picasso & Braque). Unbreakable code in WWII came from the Navajo language. Look for lots of ideas. Look behind the first right answer. “How do you stop a fish from smelling?”

5. THE NEW SCHOOL The Explorer Don’t overlook things right in front of you. Look or ideas in places you’ve been avoiding. The drunkard’s search The Adjacent Possible The city and the web are engines of innovation, created for creation, diffusion, adoption of ideas. * * Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson (2010 ).

6. THE NEW SCHOOL Create or find Liquid Networks. * Sharing of ideas (open, collaborative) - double-entry bookkeeping * Use forcing mechanisms. * Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson (2010 ).

7. THE NEW SCHOOL Forcing Mechanisms Matrix, Attribute Listing, Matrix Analysis Trigger Concepts Creative Whack Pack and Oblique Strategies apps Random words from a book Hockey puck (Google) Imagery – Relax, ask intuition for an image, symbol. Accept whatever comes, don’t judge.

8. THE NEW SCHOOL Starbursting (Who what, where, when, why, how) Brainwriting Work alone, independently alone for 10 minutes. Cyberstorming Work online (e.g. Google Docs)

9. THE NEW SCHOOL Analogy - Similarity between two things otherwise dissimilar (velcro is like burdock burrs) Create constraints – “Budget cut in half.” Dream – (“If you can dream it, you can do it”) – (“Dune”) Draw or doodle – Evokes images and connections. Meditate – mind clearing

10. THE NEW SCHOOL  Brainstorming  SCAMPER Substitute – components, materials, people. Combine – mix, integrate. Adapt – alter, change function, use another part. Modify – increase or reduce in scale, change shape or color. Put to another use. Eliminate – remove elements, simplify, reduce to core functionality. Reverse – turn inside out or upside down

11. THE NEW SCHOOL Write everything down. Post-It pads See “Creativity Techniques” on my website. See “Better Brainstorming” on my website.

12. THE NEW SCHOOL The Artist Adapt Imagine (“What if?”) Reverse (backward, upside down) Connect Compare (metaphors, literature, music, art, sports, warfare, gardening) Exaptation * Gutenberg, Apple

13. THE NEW SCHOOL Parody Incubate The Slow Hunch (Darwin, Tim Berners-Lee) * The 10/10 Rule – Ten years to develop a platform, ten years to build an audience -- used to be. Google, Facebook cut it in half because of the web. Serendipity * In dreamwork. Error * Make mistakes.

14. THE NEW SCHOOL The Judge Does it meet the objective? Positives? Negatives? Probability for success? Downside? Upside?

15. THE NEW SCHOOL The Judge Timing? Deadlines? Biases? (assumptions) Blind Spots?

16. THE NEW SCHOOL The Warrior Be bold. Develop a strategy. Sell it. Persistence Learn from victories and defeats.

17. THE NEW SCHOOL Creativity Blocks Accepting conventional wisdom Not taking time to investigate or elaborate Seeking only to satisfy the perceived needs of bosses Having tunnel vision, compartmentalizing problems Looking for quick, yes-no answers Fear of failure (prevention focus, fear of risks)

18. THE NEW SCHOOL Creativity Blocks Expecting others to be creative Being unwilling to question others Being unwilling to collaborate Darwin: “...those who learned to collaborate and improvise...prevailed.” The wisdom of crowds Lost at Sea

19. THE NEW SCHOOL Creativity Enhancers Assume every experience can stimulate personal growth. Look for positives, growth, opportunities: Chinese character, “crisis.” Clearly visualize a positive outcome. Don’t react too quickly. Give yourself time (incubation), have patience.

20. THE NEW SCHOOL Methods For Killing Creativity Surveillance Looking over creative people’s shoulder or policing them de-motivates them. Reward Extrinsic rewards (i.e. money) tend to lower motivation. Reward creative people with autonomy, the opportunity to learn. Restricted Choice - Making choices for creative people or severely limiting their options lowers creative output.

21. THE NEW SCHOOL Pixar’s Catmull’s Rules For Collective Creativity 1. Empower your creatives. ­ Give your creative people control over every stage of idea development. ­ Management’s job is to find people who can work together. 2. Create a peer culture. Encourage people to help each other do their best work. Ideo’s culture of helping

22. THE NEW SCHOOL 3. Free up communication. The most efficient way to resolve the numerous problems that arise in any complex project is to trust people to address difficulties directly, without having to get permission. So, give everyone the freedom to communicate with anyone. 4. Craft a learning environment. Reinforce the mind-set that you’re all learning – and it’s fun to learn together. 5. Get more out of postmortems. Most people dislike postmortems. They’d rather talk about what went right than what went wrong. Structure your postmortems to stimulate discussion.

23. THE NEW SCHOOL What Kind of Thinker Are You? 1. I’m most motivated by … a. A need for a clear understanding of the facts. b. A great idea. c. An opportunity to perfect an existing solution. d. A job to do.

24. THE NEW SCHOOL 2. I learn best through… a. Facts, research, data. b. Stories, ideas, concepts. c. Evaluating options. d. Trying things out.

25. THE NEW SCHOOL 3. I like to spend time… a. Working with information. b. Thinking about new possibilities. c. Making things “just right.” d. Testing, prototyping, doing.

26. THE NEW SCHOOL Score – How many times did your answer correspond to: a.__ b.__ c. __ d. __

27. THE NEW SCHOOL A 2 or 3 score indicates a preference for: Clarifier – cautious, structured thinker who likes to gather data to understand the reality and to identify problems, gaps and opportunities. Ideator – playful, original thinker who likes to see the “big picture” and make new connections that may break the mold or paradigm.

28. THE NEW SCHOOL Developer – detailed planner who likes to evaluate and perfect the best version of a solution and anticipate how it will move forward with the most success. Implementer – confident, action-oriented risk taker who likes to learn by doing.

29. THE NEW SCHOOL Clarifier, Ideator, Developer, or Implementer? No preference? Many people are not limited to one thinking style. More than 20 percent of respondents select a different letter for each question. Their strength is in moving evenly through the process and harmonizing a team. “Learning to Think Differently.” NY Times Education section (February 9, 2014).