The wonders of Post-Its!

Post-its are great innovation tools- used most widely in Brainstorming sessions, the following are examples of how the uses may be extended.

Tara Bisset, my dear Canadian friend (who came to Singapore on my Birthday-25 Feb 08) modelled for department's webpage on Why Study Creativity- http://www.buffalostate.edu/creativity/whycreativity.xml

A proud 'client' I facilitated in Central Park, New York on 13 July 08 was led through self-inquiry with a convergent tool- Card Sort. 

She had to decide if she were to stay on in Manhattan to work in real estate or focuss on completing grad school or to go into her pasion as a full time dancer or to run her own business, or joining the Peace Corps for as an entreprenurial idea for helping people in different countries, or to go to Virginia to dance for a modern dance company, or moving back home to Buffalo.  Quite a lot of difficult options indeed. Yet, the use of Card Sort as an evaluative tool worked wonders! For a well 'facilitated' session, it earned me a good US$50 to take bus back to Buffalo. :)

Or my overnight Brainstorming session in the Bath at 3am that helped reworked my Vision paper the next morning- a comical scene of freaking my Italian friend Luciano at 6 in the morning when he saw how i conquered the bathroom.

Or something as simple as a bring-about reminder to boost memory http://health.howstuffworks.com/10-ways-to-improve-memory.htm?j=18136605&e=yeojohn75@hotmail.com&l=753884_HTML&u=212486333&mid=26979&jb=0

Or simply a no-frills yet massive Artwork with delightful touches up close and and personal. An art exhibit in Cathay (Nov 08)

Food Designed for Better Living

In high school Biology class, I love to look at the sparkle in my students' eyes, when they inquisitively dissect animals and plants toexamine the internal features of these specimens. It was interesting to help students become more observant with instructions to draw these speciments by cutting longitudinal and transverse sections. One year, the graduating students wondered in worried expressions when I placed huge raw prawns for their practical exams. Thankfully, though unprepared with the type of specimen, most recognise that the surprise was to test their observational skills- by studying the features of biological specimens, recording their observations and making deductions about the functions . Yet, it was the skillful line drawing of the provided specimens, indicating magnification and labelling structures that seem so difficult for some if they don not appreciate how these structures serve a function. This is precisely how miraculous life is- whether you believe in existence of a Creator- the fact is, how our cells, collective serve a larger purpose of a tissue, organ and system, ensuring the survival of the organism. At the same time, when one organ in the body breaks down, the rest of the system are also affected.


I thought this principle could be a great inspiration for most basic skill in Design Thinking- LOOK LOOK LOOK. By looking, we discover. Discovery in itself is a non-linear process. Some organisations do much to plan innovation. Yet, few realised that discovery is simply about exploring new paths. For example, how often do we stop and think about the food we eat. Yet, if we look more intently and discover the "whys, whats, hows" perhaps the discovery may lead to designing better processes through re-perception. The article below on food and their nutritional value is interesting to exemplify tactical re-perceptions. As a process capability, tactical reperception allows one to look at problems and issues from different perspectives. By re-perceiving what each of the food has been re-represented in new context, new meaning is created from each that draws parallel to the other goodness of life.






A sliced carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... And YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.




A walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.



Kidney beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.


Celery, bok choy, rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strengbth. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
Avocadoes, eggplant and pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (Modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of eeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.




Sweet potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries





Oranges, grapefruits, and other citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.


Onions look like the body's cells. Research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.



If the food we eat can show us so much that was not apparent in the first instance, we can find new inspiration to repercieve from many other rich sources surrounding us to consider the world outside-in through deep immersion in contexts beyond our direct environment.

What is the message behind a picture?

After looking at this mosaic it reminded me of a passage Daniel H Pink wrote in 'A Whole New Mind' where he argued we are in the midst of a new age- the Conceptual or Creative Age. And no longer will it acceptable for an individual to ONLY to breed a culture of analytical fact deployers.

Pink (51) argues we are beginning to question our analytical minds by asking the question HOW ELSE might we see the world around us. I suspect, as more and more creative industries are producing AND being respected for their work communities and companies will continue to tap into BOTH the intellectual and emotional motivators of a target new smart customers (i.e. BMW, or Apple).

With information being displayed differently, Pink suggested in addition to all the analytical probing we are currently doing, creative industries are tapping into a "High Concept" and "High Touch" ecology for problem solving. This ecology explores the polarity between Critical and Creative thinking as interdependent variables that counter balance each other (i.e. Activity and Rest, Science and Art). By its very nature, "High Touch- involves the capacity to detect patterns and opportunites, to create artistic and emotinoal beauty, to cradt a satisfying narraticve, and to combine seemengly unrealted ideas into something new. Where as High Touch- involves the ability to empathise with others, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and to elicit it to others and to srech beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning"

So how might we cultivate a new culture of young minds who feel confident in applying both critical and creative problem solving techniques when given a challenge?


To be continued...

Three things

An interesting article sent to me by a student-

Three things in life that, once gone, never come back
1. Time 2. Words 3. Opportunity

Three things in life that can destroy a person

1. Anger 2. Pride 3. Unforgiveness

Three things in life that you should never lose

1. Hope 2. Peace 3. Honesty

Three things in life that are most valuable

1. Love 2. Family & Friends 3. Kindness

Three things in life that are never certain

1. Fortune 2. Success 3. Dreams

Three things that make a person

1. Commitment 2. Sincerity 3. Hard work

Three things that are truly constant

Father - Son - Holy Spirit

I love Creativity

Rowe (2004) suggested the following four styles of Creative Intelligence that may pertain to aspects of personality that can drive towards achieving outstanding results.

• Intuitive – focuses on results and relies on past experience to guide actions;


• Innovative – concentrates on problem-solving, is systematic, and relies on data;


• Imaginative – able to visualize opportunities, is artistic, enjoys writing, and thinks “out of the box”;


• Inspirational – focuses on social change and giving of self toward that end.
  

Rowe, A. J. (2004). Creative intelligence: Discovering the innovative potential in ourselves and others. CH: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall.

Isaksen & Treffinger (1985) devised a simple screening tool called 4I's to help determine whether a problem is a good match for the Creative Problem Solving Process.

• Influence- are you in a position to impact or change the situation? authority to implement the situation?


• Imagination- does the problem require creative thinking and do you desire new thoughts or approaches for the situation?


• Interest- is this an important problem, and require need to spend time explicitly working on it?
  
• Immediacy- does situation require attention now or in near future?
  

Isaksen, S. G., & Treffinger, D. J. (1985). Creative problem solving: The basic course. Buffalo, NY: Bearly Limited.

We really have an I for anything that is creative isn't It?

Innovation, I-phone, I-pod, post-It, I Am, Ice-cream, Ideator, Implementer, IDEO, "It would be great if...", Influence, Impact, Inspiration, Intuition, Intelligence, International Centre for Studies in Creativity Studies, Intrinsic motivation, Investment theory of creativity, Ittaikan (Japanese: feeling of 1-ness), Incubation, I-gotism?? .....

V2V: VISUAL to VISION

Above collage from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ganobristol/2412838431/

Indeed Picture speaks a thousand words. I could stare at each of the lovely photos and immediately allow me to tap into some of the following skills:

• Using imagination to think through pictures and vivid mental images
• Telling a story with a compelling narrative with inspiration
• Jumping into unseen possiblities by deliberately shifting out of current reality

Webbing

Strategic thinking with WEBBING- problem analysis tool to go beyond definition of problem and to define problem at appropriate level of abstraction.

Initial problem statement:

How might I internalise the rich learning from the Advance Tools class?

I) Asking "WHY?" to broaden view of problem;

Then ask "WHY ELSE?" to continue identify other general views of situation.

Example:

a. How to be able to recall & apply the tools?
b. How to become a unconsciously skilled practitioner with Creative Thinking?

II) Identify concrete views- ask "WHAT'S STOPPING ME?";

Then ask "WHAT ELSE IS STOPPING ME?" to create alternative views of situation.

a. How to be focussed & concentrate on 1 challenge at a time?
bi. How to prioritise?
bii. How to pause my own rapid thinking and apply diagnostic thinking?

III) Identify new connections that jump out of the clarification process.

eg. How to teach someone to "Think" together so that we can be mutually accountable?

Finally...

How might I internalise Thinking by teaching someone to Think together so that we can be mutually accountable?

References:

Basadur, M. (1995). The power of innovation: How to make innovation a way of life and put creative solutions to work. London: Pitman Publishing.

Haykawa, S. I. (1979). Language in thought and action (4 ed.). NY: Harcourt brace Jovanovich.

Isaksen, S. G., Doval, K. B., & Treffinger. (1994). Creative approaches to problem solving. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

A New Online Experiment

"Technologies ... sheer quantity of information we must now manage often exceeds our cognitive capacity. As a result, the hyper-abundance of information in today’s world-seen as a boon by many-often steals from us the quiet moments we need for contemplation.
It may actually reduce our ability to create new and useful ideas."
(Homer-Dixon, 2001, p.319)

Homer-Dixon, T. (2001). The ingenuity gap: Can we solve the problems of the future? Vintage Canada: Alfred A. Knopf.

We want to proof that technology does not hamper one from enjoying moments of comtemplation. On the contrary, it allows people to synergise more ideas together- more than just an item bank or journal.