Cultivating Creativit

I would like to share with you some interesting tidbits that I learned from a webinar that I recently attended (thank you, Joyce!J). As most of you are aware, I am not a very creative person and the thought of creating something outside my “structured” comfort zone sends me into an acute episode of hyperventilation.

The webinar, entitled Creativity: Put Your Finger on the Intangibles, was about discovering and cultivating one’s creativity. The speaker, Dr. Carmen Simon, shared four (4) techniques that will get our creative juices flowing. Allow me to share them with you:

    

1.       Volume

The story of Vincent Van Gogh tells us that during his lifetime, Van Gogh sold only one painting, and this was to a friend and only for a very small amount of money. While Van Gogh was never a success during his life, he plugged on with painting, sometimes starving to complete his over 800 known works. Today, they bring in hundreds of millions of dollars each.

How do we add volume?

·         Start with little ideas first. Creativity comes in molecules – when there are restrictions, you will be surprised as to how creative you will become.

·         Challenge yourself – i.e. I will write a song using the first word of the first book that I will open or What if I create a presentation that will only have black, white and red?

·         Habit – develop through practice -What do you do creatively every day?

2.       Use an (old) existing idea

How can we think of new uses for an old idea?

·         Keep the eye of the inexperienced – see it as if your are experiencing it for the first time – do not make assumptions.

·         Go BACK to move forward – i.e. look at old photos. Are you feeling nostalgia or isolation or pleasure?

·         Slow down and look around. All that it requires is that you look.

·         Think the opposite!

3.       Combining several old ideas

Fermat’s last Theorem was in Guinness Book of World Records for “most difficult mathematical problems”. Mathematicians around the world have been trying to solve the theorem for three hundred and fifty years. Andrew Wiles came into the picture and solved the theorem; a task that took him eight years. When asked how he did it, his answer was he would never have solved it if not for the studies and attempts in the past three hundred and fifty years.

                                How do we combine several old ideas?

·         Look at patterns

·         Perceive similarity

·         A sculptor once said, “I look at a piece of rock and see that the horse was in it all along”

4.       Knowledge broker

Walt Conti, the Founder and CEO of Edge Innovations, came from a Robotics background. He was then commissioned to design robotic whale from the movie Free Willy. The fake one looked so real that the real one wanted to mate with it. How creative Walt Conti was perceived to be!

How do we break new knowledge?

·         Deliver to other people something they may think  is new

·         Transport something that is existing in one field into a new field

·         Ask yourself: What will my audience perceive as new?

·         Collect Experiences – new ones – the more you collect new experiences for you the more you’re bringing new ones to others

·         When you go out and see what no one else has seen, you know what no one else knows.

But here’s an additional technique that we must not forget!

·         YOU! Do you know who you are?

·         You can’t engage in creative activities unless you know more about you

·         What is your distinct style?

·          What is your creative DNA? – (storyteller, enabler, entertainer, pagerper!)

·         Find your own distinct style by asking yourself:

o   What are you totally passionate about?

My answer is a life with Ryan Gosling… But hey, that’s just me!

I hope you find these things enlightening and inspiring like I did. :)

Credits to Mr. James New, Marketing Manager APAC at Citrix Online,  and Dr. Carmen Simon, Co-founder of Rexi Media

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