Category Archives: Creativity

Imagine the future and enhance your creativity

Jorge in Creativity

Looking beyond the obvious has it’s rewards according to new research on how imagining an event in the future enhances our creativity:

This research has important practical implications. It suggests that there are several simple steps we can all take to increase creativity, such as traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places), thinking about the distant future, communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and considering unlikely alternatives to reality. Perhaps the modern environment, with its increased access to people, sights, music, and food from faraway places, helps us become more creative not only by exposing us to a variety of styles and ideas, but also by allowing us to think more abstractly. So the next time you’re stuck on a problem that seems impossible don’t give up. Instead, try to gain a little psychological distance, and pretend the problem came from somewhere very far away.

“True innovators are never bound by what is; instead they imagine what could be.”

Posted via web from Jorge Barba’s posterous

The elegantly simple way to turn ideas into brilliance

Jorge in Creativity, Innovation, Thinking

The Genius Machine

I just finished reading The Genius Machine by Gary Sindell. This is the shortest, most simple, useful book on creative thinking that I’ve ever read!

As Gary puts it, his work is to help people think.

This is not a book with yet another creative thinking technique to add to your arsenal, you can get those elsewhere. What this book gives you is an 11 step process to help you think through your ideas and turn them into reality.

A process he calls the Endleofon.

According to Gary, in order to develop our innovations to their highest possible level and to facilitate their acceptance by the people who would benefit most from our creations we need to answer The Endleofon questions which I share with you here.

11 steps that turn raw ideas into brilliance

1. Distinctions.

What do I see? New ideas are the result of perceiving new distinctions.

2. Identity

Who am I? Why are these ideas important to me, and why am I driven to share them with the world? Have I made my identity clear to my audience so they know where I am coming from?

3. Implications

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Where do my ideas lead? If what I am saying is true, then what are all the consequences I can imagine?

4. Testing

What am I blind to? Have I imagined how my ideas might impact a variety of situations, places and people? Have I questioned everything about my assumptions? What would prove me wrong? Can I create a model of my work and find precise analogues?

5. Precedent

Who else has seen something like this? By asserting that I have something to say, I am entering into the great conversation of ideas that stretches back through the centuries. We cannot know everything that has been said about our area of focus before we began our work, but we must try to be aware of important, precedent thought.

6. Need

Who needs this knowledge? If what I am saying is so, for whom would this knowledge be valuable? This question forces us out of focusing solely on our own area and may lead us to find the universals in our thinking. Understanding who needs us most will also help us in crafting what we say.

7. Foundation

Are there underlying principles? What is the world I’m working in? What are the underlying values expressed here? What are the applicable rules or structures that obtain here? Can I pull these together into a coherent group or body of law?

8. Completion

Is everything here? If the idea or product is valuable for someone, am I giving my audience everything they need for it to be useful? If everything they need is not here, have I explained what other information they will need in order to know enough to take action or teach others?

9. Connecting

The Sweetest Thing film

Dane Cook: Vicious Circle rip

Who am I addressing? Do I understand my audience’s frame of reference? Am I writing for my readers, speaking to my listener, carefully guiding the experience of my user?

10. Impact

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot hd Where do I want to go? In creating this work I have launched an alter ego that will eventually take on a life of its own. If this development or body of knowledge succeeds in the marketplace of ideas, will it help me fulfill my goals for my life? Are the identities of creators, the creation and the users aligned?

11. Advocacy

Am I supporting the adoption of my ideas? My thinking stands for me. Now I must stand for what I have created.

Help yourself in developing your breakthrough thinking by reading this book, it’s easy to read and simple to put to use.

You can follow Gary at his blog where he continues the exploration of the Endleofon innovation process.

UPDATE: Listen to this Businessweek podcast with an interview with Gary talking about his book.

The Qualities of a Creative Genius Mind

Jorge in Creativity, Thinking

So you want to think like a genius?

I gave you a head start on the last post I wrote 8 ways that anyone can use to think like a genius, which I hope you’ll find handy.

Not enough?

If you like mind maps like I do, you need to check out Adam Sicinski. He uses mind mapping methods to create visual IQ matrixes of the information he presents on his blog posts. Sweet!

He has a developed a very useful mind map of the essential qualities for outside the box thinking in a blog post titled The Mindset of a Creative Genius.

I’ve put the qualities of a creative genius mind below for your thinking pleasure but read the full post, it’s good stuff!

Flexibility: A Creative Genius is flexible in thought, opinion and in the decisions they make on a daily basis. Flexibility naturally encourages “outside the box” thinking which expands possibilities and opportunities.
Possibility Thinker: A Creative Genius persistently thinks about the possibilities that are available to them at any one moment in time. They fully understand that focusing on “possibilities” will expand opportunities, conversely, paying attention to “limitations” will only attract a greater array of problems into their lives.
Risk Taker: A Creative Genius fully understands that without “risk” there can be no worthwhile rewards. They therefore take risks by thinking differently, by taking chances, and by utilizing creative techniques and strategies in a unique, untried and unorthodox manner.
Focused: A Creative Genius is fully focused and locked mentally on the goals they seek to achieve. They dare not break this lock until the moment their objectives are fully realized within their physical reality.
Imaginative: A Creative Genius utilizes the full capacity of their imagination to bend the laws of reality to find the answers and opportunities they need to overcome the challenges in their life.
Dedicated: A Creative Genius is fully committed and dedicated to the outcomes and objectives they seek to achieve. They simply will not allow distractions or circumstances to push them off course. If however they do get sidetracked, than they are quick to adjust their sails to the changing winds and alter their course accordingly.
Patient: A Creative Genius realizes that creativity is a process that involves patience and careful preparation. They don’t try to force answers, instead they proactively make slight adjustments in their approach to open up new perspectives and understandings that will unlock the solutions and opportunities they have been searching for.
Proactive: A Creative Genius is constantly moving forward towards their objectives. This doesn’t mean being “action oriented” 24/7. However, it does mean focusing your body and mind on tasks and activities that keep you moving forward towards your goals consistently every single day. They always ask themselves “Is this activity taking me closer to my goals, or is it pulling me away?” The answer redirects their thinking and actions towards their creative objectives.
Courageous: A Creative Genius is courageous in action and thought. They are always willing to try new things and break the rules and boundaries limiting the average mind. And it is for this reason that the impossible becomes possible within their perspective of reality.
Independent: A Creative Genius is an independent thinker and doer. Yes, they seek other perspectives, ideas and opinions, however in the end, it is their independence that allows for the flow of unique, insightful and creative ideas.
Intuitive: A Creative Genius is a very intuitive soul. They fully understand that some answers can only be realized when they have an intuitive understanding of the world and the problem they are facing.
Persistent: A Creative Genius is fully aware if they persistent long enough over a consistent period of time, that every problem can be solved in a surprising and creative way. For this reason they bring forth a resilient attitude to every challenge confronting their reality.
Curious & Playful Nature: A Creative Genius approaches every task or activity in a curiously playful manner. Reminiscent of a child learning something new for the very first time. A Creative Genius fully appreciates that only curiosity and playfulness is able to relax their mind and bring forth its fullest creative potential.

Check out Adam’s blog for more useful mind maps!

8 ways that anyone can use to think like a genius

Jorge in Creativity, Thinking

have you discovered your genius?

Genius sees the answer before the question

– Robert Oppenheimer

Michael Michalko, who is a consultant on creativity and is also the author of Thinkertoys, made a special investigation of the method’s that history’s greatest creative geniuses have used to generate their ideas. The result was a list of eight ways that anyone can use to think like a genius, or at least come up with creative ideas.

Here they are:…

How to look at a challenge from different angles

Jorge in Creativity

thinking from different angles

Questions are the key to opening the mind

Last night, I was browsing Luciano Pasuello’s Planet of the Apes movie download excellent blog on how to better use your mind and I started reading the 10 best ways to harness the power of questions,which I found very insightful. I found some more gems in the comments, so I added my 2 cents and got a great response and thought I should post it here.

When presented with a challenge, knowing what to ask is the difference between doing more of the same and doing something extraordinary. The Phoenix Checklist of questions was developed by the CIA to encourage agents to look at a challenge from different angles.…

New research on how insights happen in the brain

Jorge in Creativity, Thinking

the aha moment

A well known physicist once said that all great discoveries in science where made in one of the three B’s…bus, bed and bath. It’s well documented that we get most of our good ideas when we’re not thinking about solving problems.

This is because of the principle of incubation.

Incubation works because your subconscious mind is always processing information. You usually set your problem aside for a few hours, days, weeks or even years while you move on to other projects. This allows your subconscious to continue working on the original challenge.

Look at the grid below and note that shadowy gray spots mysteriously appear at the intersections. However, when you concentrate on any specific intersection, the spot disappears.

connect the dots illusion

Sometimes ideas, like the gray spots, mysteriously appear only when you are not concentrating on them. Modern science recognizes this phenomenon yet cannot explain it…until now.

As I was checking my email this morning I got the Innovation Report 103 Newsletter from JPB and found a surprising section about “the science behind the aha moment.”

According to Drs. Joydeep Bhattacharya of Goldsmiths’ College (London) and Bhavin Sheth of the University of Houston (Texas) they’ve come up with a new approach to see how insights happen in the brain

Previous attempts by researchers have proven to be very insightful, but:

Dr Bhattacharya and Dr Sheth have taken a third approach. They have selected some brain-teasing but practical problems in the hope that these would get closer to mimicking real insight. To qualify, a puzzle had to be simple, not too widely known and without a methodical solution. The researchers then asked 18 young adults to try to solve these problems while their brainwaves were monitored using an electroencephalograph (EEG).

A typical brain-teaser went like this. There are three light switches on the ground-floor wall of a three-storey house. Two of the switches do nothing, but one of them controls a bulb on the second floor. When you begin, the bulb is off. You can only make one visit to the second floor. How do you work out which switch is the one that controls the light?

And the results of the experiment:

This problem, or one equivalent to it, was presented on a computer screen to a volunteer when that volunteer pressed a button. The electrical activity of the volunteer’s brain (his brainwave pattern, in common parlance) was recorded by the EEG from the button’s press. Each volunteer was given 30 seconds to read the puzzle and another 60 to 90 seconds to solve it. If he had not done so in the time allotted, a hint appeared. In the case of the light-switch puzzle, the suggestion was that you turn one switch on for a while, then turn it off.

Some people worked it out; others did not. The significant point, though, was that the EEG predicted who would fall where. Those volunteers who went on to have an insight (in this case that on their one and only visit to the second floor they could use not just the light but the heat produced by a bulb as evidence of an active switch) had had different brainwave activity from those who never got it. In the right frontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with shifting mental states, there was an increase in high-frequency gamma waves (those with 47-48 cycles a second). Moreover, the difference was noticeable up to eight seconds before the volunteer realized he had found the solution. Dr Sheth thinks this may be capturing the “transformational thought” (the light-bulb moment, as it were) in action, before the brain’s “owner” is consciously aware of it.

Even though this was a quick experiment we can see that the subconscious mind is hard at work processing information and at any given moment will generate an insight before we know it.

Photo Credit: falsereality748