Segmentation in 21 day Creativity Challenge
A Whack on the side of the Head: How you can be more creative. Roger VonOech (2011)
Roger Von Oech has been a Creative consultant for large and small companies as well as individuals. This edition is the 25th year edition of this book. Creative thinking is a vital survival skill in this changing world. It is even more important to look at things in a fresh and different way. This book contains stories, anecdotes, insights and ideas from many different sources of how you can become more creative.
“Why be Creative? Why challenge the rules? Why run the risk of failing and looking foolish.”
Sometimes, what worked two years ago, does not work today. We live in an ever changing world and we need to adapt to the changes. Creative thinking is a lot of fun, sometimes things no longer work or become stagnate and we can either sit and complain or we can try to generate new ways of doing things. The real key to being creative is what we do with our knowledge. It requires curiosity and play with our knowledge and experiences.
Nobel Prize physician Albert Szent-Gyorgyi says: “Discovery consists of looking at everyone else and thinking something different.”
We don’t need to be creative for most of the things that we do. Most of us have certain attitudes that lock our thinking into the Status Quo and keeps us thinking more of the same. This attitude is necessary for most of our daily lives, but they get in the way when we need to be creative. It is hard to be creative if you are so focused on being practical, logical, afraid to make mistakes or with other mental blocks.
There are many reasons and phrases that we are told by others and by ourselves.
- The right answer
- That’s not logical
- Follow the rules
- Be practical
- Play is frivolous
- That’s not m area
- Don’t be foolish
- To err is wrong
- I’m not creative
To be open to receive the teachings of thinking creatively we need to first “unpack”, or as VanOech says: empty out what you have in your mental cup. We need to unlearn what we know.
The history of discovery and invention is filled with the people whose routines were interrupted and who were forced to come up with alternative solutions. Inventions, new ideas tend to be discovered because we are forced to break our routine. Most of our education system is geared towards finding the “right answer.” What if I told you there were many right answers – all depending on what you are looking for. If you think there is only one right answer you will stop looking after you find it.
Some games:
- Find the third right answer
- Metaphors, find metaphors for something specific. The meaning of life….a box of chocolates??
- Ask What if?
Presentation Unit Three
I am attaching my presentation slides and the script I wrote for the presentation to share (in five minutes) what I did for over three months. Enjoy!
Today, I’m excited to share with you a glimpse into my research journey. My focus has been on reawakening creativity in adults and the methods I’ve employed to uncover insights in this area. Before I delve into my findings, let’s start with the fundamental question that guided my exploration.
How can we reignite creativity, given its decline in adulthood?
To tackle this, I embraced a Mixed Research Methodology:
- Action Research: to actively intervene and observe the effects of
creativity-enhancing activities. - Qualitative Methods: These allowed me to deeply explore participants’ perceptions,
experiences, and attitudes. - Questionnaires and Interviews: By collecting both structured and open-ended
responses, I gained a broader perspective on creativity. - Interventions: I conducted three creative workshops to test the impact of
interactive activities. - Longitudinal Research: Over two months, I maintained continuous
interactions with stakeholders to capture evolving insights.
My Interventions and Initial Evidence:
- Creativity Continuity Workshop: This one-hour workshop targeted UAL students. Through improv and artistic games, participants reported improved problem-solving using creativity. The need for ongoing sessions was highlighted.
- 21 day CREATIVITY CHALLENGE – which I will delve into more deeply during the presentation.
- Relaxed Creativity Workshop: A 1.5-hour workshop for diverse age groups yielded positive outcomes, with participants experiencing connection, innovation, and a shift in perspective.
The 21 day Creativity Challenge…..
- 21 ActivitIes
- 5 minutes a day
- 140 participants
- From 11 countries
- 4 Surveys. 2 polls, 2 surveys and individual conversations.
EVERY DAY HAD A CHALLENGE
EVERY CHALLENGE A NAME AND A PURPOSE.
FOR EXAMPLE.
Sounds of your day.
Stakeholders were told to: Not use headphones or take calls when taking a walk. Instead notice the sounds around you, write them down after the five minutes are up.
Positive feedback and anecdotal evidence revealed transformative shifts in participants’ self-perceptions and creativity.
For example, one participant told me at the beginning: “I am joining because it’s you. I was not born creative.” Throughout the challenge, she connected almost every day. At the end, she called and thanked me. “I realised at age 52 that in fact I am creative. I just didn’t know.” A month later, she sent me photos of her son’s dorm in college, which she had just decorated, saying: “Look at what I achieved after the creativity course!!!! I feel like Picaso!!.”
What did I learn?
My research led me to several key insights:
- Creativity does indeed decline in adulthood, with the need for rekindling becoming more pressing.
- Misconceptions about creativity- PEOPLE STILL TEND TO BELIEVE IT IS A TALENT
- Trust is crucial for individuals to embrace creative thinking.
- Curious individuals are more receptive to change.
Building on these findings, I plan to develop interventions tailored for specific groups, such as artists, teachers, and businesses. BOTH IN PERSON AND DIGITAL, WITH TARGETED GAMES FOR EACH GROUP, SMALLER GROUPS, AND WITH EXPERTS HELPING ME DEVELOP THE GAMES.
In conclusion, my research journey has provided me with a deeper understanding of reawakening creativity in adults. Through a comprehensive methodology, I’ve uncovered initial evidence that interventions and interactive challenges have the potential to transform perceptions of creativity. As I continue this exploration, I am excited about the potential to make a broader impact on how we perceive and nurture creativity in various aspects of life.
Moleskine Exhibition @Saatchi Gallery
As you enter it reads:
“The Detour exhibition is an exceptional gathering of works on a Moleskine notebook created by artists, architects, film directors, graphic designers, musicians, illustrators and writers of international acclaim, donated to the Moleskine Foundation to support its mission of “Creativity For Social Change.
The selection presented here puts the Moleskine Foundation Collection in dialogue with the current exhibition “Civilization” and its main topics: Hive, Alone Together, Flow, Persuasion, Control, Rupture, Escape, and Next.
All the exhibited works were developed through the creative use of notebooks.
Each notebook tells a different story, a dream or a project, a distinctive way of being, relating to the world. Limited space creates an expressive constraint that urges invention. The extreme freedom of blank pages, and what can be done with them, to give space to the creativity of each individual.”
I found it fascinating to discover this intervention. It inspired me to think of companies to “Team up” with to create new challenges. Participants were given a Moleskine notebook to intervene. The exhibit has a big question in the entrance:
There are two cabinets with the Moleskine book that people from around the world sent. Some photos of the books submitted:
This small exhibit sparked all kinds of ideas of how I could improve my interventions. What if I sent my participants a notebook to work in? Or even a digital notebook? What if this was later exhibited. Maybe a journal to track down their progress. What if I created materials – like a “creativity packet” that people could get before the challenge, work on it and see their progress. Loved this Moleskine intervention, definitely filled my head with possibilities.