Thursday, 13 October 2016

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Saturday, 8 October 2016

Viewpoint: How creativity is helped by failure

When it comes to creating a great work of art, practice makes perfect, writes Matthew Syed.

A design college in the United States has just started a new exhibition about creativity, which will run till January. It is called "Permission to Fail". The curator asked a group of 50 prestigious designers and illustrators to send in their mess-ups, rough drafts and preliminary sketches so that they could be put on display.

Now, this may seem like an odd thing to do. Most exhibitions are all about the finished product, the pristine new car design, perhaps, or the flawless painting. But the college, called Mount Ida in Massachusetts, wanted its students to engage not with the finished article, but what happened beforehand. They wanted to reach into the true characteristics of how creativity happens.

A quick story. In their book Art and Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland tell of a ceramics teacher who announced on the opening day of class that he was dividing the students into two groups. Half were told that they would be graded on quantity. On the final day of term, the teacher said he'd come to class with some scales and weigh the pots they had made. They would get an "A" for 50lb of pots, a "B" for 40lb, and so on. The other half would be graded on quality. They just had to bring along their one, pristine, perfectly designed pot.

The results were emphatic - the works of highest quality, the most beautiful and creative designs, were all produced by the group graded for quantity. As Bayles and Orland put it: "It seems that while the 'quantity' group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the 'quality' group had sat theorising about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay."

This turns out to be a profound metaphor. The British inventor James Dyson didn't create the dual cyclone vacuum cleaner in a flash of inspiration. The product, now used by millions, didn't emerge fully formed in his mind. Instead, he did what the group graded for quantity did. He tried and failed, triggering new insights, before trying and failing again - and slowly the design improved.

In fact, Dyson worked his way through 5,126 failed prototypes before coming up with a design that ultimately transformed household cleaning. As he put it: "People think of creativity as a mystical process. This model conceives of innovation as something that happens to geniuses. But this could not be more wrong. Creativity is something we can all improve at, by realising that it has specific characteristics. Above all, it is about daring to learn from our mistakes".

James Dyson at the drawing board in 2000 — Image captionDyson went back to the drawing board more than 5,000 times to create the dual cyclone

Or take Pixar, an animation company that has become synonymous with creativity following its blockbuster successes with Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. It might be supposed that these wonderful plots were put together by resident geniuses with sublime imaginations. But the reality is very different. The initial ideas for new storylines are just the starting point, like Dyson's initial prototype. It is what happens next that really matters.

The storyline is systematically pulled apart. As the animation gets into operation, each frame, each strand of the narrative, is subject to testing, debate and adaptation. All told, it takes around 12,000 storyboard drawings to make one 90-minute feature, and because of the iterative process, story teams often create more than 125,000 storyboards by the time the film is actually delivered.

A scene from Finding Nemo — Image captionAnimated films, like Finding Nemo, can take years to make

As Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar, put it: "Early on, all of our movies suck. That's a blunt assessment, I know, but I… choose that phrasing because saying it in a softer way fails to convey how bad the first versions of our films really are. I'm not trying to be modest or self-effacing by saying this. Pixar films are not good at first, and our job is to make them go… from suck to non-suck. We are true believers in the iterative process - reworking, reworking and reworking again, until a flawed story finds its throughline or a hollow character finds its soul."

The problem in the world today is that we only see the final product - the amazing movie, the super-efficient vacuum cleaner, the vogue theory. What we don't see is the deeper story of how these innovations emerge. The tales we tell about creativity overlook this, too. We think of Archimedes shouting "eureka" or Newton being hit on the head by the apple and instantaneously inventing the theory of gravity.

Issac Newton sits under an apple tree - 19th Century painting by Robert Hannah — Image captionTales of creativity - like that of Newton and the apple - have entered the public consciousness

But these stories are pure fiction. They get the direction of creativity the wrong way around. Insight is the endpoint of a long term, iterative process, rather than the starting point. As the neuroscientist David Eagleman puts it in The Secret Lives of the Brain: "When an idea is served up from behind the scenes, the neural circuitry has been working on the problems for hours or days or years, consolidating information and trying out new combinations. But you merely take credit without further wonderment at the vast, hidden political machinery behind the scenes."

And this is precisely why the design college was so keen to exhibit the failures and wrong turns. This couldn't be of deeper significance, because unless we truly understand how creativity happens, it will remain elusive. Youngsters who are taught to think about failure in a more positive light not only become more creative, but more resilient, too. They regard their mess-ups not as reasons to give up, but as intriguing and educative. They engage with these failures, learn from them, and, by implication, develop new insights, and ever deeper curiosity.

"Dare to fail" is a powerful slogan. It doesn't mean we should aim at failure - rather it hints at the paradox that creativity is a journey that involves taking wrong turns along the way. Organisations like Google, Apple, Dyson and Pixar have developed cultures that, in their different ways, create the conditions for empowering failure. They have become living ecosystems of the imagination, fired by the courage to test ideas, to see their flaws, and to be triggered into new associations and insights.

As Andrew Stanton, director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E, put it: "My strategy has always been: be wrong as fast as we can... which basically means, we're gonna screw up, let's just admit that. Let's not be afraid of that. You can't get to adulthood before you go through puberty. I won't get it right the first time, but I will get it wrong really soon, really quickly."

Matthew Syed is the author of Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success

Sunday, 14 August 2016

How creative are you? Depends where you're from

Date:

January 27, 2015

Source:

Concordia University

Summary:

With the 'creative class' on the rise, many businesses are trying to capitalize on imagination and innovation. But when it comes to creative juices, some societies have a faster flow than others. That's because, as new research suggests, creativity is tied to culture.

With the "creative class" on the rise, many businesses are trying to capitalize on imagination and innovation. But when it comes to creative juices, some societies have a faster flow than others. That's because, as new research from Concordia University suggests, creativity is tied to culture.

The study, recently published in The Journal of Business Research, compared nearly 300 individuals from Taiwan, a collectivist society, and Canada, a more individualistic country. Results show that those from individualist societies generate a greater number of ideas as compared to their collectivist counterparts -- though the cultures were on nearly equal footing when it came to the quality of that creative output.

Gad Saad, a professor at Concordia's John Molson School of Business, co-authored the study with Concordia graduate student Louis Ho and Mark Cleveland from the University of Western Ontario. They theorized that where a country falls on the individualism vs. collectivism continuum would affect the creative juices that might be "permitted" to flow from members of a particular culture.

"Brainstorming is often used as a proxy for creativity, so we decided to conduct brainstorming tasks using culturally neutral stimuli in Taiwan and in Canada," Saad says.

He and his co-authors hypothesized that members of an individualistic society would perform particularly well in a task that promotes out-of-the-box thinking such as coming up with the proverbial million-dollar idea, compared with those from a collectivist ethos, who wouldn't be as willing to engage in that kind of thinking because they would be more reluctant to stand out from the group.

The researchers recruited students from two universities in Taipei and Montreal and collected data on five measures that will be familiar to anyone who has had to brainstorm in a group:

The number of generated ideas
The quality of the ideas, as evaluated by independent judges
The number of uttered negative statements within the brainstorming groups, such as "This is a dumb idea that will fail."
The valence of the negative statements -- "This is the all-time dumbest idea" has a stronger negative connotation than "This idea is rather banal."
The confidence level exhibited by group members when asked to evaluate their performance in comparison to other teams.

When it comes to creativity, quality trumps quantity

"The study largely supported our hypotheses," Saad says. "We found that the individualists came up with many more ideas. They also uttered more negative statements -- and those statements were more strongly negative. The Canadian group also displayed greater overconfidence than their Taiwanese counterparts."

But when it came to the quality of ideas produced, the collectivists scored marginally higher than the individualists.

"This is in line with another important cultural trait that some collectivist societies are known to possess -- namely being more reflective as compared to action-oriented, having the reflex to think hard prior to committing to a course of action," Saad says.

Studies like this one are instrumental in understanding cultural differences that increasingly arise as the globe's economic centre of gravity shifts towards East Asia.

"To maximize the productivity of their international teams, global firms need to understand important cultural differences between Western and Eastern mindsets," Saad says. "Brainstorming, a technique often used to generate novel ideas such as new product innovations, might not be equally effective across cultural settings. Even though individuals from collectivistic societies might be coming up with fewer creative ideas, the quality of those ideas tends to be just as good as or marginally better than those of their individualistic counterparts. Employers need to recognize that."

How to Find Your Passion in 5 Creativity Exercises

Exercise 1 - Revisit your childhood. What did you love to do?

"It's amazing how disconnected we become to the things that brought us the most joy in favor of what's practical," says Rob Levit, an Annapolis, Md.-based creativity expert, speaker and business consultant.

Levit suggests making a list of all the things you remember enjoying as a child. Would you enjoy that activity now? For example, Frank Lloyd Wright, America's greatest architect, played with wooden blocks all through childhood and perhaps well past it.

"Research shows that there is much to be discovered in play, even as adults," Levit says.

Revisit some of the positive activities, foods and events of childhood. Levit suggests asking yourself these questions to get started: What can be translated and added into your life now? How can those past experiences shape your career choices now?

Exercise 2 - Make a "creativity board."
Start by taking a large poster board, put the words "New Business" in the center and create a collage of images, sayings, articles, poems and other inspirations, suggests Michael Michalko, a creativity expert based in Rochester, N.Y., and Naples, Fla., and author of creativity books and tools, including ThinkPak (Ten Speed Press, 2006).

"The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with images of your intention -- who you want to become or what you want to create -- your awareness and passion will grow," Michalko says.

As your board evolves and becomes more focused, you will begin to recognize what is missing and imagine ways to fill the blanks and realize your vision.

Exercise 3 - Make a list of people who are where you want to be.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Study people who have been successful in the area you want to pursue.

For example, during the recession, many people shied away from the real estate market because they thought it was a dead end. Levit believes that's the perfect time to jump in -- when most others are bailing out -- because no matter the business, there are people who are successful in it. Study them, figure out how and why they are able to remain successful when everyone else is folding and then set up structures to emulate them.

"If you want to be creative, create a rigorous and formal plan," Levit says. "It's not the plan that is creative; it's the process that you go through that opens up so many possibilities."

Exercise 4 - Start doing what you love, even without a business plan
A lot of people wait until they have an extensive business plan written down, along with angel investors wanting to throw cash at them -- and their ideas never see the light of day, according to Cath Duncan, a Calgary, Canada-based creativity expert and life coach who works with entrepreneurs and other professionals.

She recommends doing what you enjoy -- even if you haven't yet figured out how to monetize it. Test what it might be like to work in an area you're passionate about, build your business network and ask for feedback that will help you develop and refine a business plan.

It's a way to not only show the value you would bring, but you can also get testimonials that will help launch your business when you're ready to make it official.

"Perhaps most importantly, though, it'll shift you out of paralysis and fear," Cath says, "and the joy of seeing the difference your contribution makes will fuel your creativity."

Exercise 5 - Take a break from business thinking.
While it might feel uncomfortable to step outside of business mode, the mind sometimes needs a rest from such bottom-line thinking, says Levit, who has recently taken up Japanese haiku, a form of poetry. Maybe for you, it will be creative writing, painting, running or even gardening.

After you take a mental vacation indulging in something you're passionate about, Levit suggests coming back to a journal and writing down any business ideas that come to mind.

"You'll be amazed at how refreshed your ideas are," he says. "Looking at beautiful things - art and nature - creates connections that we often neglect to notice. Notice them capture, them in writing and use them

Research examines relationship between autism and creativity

August 13, 2015Source:University of East AngliaSummary:People with high levels of autistic traits are more likely to produce unusually creative ideas, new research confirms. While the researchers found that people with high autistic traits produced fewer responses when generating alternative solutions to a problem, the responses they did produce were more original and creative. It is the first study to find a link between autistic traits and the creative thinking processes.

The finding of this study could help researchers understand more about the relationship between autistic traits and how the brain adapts to problem solving in the general population.

Credit: © brunobarillari / Fotolia

New research has found that people with high levels of autistic traits are more likely to produce unusually creative ideas.

Psychologists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Stirling examined the relationship between autistic-like traits and creativity. While they found that people with high autistic traits produced fewer responses when generating alternative solutions to a problem - known as 'divergent thinking' - the responses they did produce were more original and creative. It is the first study to find a link between autistic traits and the creative thinking processes.

The research, published today in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, looked at people who may not have a diagnosis of autism but who have high levels of behaviours and thought processes typically associated with the condition. This builds on previous research suggesting there may be advantages to having some traits associated with autism without necessarily meeting criteria for diagnosis.

Co-author of the study Dr Martin Doherty, from UEA's School of Psychology, said: "People with high autistic traits could be said to have less quantity but greater quality of creative ideas. They are typically considered to be more rigid in their thinking, so the fact that the ideas they have are more unusual or rare is surprising. This difference may have positive implications for creative problem solving."

Previous studies using the same tasks have found most people use simple undemanding strategies, for example word association, to produce the obvious answers first. Then, they move on to more cognitively demanding strategies and their answers become more creative. The new research suggests that people with high autistic traits go straight to these more difficult strategies.

"People with autistic traits may approach creativity problems in a different way," said Dr Doherty. "They might not run through things in the same way as someone without these traits would to get the typical ideas, but go directly to less common ones. In other words, the associative or memory-based route to being able to think of different ideas is impaired, whereas the specific ability to produce unusual responses is relatively unimpaired or superior."

Dr Doherty said the finding addressed an apparent paradox - that in a condition characterised by restricted behaviour and interests, some of the best known people with autism, such as British architectural artist Stephen Wiltshire and American author and activist Temple Grandin, seem to be unusually creative. The British Channel 4 television series the Autistic Gardener also illustrates the unique contribution someone with autism can make to a creative activity such as garden design.

The finding could help researchers understand more about the relationship between autistic traits and how the brain adapts to problem solving in the general population.

Dr Catherine Best, Health Researcher at the University of Stirling, said: "This is the first study to find a link between autistic traits and the creative thinking processes. It goes a little way towards explaining how it is that some people with what is often characterised as a 'disability' exhibit superior creative talents in some domains.

"It should be noted that there is a lot of variation among people with autism. There can be people whose ability to function independently is greatly impaired and other people who are much less affected. Similarly not all individuals with the disorder, or the traits associated with it, will exhibit strengths in creative problem solving. Trying to understand this variation will be a key part of understanding autism and the impact it has on people's lives."

The researchers analysed data from 312 people who completed an anonymous online questionnaire to measure their autistic traits and took part in a series of creativity tests. Participants were recruited through social media and websites aimed at people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and their relatives. Seventy-five of the participants said they had received a diagnosis of an Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

To test their divergent thinking participants were asked to provide as many alternative uses as they could for a brick or a paper clip. Their responses were then rated for quantity, elaborateness and unusualness. People who generated four or more unusual responses in the task were found to have higher levels of autistic traits.

Some of the more creative uses given for a paper clip were: as a weight on a paper airplane; as wire to support cut flowers; counter/token for game/gambling; as a light duty spring. Common ones included: hook; pin; to clean small grooves; make jewellery.

Participants were also shown four abstract drawings and asked to provide as many interpretations as they could for each figure in one minute. The higher the number of ideas produced, the lower the participant's level of autistic traits tended to be.

Sunday, 24 July 2016

Electrical brain stimulation enhances creativity

Date:

April 14, 2016

Source:

Georgetown University Medical Center

Summary:

Safe levels of electrical stimulation can enhance your capacity to think more creatively, according to a new study.

Safe levels of electrical stimulation can enhance your capacity to think more creatively, according to a new study by Georgetown researchers.

Georgetown psychology professor Adam Green and Dr. Peter Turkeltaub of Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) and MedStar National Rehabilitation Network, and a team of colleagues published the study yesterday online in Cerebral Cortex.

The team used Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to stimulate an area of the brain known to be associated with creativity in combination with giving test subjects verbal cues to think more creatively.

"We found that the individuals who were most able to ramp up activity in a region at the far front of the brain, called the frontopolar cortex, were the ones most able to ramp up the creativity of the connections they formed," Green explains. "Since ramping up activity in frontopolar cortex appeared to support a natural boost in creative thinking, we predicted that stimulating activity in this brain region would facilitate this boost, allowing people to reach higher creative heights."

Use of tDCS targeting frontopolar cortex in two creativity tasks allowed the test subjects to form more creative analogical connections between sets of words, and to generate more creative associations between words.

"This work is a departure from traditional research that treats creativity as a static trait," Green says. "Instead, we focused on creativity as a dynamic state that can change quickly within an individual when they 'put their thinking cap on.' "

"The findings of this study offer the new suggestion that giving individuals a "zap" of electrical stimulation can enhance the brain's natural thinking cap boost in creativity," he adds.

The researchers wrote that their results provide "novel evidence" that tDCS enhances the "conscious augmentation of creativity elicited by cognitive intervention, and extends the known boundaries of tDCS enhancement to analogical reasoning, a form of creative intelligence that is a powerful engine for innovation."

Turkletaub, a GUMC cognitive neurologist, hopes that one day doctors may be able to improve creative analogical reasoning using both cueing and tDCS to help people with brain disorders.

"People with speech and language difficulties often can't find or produce the words they need," he explains. "Enhancing creative analogical reasoning might allow them to find alternate ways of expressing their ideas using different words, gestures, or other approaches to convey a similar meaning."

Green and Turkeltaub say that although their results are promising, "it is important to be cautious about applications of tDCS."

They say that much remains unknown about exactly how tDCS affects brain function, and early reports of tDCS effects need further replication before researchers can further gauge how substantive these effects are.

"Any effort to use electric current for stimulating the brain outside the laboratory or clinic could be dangerous and should be strongly discouraged," Green cautioned.

This work was supported by awards from the National Science Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences via Georgetown Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science (KL2 TR000102) and Pymetrics

latest news about creativity

Relationships among creative identity, entitlement and dishonesty hinge on perception of creativity as rare

Date:: September 23, 2015
Source:: Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University
Summary:: Think that you are special because you are creative? Well, you are not alone, and there may be some serious consequences especially if you believe that creativity is rare. A new study demonstrates that believing that you are a creative person can create feelings of entitlement when you think that creativity is rare and valuable. That feeling of entitlement can be costly for you and your organization as it can cause you to be dishonest.