Understanding Creativity

1
Understanding Creativity

• And learning to be more creative

2
Creativity

• What is it?
• Why be creative?
• How can I be more creative
• overcoming the 10 obstacles to creativity

3
Creativity

• When was the last time you had a creative idea?
• This morning?
• This week?
• This month?
• This year?

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The
creative act, the defeat of habit by originality,
overcomes everything. George Lois
4
What is creativity?

• It is a characteristic of people
• Picasso, Faulkner, Mozart
• It is the outcome of actions
• My roomates drawing was creative
• It is a skill that we can develop
• Working to be creative!
• You are responsible
• Akin to maturity or skill

5
Becoming more creative

• From Roger Von Oechs
• A WHACK IN THE SIDE OF THE HEAD
• Lessons in overcoming
• 10 obstacles to
• creativity

6
1. The right answer

• The Right Answer
• We are trained from kindergarten
• to search for the right answer.
• But in the real world there is often
• no single right answer

7
What is this?

• HS Students A squib mark?
• 2nd Graders
• Top of a telephone pole Puddle
• Squashed bug Spilled Ink

8
Why do we do this?

• We dont like problems
• So we take the first solution
• But the first is rarely the best
• How we can do better
• Ask what are the answers
• Look for the second right answer

9
2. Thats not logical

• There are ways of thinking
• Think like Mr. Spock
• Logic
• Reason
• Precision
• Analyze
• Think like an adult

10
Other ways of thinking

• Using
• metaphors
• dreams
• humor
• ambiguity
• hunches
• Think like a child

11
Hard vs. Soft Thinking

• Hard thinking is logical
• It is like a spotlight, focused, harsh, direct

• Soft thinking is less focused
• Metaphor a floodlight, diffused, but
  illuminating a larger landscape

12
Which is better?

• Each is appropriate to a phase of problem solving
• Germinal phase--Generate as many definitions of
  the problem and potential solutions as I can
• Practical phase--Choose the idea that is best and
  execute it

13
Metaphor

• Important tool of soft thinking
• Dealing with the unfamiliar by relating it to
  things we understand
• Life is like a bowl of
  cherries!

14
Samples
BBDO Pearl
J Walter Thompson
Leo Burnett
15
Metaphors and creativity

• Metaphors are everywhere
• Creativity involves generating fresh, arresting
  metaphors that offer new insights
• Some metaphors have been around so long we dont
  see them!

16
How is money like water?

• Frozen assets Cash drain
• Liquid assets Loan shark
• Bank Trickle-down
• Liquidated assets Float a bond
• Cash flow
• Solvency

17
Try it yourself

• Life may be like a bowl of cherries
• Or a box of chocolates
• But those are old metaphors
• What is life really like?

18
Life is like . . .

• a room full of open doors which close as you get
  older
• riding an elevator. It has a lot of ups and
  downs and somebody is always pushing your
  buttons. Sometimes you get the shaft, but what
  really bothers you are the jerks.
• is like a jigsaw puzzle but you dont have the
  picture on the front of the box to know what it
  is supposed to look like. Sometimes youre not
  even sure if you have all the pieces.

19
Tips

• Use soft thinking to generate ideas
• Practice by looking for metaphors
• As we did looking at ways that water relates to
  finance