Category: Secondary Research

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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.

  1. The right answer
  2. That’s not logical
  3. Follow the rules
  4. Be practical
  5. Play is frivolous
  6. That’s not m area
  7. Don’t be foolish
  8. To err is wrong
  9. 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:

  1. Find the third right answer
  2. Metaphors, find metaphors for something specific. The meaning of life….a box of chocolates??
  3. Ask What if?

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Justin Gary – Taking the Path Less Traveled. Tim Ferris Show

The Phenomenon of “Magic: The gathering,” How analytical People Can Become”Creative”People, Finding the Third Right Answer, and How to Escape Your Need for Control.

I was hesitant to listen to this podcast since it was 2 hours long. I usually listen to podcasts in my daily hourly walk. My attention span usually does not last this long. I loved it, had to stop my walk several times to take notes. I want to share my notes, they were useful for my research, for my own personal life, for my work.

Justin Gary is a game designer, educator and coach. He designed many games, one of them is Discord. These are notes that I took while listening to the Podcast.

Elements a game should have:

  1. Immersion- experiences tell a story
  2. Connection – A place where you socialice
  3. Aspiration- Competition, wanting to win, to achieve
  4. Growth- Learn
  5. Expression- customise- role play- make it your own.

He recommends book:
A whack on the side of the head- by Von Oech, because it Demystifies creativity.
Some games he suggests: Turn object around. Random constraints. Move past the right answer. Take a random page from a book. Throw scrabble on the floor and pick three- that is your constraint.

A trick he uses at work: Assumptions challenge. You write down all your assumptions and you challenge them. What if that were not true- what if you take it around. 1. Make it explicit and 2. Turn it around

He says: “There’s nothing the differentiates a creative person from a noncreative person other than process.”

How do you create:
6 step process.

  1. Inspiration– what is driving you? The heart of what you are doing?
  2. Framing-put constraints around it. Short deadline. Constraints with components and time. 
  3. Brainstorming – 3 steps. 20 minutes each. 1. Open exploring. Write down as many ideas as you can. 2. Organice- find patterns in your ideas. Put structure around it. Fill gaps in.
  4. Elimination – get to as few ideas as possible. How can I test each of these ideas?
  5. Prototype – What do I need to do- What is the smallest thing I can make/do to test my idea? 
  6. Test Idea – Show others and get feedback
  7. Reiterating – See what you learn from testing and review idea. 
  8. Repeat process

Tips for everyday: Three goals a day- Three goals for the week. We have long “To Do lists”, every morning choose three and make a goal to to these three. If you do more great, just make sure you do these three.

One piece of advice for everyone that you live by: Cultivate comfort with uncertainty and permanence. So much of what we do is because we are afraid we are going to loose something. If you can be OK in that space of not knowing, accepting the fact that things are going to change, then life gets so much easier.

Justin Gary website.

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Some Podcasts Heard that Inspired me.

The Tim Ferris Show– Justin Gary- Taking the road less travelled

Hidden Brain:
– Slow Down 2.0
– How your beliefs shape reality
– Overcoming stage fright
– How to open your mind
– Humor us

The Mindvalley show with Susan David. 4 steps to emotional agility

Mel Robbins
-How to have more fun

Shaping business minds through art- The Artian:
– Daniel Canogar. Experiencing vs Visualizing data
– Jeffery Madoff- Creativity- The need to express

Jo Firestone– How to find humor in everyday life

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Tales of Creativity and Play

Ted Talk by Tim Brown

“At the 2008 Serious Play conference, designer Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play — with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn’t).” (Robinson, 2006)

Robinson, S. K. (2006, June 27). Do schools kill creativity? Www.ted.com. https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity/c‌

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Do Schools Kill creativity?

Ted Talk by Ken Robinson
“Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenged the way we educate our children, championing a radical rethink of how our school systems cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.” (Robinson, 2006)

Robinson, S. K. (2006, June 27). Do schools kill creativity? Www.ted.com. https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity/c‌

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George Land on The Failure of Success

Ted Talk about the decline in creativity.

In 1968, George Land tested the creativity of 1,600 children aged 3-5 using a NASA-designed assessment. He re-tested the same group at ages 10 and 15, yielding remarkable results. Same test was given to 280,000 adults and the result was 2%. 

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John Cleese on Creativity in Management

Speech from 1997. Still applies to today.
Blurb from the post:

In this lecture-style presentation, John Cleese claims that creativity is not a special talent. People are either in an ‘open’ or ‘closed’ state of mind. The closed mode enables people to apply themselves to tasks with vigour and concentration; the open mode is more relaxed and conducive to creative thinking. Cleese talks about how leaders can induce an open mode in their team members and establish confidence in them to accept that there is a succession of learning steps on the road to total quality.

https://youtu.be/Pb5oIIPO62g

John Cleese on Creativity In Management. (2017). [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g

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The Creativity Challenge: Design, Experiment, Test, Innovate, Build, Create, Inspire, and Unleash your Genius. By Tanner Christensen

“Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.” George Lois, American Art director, designer and author.

The author proposes a series of games to put in practice your creativity.

Types of Games

Games are divided into categories:

  1. Convergent. Requires you to combine elements of more than one idea or thing. It’s like putting a puzzle together. You have many pieces and you need to figure out how they can work together.
  2. Divergent. Taking things apart so you can look at their individual parts. The challenge of breaking dow something into smaller parts to tackle each phase of the process.
  3. Lateral. Logical thinking process that must follow steps in order. When you solve math you are using lateral thinking.
  4. Aesthetic. To focus on how an object or idea looks. It is when you look closely at how each part of something appears, or by imagining what would happen if things looked different.
  5. Emergent. Daydream. Idleness. This way of thinking is when you are idle, walking, sleeping,, daydreaming. Usually these lead to AHA moments.

Specific Games- some samples

Convergent. People Watch. Challenge- Go to a public place, like a shopping center, a library and quickly write a short story for some different people you see walking about. Combine different traits and actions of your “characters” into one compelling story. Research done by NYU have determined that you’re more inclined to think creatively when you imagine yourself removed from a problem or situation. The act of people watching is one way to do it.

Divergent. List 100 Alternative uses. Challenge. Come up with a list of at least 100 alternative uses for a book. A doorstop, a hat, an umbrella. This allows you to think of the object in an entirely new light, simply because you’ll have to strain your brain to come up with a number of original ideas.

Lateral. Think Big to Small. Challenge. Pick something in your life that is simple on its face. Make a list of everything that makes that thing what it is. List all the smaller parts, then the smaller parts that make up those smaller parts. See how microscopic you can get with the details. There are an infinite number of things that influence and impact any larger thing right down to atoms and smaller molecules.

Aesthetic. Draw your face upside down. Challenge. Find a mirror and something to draw with then spend 10 minutes drawing a detailed portrait of your face upside down. Note the areas of struggle to draw most and why the change in perspective makes them so difficult to draw. Viewing familiar things from a new perspective (like being upside down) is an effective way to help you notice all the details you usually take for granted.

Emergent. Stretch out. Challenge. Take 5 minutes to really stretch out. You can do this by standing up or sitting down – simply move your body to loosen your muscles and connecting fibers. Then spend another 10 minutes sitting and relaxing while the benefits of al that stretching start to take shape.

The author says that by completing each activity you will have a better foundation for seeing the world with a more creative light.

Christensen, T. (2015). The Creativity Challenge. Simon and Schuster.

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