Guilfords Five Elements of Creativity

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Guilfords Five Elements of Creativity

• Jerry Banks
• Creativity and Innovation

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Frances Ford Coppola

• Talent and creativity are the petroleum of the
  future

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Linus Pauling

• The best way to have a good idea is to have lots
  of ideas

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What to do with a fruitcake
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Guilfords Five Elements

• Fluency
• Flexibility
• Originality
• Awareness
• Drive

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Exercise

• In four minutes name as many uses as possible for
  a used styrofoam cup

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Fluency

• The ability to express thoughts in a flowing,
  effortless style
• How many uses can you find for a ____ in four
  minutes?
• Ranges from 4 to 40
• Mean of 11

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Flexibility

• The ability to bend familiar concepts into new
  shapes or to jump from old concepts to new ones

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Flexibility

• Nimbleness
• A creative person uses the ball bearing for less
  conventional purposes, e.g., slingshot ammo
• Can be measured by number of categories
• Others list a few related ideas and move on
• Some exhaust one category before moving to another

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Originality

• The unusualness of ideas
• Round objects
• Hole instead of the doughnut
• Red things
• Red Sea
• Little Red Riding Hood

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Awareness

• The imagination to perceive connections and
  possibilities beyond the obvious
• Look at a bird and see an airplane
• Look at a fish and see a submarine
• Lowly catfish became chic food
• Abandoned roller rink became a flea market
• Abandoned grammar school became an office
• Abandoned Ford factory became apartments

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J.P. Guilford

• The person who is capable of producing a large
  number of ideas per unit of time, other things
  being equal, has a greater chance of having
  significant ideas.

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Drive

• Blinding flash of inspiration does not exist
• Creativity is one part inspiration, nine parts
  perspiration

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The scrap tire challenge

• USA Today, May 27, 1997
• In 20 years, the nations pest-breeding,
  fire-prone tire heaps might be eliminated

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Recycling efforts help eliminate piles of old
tires

• WSJ, 12/5/02
• In 1990 only 25 of scrap tires were reused
• In 2001 the reuse rate rose to 78

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Uses for waste tires

• Pulverized and used in golf-cart paths
• Chipped and used as a crushed rock substitute for
  drainage
• Tire grains in asphalt is prolonging road life in
  AZ and CA
• Used to supplement coal in power plants

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Uses for waste tires

• Tarp anchors, planters, sandal shoes
• Playground jungle gyms, goose decoys
• Mulch for blueberries

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Old tires have much mulch in them

• Now, for residential use
• Shredded, textured and dyed to look like the real
  thing, rubber mulch is created from recycled
  truck tires and other rubber products
• Lasts for years, stays fresh looking, doesnt
  attract termites
• More expensive than organic
• US10 to US12 to cover 10 sq ft versus US6 to
  US10 for organic
• (USAToday 5/10/02)

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Uses for old plastics (NYT 3/20/02)

• 25 of the polyethylene fiber in Tyvek (from
  DuPont) comes from old plastic milk and water
  jugs
• Fleece garments are increasingly made from old
  soda bottles
• Plastic lumber is made partially from milk jugs

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Uses for old plastics (NYT 3/20/02)

• EvCo Research (in Atlanta) is using recycled
  beverage bottles to make water- repellent
  coatings on boxes for shipping fruits and meats
• TEWA Technology (in Albuquerque) is using
  shredded plastic in asphalt

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Yet!

• Yet, few companies have achieved the economies of
  scale that could make recycling pay
• Manufacturers cannot get a stream of high-quality
  material at a reasonable price

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95

• 95 of the 24.2 million tons of plastic waste
  generated each year (in the US) goes unclaimed
• 48,000,000,000 pounds/year
• Or, over 20,000,000,000 kilos/year

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End