Helping Your Students Master Their Own Creativity in the Entrepreneurship Classroom

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Helping Your Students Master Their Own Creativity
in the Entrepreneurship Classroom
by Jeffrey A. Stamp, PhD Assistant Professor and
Chair of Entrepreneurship College of Business and
Public Administration
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• Are students creative?
• Can students create?
• What do they think about?
• Can they be taught to think entrepreneurially?
• Are they capable of experiencing serendipity?

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Dr. Js children
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Entrepreneurship is the essence of advantage.
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The process of creating value by bringing
together a unique package of resources to exploit
an opportunity.
Morris et al.
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• Creativity Is the art of expanding possibility.
• -
  Anthony Weston
• Creativity for
  Critical Thinkers

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• Creativity is the ability to cast a situation or
  challenge or problem in a new light and thereby
  open up the possibilities in it that were not
  evident before.
• -
  Anthony Weston
• Creativity for
  Critical Thinkers

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The Entrepreneurial Context
Creativity is the process of divergent thinking
in search of an opportunity.
Stamp
To search is about disciplining your mind to be
alert to what you might find.
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Framework Context
Creative Process
Entrepreneurial Process
pursuit
search
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Ideas are not created equal!
but they are a part of your life.
All ideas deserve to exist.
But not all ideas deserve to be in the
marketplace.
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Addressing Opportunity
Conventional Thinking
a
b
Entrepreneurial Thinking
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• Problems are our opportunities to change the
  world. Nothing less than that.
• -
  Anthony Weston
• Creativity for
  Critical Thinkers

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Serendipity

• Serendipity unsought for accidental discovery
  (associated with chance, providence and luck).

• Serendipity accidental sagacity. Looking for A
  and finding B. (Walpole, 1754)

• Serendipity empirical research that is fruitful
  that yields unexpected useful results. (Merton,
  1949)

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Serendipity

Serendipity meaningful coincidence
Recognizing matching pairs of events that are
meaningful rather than causally related. (de
Rond, 2005)
Serendipity controlled sloppiness. (Bygrave,
1989)
Serendipity is the essence of creativity.
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What is Creativity?
Creativity is the ability to look at the ordinary
and see the extraordinary.

DeWitt Jones Photographer, National Geographic
getting the students to see connections where
they arent readily obvious
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• Habits become blinders to creativity.
• -
  Anthony Weston
• Creativity for
  Critical Thinkers

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The tree is not always brown!
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• Set Thinking Solutions to perceived stimulus
  derived from memory recall from past successful
  patterns.
• -
  Anthony Weston
• Creativity for
  Critical Thinkers

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What is Creativity?
Creativity is the process of removing the hurdles
to perception that leads to a new awareness of
reality.
Stamp

getting the students over their hurdles to see
connections where they arent readily obvious
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The Real Business Reality?
People love to kill IDEAS!
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Yeah But
There are no PROBLEMS. Only Challenges


OPPORTUNITIES
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Why do you kill ideas?
Yeah But
Your first instinct is to apply your own
personal scale! Definitely Definitely STUP
ID REALLY COOL 0 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10
Separate Creation from Evaluation
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The Entrepreneurial Process
What Does It Take To Be Successful?
It all starts with an idea! So lets create
one!
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Whats The Idea?
Look Past The Stereotype And Use Stimulus

• A hammer
• A spatula
• A flyswatter

• A Frisbie
• A Snowshoe
• A Device To Transport Aliens

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Overlooking the Stereotypes
Rules of Creativity

• Never Give Up
• Dont Kill The Newborn Idea
• Breakthroughs Contradict History
• Use Stimulus
• Fun is Fundamental

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Top 5 Ideas for the Paddle
National Student Competition
1.) Fire-proof insulation
2.) Velcro catch game
3.) CD Holder
4.) Cross-walk paddles
5.) Driver salutation gift set
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Creative Rule of Thumb
Create ideas that are fifteen minutes ahead of
their time not light-years ahead.
Attitudes vs. Needs
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• The Power of Stimulus
• And you already know, be ready for anything

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• Word Association
• free association
• Developing Mental Fluidity

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• Think about your CONTEXT.
• Your first impressions are your guide.
• Do not over-think it spoils the output.

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What do you see?
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Unrelated Stimulus
Example
Task Invent A New Candy for Kids Client
VanMelle Candy Company Location
Netherlands Participants 26 VanMelle Country
Managers and Eureka! Trained Brains WARNING
NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT
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Unrelated Stimulus

• Initial Stimulus A Toy Gun
• Response Make Candy You Can Shoot
• Response Make Bullets Kids Can Bite With Red
  Blood Inside
• Response Make Silver Bullets Like the Lone
  Ranger Had
• Response Make Little Candy Bullet Wounds that
  Bleed
• Response Make Candy Named After Famous
  Assassins
• Response Make a Gun that You Shoot Into Your
  Mouth
• Response Make a Gun that Shoots Sometimes and
  Other Times
• It Doesnt
• Response Make a Russian Roulette Gun
• Response Make a Russian Roulette Candy With
  Surprises Inside
• Response Make Candies that Are Like Fire Balls
  or Fruity Fruit
• Response Make It So You Cant Tell If Its Hot
  or Fruity

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Unrelated Stimulus
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• The Creative Process
• The basis of Stimulus response

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Traditional Model

• Individual Brainstorming

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Brand Building Explore Stimulus
Fuel Your Brain Sights, Sounds, Smells
Stretch beyond your boundaries Customer Needs
Aspirations
Stimulus Available
of practical ideas invented
Low Stimulus
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Medium Stimulus
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High Stimulus
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Use your brain like a
COMPUTER
Stimuli sets off a CHAIN Reaction!!!
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Stimuli Sets Off A Chain Reaction of Ideas
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Where To Go On Spring Break?
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Where To Go On Spring Break?
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• Stimulus Response Method
• Imagery Relevance
• Asking the Right Questions
• Running your entr-code script
• Contingent Serendipity- looking for A, then
  finding B- two acausal events that have
  meaningful coincidence- effectuation among
  variables or events.

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• Dynamic Framing
• Think (solve or find a problem)
• (isolate set thinking
  ideas)
• Search (reflect and look for connections)
• (de-contextualize via divergence)
• Discover (give yourself many options)
• (develop many contingent hooks)
• Live (look through the customers eyes)
• (change happens with real benefits)

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The Role of Problem Finding
1.) What is a product? 2.) What is a customer?
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What is This?
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It starts with a Strategy
HP Business Model

• HP makes more money on ink than printers.

2. printers are static, they sit on desks.
3. printers print on paper and other 2-D stock.
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The Student Results
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Why does Stimulus-Response Work?
Exercising Your Entrepreneurial Alertness

• Entrepreneurship is an aspect of action.
• The human brain is an sensory action machine.
• Use time and change as natural textures for
  sensory inputs to cue the need state for which
  the entrepreneur is alert to new possibilities.
• The idea must conform to external constraints.

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Working with Stimulus

• Two types Related / Unrelated
• Acts as a proxy for cognitive sensory perception
• Produces an mental image
• Tells a story
• Elicits a memory
• Permission to look
• Protection from being wrong
• Provides idea ownership

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Strategic Overview To force the mind to make
associations that the educated brain would
avoid. A practical way to do Divergent
Thinking A collection of three strategically
focused lists, each with six options, are smash
associated by rolling three dice. Its A
Powerful Process For Mixing Stimuli Types
RELATED STIMULI UNRELATED STIMULI
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Example
Step 1 Define Task Write your task at the top
of the page Be as specific as possible
Create A New Board Game
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Example
Create A New Board Game
STEP 2
Identify three key areas to explore write at
top of the three columns
MATERIALS
THEME
AUDIENCE
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Example
Create A New Board Game
THEME
AUDIENCE
MATERIALS
3. List 6 options for each area
STEP 3
1. Food, Food, Food 2. Family Reunion 3.
Laughter 4. Best/Worst 5. Gossip 6. Sex and Rock
Roll
1. Seniors 2. Couples Only 3. College Age 4.
Roseanne 5. Yuppies 6. Teens
1. Invisible Ink 2. Nylon 3. Bouncing Balls 4.
Sponge Rubber 5. Kites/Gliders 6. Masking Tape
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Example
Create A New Board Game
THEME
AUDIENCE
MATERIALS
1. Food, Food, Food 2. Family Reunion 3.
Laughter 4. Best/Worst 5. Gossip 6. Sex and Rock
Roll
1. Seniors 2. Couples Only 3. College Age 4.
Roseanne 5. Yuppies 6. Teens
1. Invisible Ink 2. Nylon 3. Bouncing Balls 4.
Sponge Rubber 5. Kites/Gliders 6. Masking Tape
This 666 Resulted In
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Example
6. Sex and Rock Roll
6. Teens
6. Masking Tape
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• What is a Concept?

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The Concept

• 1.) Consumer centric idea.
• 2.) An asset of opportunity.
• 3.) Contains the 3 Laws.
• 4.) Testable hypothesis.
• 5.) Framework from which a feasibility plan
  emerges.

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Features Are NOT Benefits Features are the
Facts Figures Technology and Details
That make up your offering
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The Real Keys To Sales Success
Winning Customers

• Law 1 Overt Benefit
• Whats in it for me?
• Law 2 Real R.T.B.
• Why should I believe you?
• Law 3 Dramatic Difference
• Why should I care? Will I care enough to
  change?

Growing Profit Margins
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The missing piece is RELEVANCE
Big ideas arent truly innovative until the
customer displays the behavior of purchase.
Relevance drives Response
CONTEXT
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Overt Benefit

• is relative to a
• Target Audience
• Target Occasion
• or Target Problem

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scents.
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Rating Concepts
Dramatic Difference (High, Medium, Low)
Reason To Believe (High, Medium, Low)
Overt Benefit (High, Medium, Low)
Adoption Hurdle (High, Medium, Low)
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Biz Plan Deficiencies
1.) No clear demonstration of need. 2.) Cant
define a realistic competitive advantage. 3.)
Dont understand path to profitability.
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If you dont like something, change it. If you
cant change it, change the way you think about
it. unknown creative
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Those who wish to sing, always find a song.
Swedish proverb
jeff.stamp_at_und.edu