No one, not even Shakespeare, became a genius through raw talent alone. Creativity thrives under certain conditions, and we should make sure we replicate them if we want to become the next Steve Jobs or Pablo Picasso. That's the message delivered by the neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer in his new book Imagine (out on Thursday), and it's great news for anyone who ever abandoned a creative project, telling themselves that they just don't have that spark. The human mind, Lehrer writes, "has the creative impulse built into its operating system". Here's how he recommends making the most of it:
1. Take long walksWhen you've hit a wall, sometimes the best thing to do is to stop mainlining coffee and staring at a screen. Taking a stroll in the park or having a warm shower stimulates a certain kind of brain wave in the right hemisphere that aids insight. It's why people perform better on tests when they are feeling happy. It's also why Bob Dylan wrote his most groundbreaking album, Highway 61 Revisited, when he decided to quit the music industry and moved to a cabin in Woodstock in 1965. Released from the pressure of trying desperately to come up with a new sound, it suddenly just happened. "I don't think a song likeRolling Stone could have been done any other way," he said. "You can't sit down and write that consciously."
2. Think in bed
The same year, Keith Richards fell asleep with a tape recorder in his hand and woke up with the first verse of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction recorded in his sleep. Just as our brain can fire in a different way when it is relaxed, it comes up with new connections when dreaming. It's why one neuroscience researcher suggests setting your alarm clock a few minutes early and thinking about a problem while you're half asleep. "The drowsy brain is unwound and disorganised, open to all sorts of unconventional ideas," Lehrer writes.
3. Make up rules
What's crucial in coming up with a brand-new idea is the feeling of a problem being completely insoluble. Then the "logical" left brain hemisphere gives up and the right hemisphere is forced to come up with strange new concepts. It's why some of the best poetry is in the form of sonnets or haikus with strict rules about rhythm, rhyme and length. When the most straightforward way of expressing something doesn't fit, you're forced to think up something unique. In Lehrer's words, "You break out of the box by stepping into shackles".
4. Grit your teeth
Sadly, creativity isn't all long walks and warm showers. "All great artists and thinkers are great workers," Nietzsche said, and we need to focus on a project for long, difficult hours before we can have our drowsy moment of insight. Psychologists have found that persistence is one of the most important indicators of success, and a glance at the field - Beethoven experimenting with 70 different versions of a melody before choosing one; WH Auden taking Benzedrine in order to stay up writing all night - shows that even the most gifted artists need grit.
5. Be bold
"All of us contain a vast reservoir of untapped creativity," Lehrer writes, but "the timid circuits of the prefrontal cortex keep us from risking self-expression". In other words, we need to be as uninhibited as a child in order to create freely. Take a comedy improv class to learn how to get rid of these inhibitions, or find another way to practise doing things that seem embarrassing at first.
6. Ignore convention
Physicists peak at the age of 30, studies say. For poets, it's even earlier. The reason for this, according to Lehrer, is that young people rebel against the status quo, and as they age, they get weighed down with orthodox ways of thinking. This doesn't mean you're doomed if you're older; it just means you need to keep your thinking fresh. Leave behind the safety of your expertise and try something new. Forget what you've been taught - it's the only way to innovate.
7. Get on a plane
Travel is a shortcut to cultivating that "outsider perspective" outlined above. It makes our thinking more flexible and creative, and it also helps us to solve problems back home. "Our thoughts are shackled by the familiar," to summarise using Lehrer's words. "Problems that feel close get contemplated in a more literal manner. This… inhibits the imagination." The longer you're away, and the more exotic the destination, the stronger the effect.
8. Toughen up
Every morning at Pixar Studios, a few dozen animators and computer scientists spend hours analysing each frame produced the day before, and ruthlessly tear it apart. Studies show that brainstorming sessions in which "there is no wrong answer" at the ideas stage are much less effective than honest criticism - especially if it is couched in terms of how the problem can be fixed. Develop a thick skin. The more criticisms you hear, the more new ideas you will generate.
9. Share ideas
Science papers produced by a team are twice as likely to be cited as those written by an individual, and the closer the collaborators live to each other, the better their work is. Lehrer cites this fact to show that (face-to-face) collaboration is key when it comes to solving difficult problems. What's also important is how well the collaborators know each other. In the world of Broadway musicals, the most successful shows were made by a team that had a mix of innovative newcomers and old hands who had already worked together.
10. Soak up the city
The urban theorist Geoffrey West has spent years crunching data on income levels, education and even the walking speed of pedestrians. He found out that the bigger the city we live in, the more we get done. "Cities are an inexhaustible source of ideas," he says. "As cities get bigger, everything starts accelerating. Each individual unit becomes more productive and more innovative." The denser the population, the more "knowledge spillover": we encounter more people who are different to us, and they stimulate new ideas. So if you're reading this in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, you already have a head start in coming up with that masterpiece.
Share
Share on facebook Share on linkedin Share on twitter« Previous Business | Next Business » 'Inspiration is 80% Mental, 40% Physical': Your Secrets of Creativity
By Jared Keller
Apr 11 2012, 10:41 AM ET
Earlier this week, I asked Atlantic readers to share how they come up with their best ideas. The feedback was excellent: readers shared responses long and short through our comment section and on our Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr pages. As we suspected, inspiration takes many forms, and everyone has their own particular process for spurring on creativity and inspiration. Below, a sampling of longer responses from our readers.Inspiration Is "Something Of An Ongoing Disaster"I struggle with consistency. I think that's the best way to put it, and it makes talking about "inspiration" almost a laughable endeavor because I don't feel, I never feel, as if I have enough data points in any given field to make generalizations about where I get inspiration or even what I am inspired to do. I jump back and forth between writing a book to watercoloring to linoleum prints to short stories to blog articles; I work on them in the morning and late and night and at home and outside and in coffee shops; I break and re-arrange my "creative time" again and again to fit around my family and the weather and what kind of mood I am in. The last short story I finished was inspired by a DC comic series I found by way of feminist blog, and it was unusual in that I could pinpoint with some clarity where and when the idea developed.The story before that was more typical, in that I could list you some influences but not which one was the most important or how they fit together - reading Lord of the Rings as a seventh grader, mentally exploring the Mines of Moria again and again, dreaming not of being one of the Fellowship but instead an orc that could descend like an impervious insect into rock-hidden places; turning corners with neck outstretched in Salamanca as a recent college grad, nervy and terrified by a recent mugging but still desperate to love the gold stones and dry air; babysitting a family friend's three-year-old son and having long and puzzling conversations during which neither of us was quite sure we were understood by the other.I sketch a lot, and I do watercolors outside, and I take photos. These images (of nearby hills, of houses I have lived in, of streets I have walked down) show up in my dreams, and I reinterpret the reinterpreted. I spend a lot of time trying to make stories that create some sort of sense or resolution from terrible things I read in the news; many of the inner worlds that I write about come from asking the question, "In what kind of world would this terrible thing never happen?" I read books and I try to include authors I hate. I spend a lot of time on the internet researching architecture and design and social justice and other topics that don't have any connection to my everyday life. I look at hundreds of pictures every day.I suppose it would accurate to say that I subscribe to the jumble-box theory of inspiration: if you only absorb enough media, introduce enough diversity of shards of ideas into your brain, they will eventually smash all together and you will develop a original(ish) and authentic language of your own, mosaic of bright and sometimes indistinguishable pieces."All You Can Do is Swim in the Problem Until Your Subconscious Finally Forges a Solution."I work for an engineering firm that produces wireless products. As engineers, we're tasked with producing new things with a minimum of new ideas. The latter restriction makes for safer design and brings things to market quickly and efficiently. Even with that limitation, there's still a place for innovation in this process. That's the exciting part and every engineer lives to find simple, elegant solutions to difficult problems.Many of us take our lead from Thomas Edison and his well-quoted "genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration" line. We've learned that the 99% perspiration requirement seems to be essential to any creative solution. All my engineering associates said the same thing - you have to totally and painfully immerse yourself in a problem long before a solution becomes obvious.That immersion process rarely provides an answer by itself - few of us sit at our desks and pound our way to a creative solution through sheer perseverance. It's only by living with the problem day in and day out that allows you to accumulate the bits and pieces that you'll ultimately need to find a solution. Only after repeatedly soaking in the problem will you have enough insight to be able to solve it.Once all that juice is stored up, you are at least prepared for those random moments when inspiration does strike. Inspiration comes to engineers like it comes to everyone else - in the shower, while taking a walk, in dreamland - some time when you aren't actively thinking of the problem.As far as I can tell the inspiration part of the process can't be forced. All you can do is swim in the problem until your subconscious finally joins the disparate pieces together and forges a solution. Conversely, just expecting inspiration to come into play without the necessary work up front doesn't seem to work very well either. There seems to be no way around Edison's perspiration edict.There's probably no new insight here but at least it's useful to put the process into words."I Am Agog With The Power of Serendipity"I am agog with the power of serendipity.Serendipity, the happy accident, has driven much of my research and much of my publication. My first book, on the work of police officers and social workers, emerged entirely because a student of mine was a police officer--a sergeant, in fact--who invited me for a ride-a-long one night. In time, after many rides and much observation, I hit on the notion that on the scene, at the spot of an incident that a police officer was working, it is best to consider the police officer in exactly the same terms that we analyze small group leaders: as people exercising power and discretion to achieve some socially approved end. In fact, I can still place myself in the exact spot I was in when this idea hit me: riding in a police car at 2 am one morning, driving under the overpass of a yet-unfinished interstate. It was a "Eureka" moment.A later book, on the American militia movement, was informed by the entirely happy accident (at least for me) that I moved to Spokane, WA, to take a temporary position at Eastern Washington University at the exact moment that the Randy Weaver standoff took place in neighboring Idaho. My surprise at the sympathy with which Randy Weaver was treated in the local media led me to ask that most important of political questions: why do people like something I find abhorrent? Answering that question took several years and a survey of the militia movement from Ruby Ridge to Homeland Security ... but I got to an answer that, at least, satisfied me.Of course, as Ben Hogan once said of golf, it might be a game of luck but the more I practice the luckier I get. It is one thing to be hit by serendipity and another to be ready for it. An open mind, a big reading list, and a curiosity about the world around me has, I think, put me in a position such that when those serendipitous moments come, I am at least partially prepared to be struck by them.Then comes the hardest part: making the words come out in a way that makes the thoughts in my head correspond with the squiggles on the page. Which takes a whole lot more inspiration and, indeed, a heck of a lot of mental perspiration."Inspiration is 80% Mental, 40% Physical"Football is 80 percent mental and 40 percent physical.-Steve Emtman, former NFL defensive lineman, Little GiantsLike many mid to late 20 somethings, I learned most of my life lessons from two sports films: The Sandlot andLittle Giants. I was 9 years old when former overall first pick Steve Emtman hopped off John Madden's bus to inspire the Little Giants before they took to the field against the Little Cowboys. Even though I knew Emtman never mastered the principle of addition, his sincerity in delivering his signature line left a lasting impression.At 27 years old, I spend most of my time thinking about how to persuade people to read and engage online content, be it a tweet or a piece of longform journalism. My best ideas are 80% mental and 40% physical. Well, roughly at least. My 9 year old self was much better at arithmetic.40% PhysicalIt is not easy to be in a proper physical state. Leaving the office for a leisurely walk outside isn't enough. When I am struggling to define a problem or am unable to draft a complete answer, I need to wear myself down. For example, I'll run 5 to 6 miles and then attempt to 3 to 4 sets of push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups. This is how I clear my head. I am usually juggling multiple thoughts at once and the best way to prepare myself mentally is to exhaust myself physically.Exercise is relaxing, but it can be debilitating if I forget to stretch. I never took to yoga, but I am a fan of spending 20 minutes tugging at my ankles or pulling an elbow. Time permitting, a hot shower can help, but I rarely have a eureka moment in the shower. Showers are more likely to echo shards of previous ideas. I use this time to take a mental nap since I'm functionally on autopilot.80% Mental20% pressure + 30% existing knowledge + 10% connecting the dots + 20% feedback = 80% mental.Eureka moments do not occur in a vacuum. My trigger is pressure. Deadlines motivate. With the threat of impending failure, I think about what I already know and what currently fascinates me. The more I already know, the better caliber ideas I generate. An array of datapoints -- anecdotal or statistical -- builds the foundation for an idea. If you don't know anything about a subject, chances are you won't think of a great idea. Life isn't Good Will Hunting where strangers stroll into a classroom and complete complex equations.Do not silo your brain. I find myself at my most creative when I am connecting disparate things. How should I connect this blog post about reality television with a Congressional Budget Office white paper on home foreclosures? I am envious of designers who draw inspiration from a variety of sources: photography, textile patterns, medieval architecture, 1990s Geocities sites and the like. Inspiration needs room to breathe. I create this space by combining what I am working on with what I like.For example, if I was tasked with doubling the number of viewers for this blog post about creativity, I would survey my existing knowledge base about promoting digital content in light of where I currently enjoy spending my time. Right now, I'm fascinated by The Verge (tech website), Buzzfeed Politics, the Q&A network Quora, The Atlantic Wire's media diets, SBNation's YouTube channel, Byliner's longform publications, the comedy podcast network Earwolf, Storifies compiled by The New York Times' Brian Stelter, Google's magazine Think Quarterly, the music sharing site ThisIsMyJam and a few others.Using pen and paper or a whiteboard, I'll map out what I know with what I like. This process generates workable to occasionally great ideas. Sometimes I'll use mind maps. Sometimes I'll write lists. It depends on my mood and the subject matter. It is more important to put forward ideas instead of fretting about the best process to organize thought. Do what comes naturally.I'll share these ideas with co-workers, friends, strangers on Twitter and anyone else I think who would be helpful and/or interested. My eureka moment is most likely to occur when I'm defending an idea and someone's comment reveals that last kernel necessary to complete my thought. Or at least I've convinced myself I posses the right question or answer.The dirty secret to inspiration is that it great ideas are never complete. Figuring out a solution superior to your previous answer is exhilarating, but it is foolish to think this is the best possible idea imaginable. Pressure is essential to acceptance. It is dangerous to endlessly pursue what we think is genius at the expense of great. I admire the hacker ethic because what society commonly hails as genius is most likely an iteration of a series of good ideas.The 120% EthicDo not take the previous as an excuse to settle for a half baked idea. Deadlines do not justify bad work. The "Emtman equation" is actually kind of beautiful in a cheesy inspirational halftime speech sort of way. Inspiration is tied to effort. Sitting on the couch playing video games will more often than not, fail to produce good ideas, let alone great ideas, on its own. Relaxing is important. Clearing one's mind is critical. Refusing to put in the effort and expecting genius only works in the movies."Creativity Is A Social Phenomenon"My best ideas come through communicating with others. For me, creativity is a social phenomenon.I spend a good deal of my time honing my thoughts (alone) - thinking, reading, observing. The goal of this is to clearly define logical relationships between events, which is really just the concept of causality (cause and effect).The real creative side comes about though social interaction. Interaction required individual thought to be restructured, so that another can clearly understand your conscience. This restructuring process produces a more clear and often enhanced version of the original logical relationships. This has led me to believe that there is significant value for a firm in investing in human capital. When I'm surrounded by smart people, it makes me smarter. This is nothing new, but it works for me!"The Best Thing I've Done Is Create A Little Book of Ideas"I find that keeping as busy as possible charges my brain for those inevitable times of the day when you can be alone and think- and those times I savour. Not to be crude, but when I'm in the loo is a good one. Or travelling between places on the tube or the train. Driving helps a lot.As others have said, sleep helps, but I use it more when I'm grappling with an issue or a problem or something really important. Often, when I have an assignment or a job application due, I sleep on it before handing it in, and inevitably wake up with several minor- yet crucial- adjustments that can mean all the difference.The best thing I've done in the past 3-4 years is create a little book of ideas. It now exists both in my tasks list on Gmail and in a hardcover copybook by my bed. I write everything in there- a different way of designing metro systems based on polar coordinates rather than the Cartesian coordinates that have been favoured traditionally; or an innovative new business idea for hot drinks that are healthy for you. To focus my mind, I used the first page to outline a "bucket list", so that my ideas matched my life goals. I read it again every so often to centre my thinking and, despite the chatter of normal life, remind myself of what's truly important for me to achieve."How Do You Get To Eureka? I'm Not So Sure You Can Force It"My earliest memory of this "Eureka Moment" dates back to when I was a child. I must've been in the 1st or 2nd grade. I was drawing a figure of some sort... something alien, perhaps from some movie I had seen; it was very organic. In any case I was stuck on the eye, I remember constantly erasing and redrawing, the tooth of the paper all but gone. My classmate Isis unexpectedly bumps my arm. I lose my patience, I yelled at her. Then I looked back down at my paper and alas the perfect stroke was created. A happy accident as they say.More than a decade has passed and now my creativity is constantly being challenged. I'm a graphic designer now and often if not most times, my answer comes from some serendipitous moment. My best designs, photos, and yes, illustrative strokes aren't usually premeditated, but are more-so formed from random quirks in sketches or in visual inspirations that set off a spark, the answer I've been looking for.So to answer the question: How do you get to eureka? I'm not so sure you can force it. At least I've never been able to. I'm not saying an outside force needs to motivate your decisions, but you need to be ready and able to accept something as a great idea on a moment's whim. What's meant to be will come to pass and hopefully something serendipitous will come by your way."How Do You Get to Eureka? You Don't. You Let It Get to You."There's no formula, equation or repeatable scenario to creativity, to finding that "next big idea." Ideas are stubborn, strong. They take their time brewing - like all good things - before spewing over, leaving you to pick up the scraps that remain and reassemble the mess. The mess is madness, yes, but part of the beauty comes in creating something out of all those limp lost thoughts, bringing them to life. If your "great idea" dangles just out of reach, eluding you, refusing to be caught, begin again. Start over, with lots of little thoughts. Collect them, everywhere you go. Store them in some dark corner, and wait. Wait and watch. Watch as that corner grows and explodes into light. Watch as the walls crumble, down. Then search through that rubble and build something new - when the wall falls, when you least expect it, you'll know what to do.How do you get to eureka? You don't. You let it get to you.Share your creativity secrets in the comment section, submit a post on Tumblr, or tweet your thoughts to us with the hashtag #InnovationWeek. We'll compile your answers into a post later this week. (The longer and smarter you write, the more likely it is that we'll publish you.)
More at The Atlantic
<div>
</div>
Join the Discussion
After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register.Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus
The Creative Thinking Myth
By Jeffrey Davis, M.A. | Apr 06, 20120 comments -->Synopsis
Being habitually creative requires far more than original thinking.
The right-brained creativity myth isn't the only limited notion of what creativity is, what it requires, and how it happens. Again, let me be audacious enough to mention another one: the creative thinking myth. And you tell me what you think. (I certainly appreciated every contribution to the previous conversation.)
Myth: being creative means mostly thinking in novel and original ways.
Many creativity studies in the mid-20th century started with this premise. Metaphorical thinking, associative thinking, flexible thinking, divergent thinking. How many uses for a brick can you come up with? What does this grasshopper wing look like? The work of Paul Torrance, Edward de Bono's Six Hats and Lateral Thinking, the Remote Associates Test, and others have contributed profoundly to our understanding of how people can engage in non-discursive, non-linear thinking that might or might not contribute to being creative.
But being creative requires more than thinking in novel ways. Most of us have much fresher ideas than we give ourselves credit for, and yet we're not necessarily habitually creative.
Creativity's unromantic truths
Why not? First, because being creative also requires that an idea actually be produced, that whatever is being produced or exhibited actually works, and that this product is useful, even if that usefulness is limited to a person's family.Being creative also means actually executing an idea. Daydreaming is invaluable to ideation, but the world is full of daydreamers whose scripts and inventions never get past the novelty spurt or grand vision. To move from lightning-bolt idea to completing a novel, or a new way to use a room, or starting a business, or a new product design requires far more than the idea itself.
New Yorker writer and artist biographer Joan Acocella sums up the matter well, "What allows genius to flower is not neurosis, but its opposite, 'ego strength,' meaning (among other things) ordinary, Sunday-school virtues such as tenacity, and above all, the ability to survive disappointment." And even the non-genius creatives among us, what psychologists call the "small c creatives," must demonstrate more perseverance, physical stamina, focus, organization & time-sculpting, mood monitoring & shifting, and field know-how to surpass original thinking.
Being creative requires meta-awareness—or creative mindfulness. A person who is aware of how her mind works and who trains herself to pay attention to and to capture those flashes of insight, of course, is more likely to follow through on them. The work of Dr. John Kounios (Drexel University) and Dr. Mark Beeman (Northwestern University) have specifically tracked this facet. The rest of us get flashes without that tiny flashlight of awareness, or without the automated habit of capturing those flashes of insight on a napkin or in a notebook.
Creativity's two elephants
What influences creative ideation and creative idea execution? To jump right in and say, "think creatively" is unfair to a person or a team. To do so betrays the fact that more than will and desire influence what happens in the mind.There are two elephants in the room when we talk about creativity. The first elephant of creativity studies is the body. You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that a person's physical condition, quality and nature of respiration, and even physical movements, do not influence how he or she perceives, computes, and imagines. We know, for instance, that a person's general physical condition, how he or she breathes, and even moving the body can in some cases lead to greater focus, mood moderation, increased meta-awareness or creative mindfulness, persistence, and even imaginative insight.
Japan's arguably most celebrated novelist Haruki Murakami reflects on this fact in his memoir-essays, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
Many, but not all, researchers and consultants in creativity have overlooked the body or ignore this elephant altogether. We're uncomfortable talking about this fleshy mobile home. We're embarrassed we don't know more about it. And we'd just assume no one look at ours.
On one hand, we agree with most cognitive scientists, psychologists, and even some neuroscientists who now use terms such as "embodied mind" and "embodied consciousness." On one hand, we agree that, despite his many useful contributions to science, Descartes got it wrong when he said that the mind influences the body but the body has no influence on the mind. And on the other hand, we lack the tools or capacity to "connect the dots" of how the body does influence creative cognition and creative execution.
Cognitive linguist George Lakoff and cognitive scientist Mark Johnson set the tone in their two books, Metaphors We Live By and Philosophy in the Flesh: How the Embodied Mind Challenges Western Thought (1999). And Northwestern University's Li Huang and Adam Galinsky's work with mind-body dissonance follows up on this fascinating new path of creativity research. There's truth to my adage that your "muse" is as near as your body and breath.
The other elephant is the environment. We're just now beginning to accept that cinder-block classrooms with low ceilings and poor lighting might actually affect the way a teenager can compute mathematical formulas or play music.
Or for that matter the atmosphere for how a marketing team can come up with, collaborate, and execute a whole campaign. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School, as well as author of Creativity in Context and numerous studies, has tracked this facet for over fifteen years.
Optimal team dynamics and communications, more collaboration thancompetition, optimal leader enthusiasm, optimal amounts of responsibility, and given information each contribute to whether or not people in an organization are habitually creative.
Woe to the team who's told "be more creative" but who is not given the resources for focus, imagination, stamina, mood moderation, and atmosphere. And woe to the leader or consultant who perpetuates the myth.
YOUR TURN
Am I out of line here? What insights can you contribute? What other researchers' work has contributed to debunking this myth? What conditions and habits are you setting up to better assure "creativity happens" for yourself or for your team?See you in the woods,
JeffreyJeffrey Davis is a creativity consultant and author of The Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies & Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing (Monkfish Publishing 2008; Penguin Putnam 2004). He mentors creatives, professionals, teams, and solo-preneurs to track wonder and to delight by design. trackingwonder.com
This article originally appeared at Psychology TodayTags: body, creative mindfulness, environment, meta-awarness, non-linear thinking, novel thinking
Recommended for you
April 06, 2012 The Creative Thinking MythApril 05, 2012 (Almost) Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About CreativityPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus
Designers spend a lot of time giving advice to each other. There has been a litany of books by designers for designers. There have been a few by business people on how design can benefit business. But there have not been many about the process of design and creativity at the most fundamental level of all--the human brain. Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine is that book. Released a few weeks ago, it’s the most important book to hit design in many years, because it goes to the heart of how the mind works and offers surprising and immediately useful ideas on the neurological origins of creative insight.
Editor’s Note
For an interview with Lehrer, click here.
Through a series of stories about some of history’s greatest creative breakthroughs, Lehrer takes the reader into how those "aha" moments happen. By starting at the level of the individual and scaling up to communities, corporations, and even cities, Lehrer presents a measured and invigorating view of how our brains imagine new things. The book contains an endless array of helpful ways to think about creativity, but here are a few that struck me as most relevant to designers.
The Key to a Breakthrough: Daydreaming
We often feel guilty daydreaming. The time spent in an extra-long shower or staring out the window feels wasted. But daydreaming is a critical component on the path to a creative breakthrough. The activity that takes place inside of our brains while we believe we’re daydreaming is unique and activates a part of our brain associated with insight. Lehrer describes the "3M attention policy" that has been credited with several innovations over the course of that company’s history. The policy was based on an intuitive understanding of creativity that has since been validated by modern brain research:
The science of insight supports the 3M attention policy. Joydeep Bhattacharya, a psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, has used EEG to help explain why interrupting one’s focus--perhaps with a walk outside or a game of Ping-Pong--can be so helpful. Interestingly, Bhattacharya has found that it’s possible to predict that a person will solve an insight puzzle up to eight seconds before the insight actually arrives. … What is the predictive brain signal? The essential element is a steady rhythm of alpha waves emanating from the right hemisphere. While the precise function of alpha waves remains mysterious, they’re closely associated with relaxing activities, such as taking a warm shower. In fact, the waves are so crucial for insight that, according to Bhattacharya, subjects with insufficient alpha-wave activity are unable to utilize hints provided by the researchers.
Successful Teams Are Never Too Familiar With Each Other
We live in an increasingly complex world with increasingly complex problems that require teams of people working together. But sometimes what seems like a great team fails. Why? How do we best work together? How do we build creative teams with a greater likelihood of success?
To answer this question, Lehrer describes the work of Brian Uzzi, a sociologist at Northwestern University who sought to identify a model for successful group creativity. He analyzed what can often be a complex creative group endeavor: the Broadway musical.
He found that the success of musicals like West Side Story, one of the most critically and financially successful Broadway plays of the 20th century, can be understood by the nature of the social relationships of the creative team involved. Uzzi invented a designation called Q. Groups with high levels of Q are closely knit teams. Groups with lower levels of Q are essentially strangers. It’s the teams with the right mix of unfamiliarity and intimacy that are the best performers. West Side Story had the right mix of Broadway stars and virtual unknowns. And there is a clear pattern, Lehrer writes:
Lehrer speaking at PopTech on the power of outside intelligence.Uzzi’s data clearly demonstrates that the best Broadway shows were produced with intermediate levels of social intimacy. A musical produced at the ideal level of Q was two and a half times more likely to be a commercial success than a musical produced with a low Q or high Q.
Bring in an Outside Perspective
We have a saying at Bruce Mau Design: “Amateurs going in, experts going out.” For a long time, we struggled to articulate the benefit of being a “nonexpert” in a field. We often talk about “fresh eyes” in design. When you’re working too long with anything, by definition, you can’t “see” it anymore. It helps to get a person unfamiliar with the work to give a fresh perspective. Well, it turns out that this is a fundamental pillar of innovation: Our habits form what’s called a ventral route. It’s like a rut in a road. It gets so deep that you simply can’t get out without outside help. Using a story about InnoCentive as a starting point, Lehrer describes the paradox of expertise in that it can sometimes become an obstacle to creative problem solving:
There is something deeply counterintuitive about the success of InnoCentive. We assume that technical problems can be solved by people with technical expertise; the researcher most likely to find the answer is the one most familiar with the terms of the question. But that assumption is wrong. The people deep inside a domain--the chemists trying to solve a chemistry problem--often suffer from a kind of intellectual handicap. As a result, the impossible problem stays possible. It’s not until the challenge is shared with motivated outsiders that the solution can be found.
Those few stories are really just the beginning. The book also talks about the reason why Shakespeare was so prolific (your social scene has a whole lot to do with your chances of a creative breakthrough), how an autistic surfer has revolutionized surfing because he is predisposed to obsessive even debilitating attention to his craft (something all good designers are familiar with), and how the human friction we experience in cities is the key to their constant flourishing.
Lehrer’s book works well because it tells deeply human stories to illustrate the underlying science that drives the creativity of the subjects he describes. It’s for that reason that this book is so important for designers. It helps us understand what’s driving our creative impulses and thought processes at the most fundamental level. Lehrer, the science writer, may have been an amateur going in, but he’s an expert now. And we’re all the beneficiaries.
Buy Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine for $15 here.
Click here to read Co.Creates interview with Lehrer
[Image: Sylverarts/Shutterstock]
After boldly declaring I was done with health issues, I began to sketch out a journal spread which included a washing line and blackbird, to match how I was feeling at the beginning of last week.
The spread stayed in its rough, pencil sketch form for a week. And yesterday I rubbed it out. To be replaced by this Healthy Habits spread. Because you know what? I am certainly not done with health issues.
And since I’ve begun to work on my healthy habits, I have restarted my morning yoga and running practice – and also my morning pages. There are quite a few more habits on my list and I know that to encourage them back to me as an automatic part of things, I need to work on it. Art journaling is the most gentle way I know how.
I took a couple of photos along the way, to let you see my easy peasy process. It took a couple of hours – I was lost in it and all the while thinking of how lucky I am to have the tools I need to turn my desire for health into actuality.
Layers 1 and 2
I journaled directly onto the page with a Sakura Glaze pen. You can’t see what you’re writing as you do it as it goes on invisibly – this is a great way not to edit your thoughts!
Then I mixed up a colourwash with watercolours and applied it over the page, and the writing appears, as it forms a resist to the paint.
Layers 3 and 4
Then I used an acrylic wash to spray over a stencil to create some added interest. Over the top of that a weak mix of metallic acrylic ink sprayed all over the pages, followed by stamping over the spread with an elephant – to symbolise strength.
Layer 5
I took a couple of copies of vision boards I had recently created around the subject of health and ripped them up, to add to the page using gel medium. I also added in an inspirational card from Heather, to reinforce the messages. The collage pieces were laid down randomly.
I could have left the page alone at this stage. It looked really good. But you see, that really isn’t how I work (most of the time). Art journaling is a healing process for me, and I just wasn’t finished working through it yet, so I continued with more layers.
Layer 6
I was moved to include a couple of quotes in ink at this stage, then to bring turn the elements into a cohesive spread, I brayered on some white acrylic paint – all over both pages. This was one of the most fun parts of the process – there’s something about brayering over your carefully crafted piece which brings release, feels playful and also just a wee bit subversive.
Layer 7
I wanted to get back some of the colour that was lost with the brayering, so I used the leftover watercolour paint from earlier, and dripped it from the top of the page. This part is really messy, but a huge amount of fun. The results mean the page loses any semblance of appearing ‘pretty’. It isn’t for everyone, but I was still playing and this satisfied me absolutely!
Finishing Touches
You can see in the photo at the top of this post, that I added in a postcard as the final layer. I jotted down all of the healthy habits that are important to me on the back of the card, then taped it on to the page, so I can flip it up any time I need a reminder! The postcard is of a piece by George Bain and includes the Gaelic script and its accompanying translation ” May your cup overflow with health and happiness”.
(After I had taken the final photo I did go back in and add some distressed ink to the edges of the pages, as I felt they needed a little extra.)
Let me leave you with one of the quotes I used on the page – I hope it can inspire you as much as it did me.
Embracing life is a choice.
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.Tagged as: acrylics, art journal, collage, healing, layers, life-lessons, mixed media, process
The Artistic Thinking Process
By Ben Weinlick | Mar 10, 20120 comments -->Synopsis
Santa Fe based artist and teacher Willy Bo Richardson shares his perspective on the creative process
By Willy Bo Richardson of Think Jar Collective
A few weeks ago I was at Trader Joes when I overheard a conversation between two disgruntled adults. One of them commented that she wished she hadn’t wasted her education on art school. I was in that teetering place of jumping into the conversation with strangers, but decided instead it would be good material for a Think Jar essay.
I would easily agree that most people who get a BA in art are not narrowing in on a career path. The art student is not learning what to think, but how to think, and learning who they are. I consider these profoundly important skills that will be applied in one’s career choices and in all choices life throws at us.
A mathematician works with abstractions grounded in real values. A scientist works within a system of methods that bring real results. The artist also must work with real laws. Hayao Miyazaki, the film director and animator of films such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, creates fantastic worlds that share certain laws with our own, and other laws are creations of his imagination. What I want to point out is that the laws of reality he creates are within the human heart and there is never a moment the viewer has to suspend their disbelief. There is something very real about the choices he makes, and this is what makes his films so beautiful and compelling. He chooses very real laws of magic and mystery.
Art students often find themselves in the overwhelming position of having limitless possibilities. For this reason, I start my introduction to painting classes by teaching them to paint as if there were a proper way, which separates ground, value wash and glaze layers. As well as presenting factual knowledge and skills, my role is to facilitate a path of awareness and problem solving, and give the encouragement needed to embark on that path.
Once students have a grasp of tools and factual knowledge, they are then asked to begin to dismantle those tools and pieces of information. For 40,000 years people have been making marks on cave walls, leather, wood panels and stretched fabric. This spectrum and diversity of painting gives plenty of room for students to take a good hard look at their own mark making and preconceptions.
There is no right or wrong in art. One may freely explore which ideas are worth pursuing. If an idea is not rooted in real laws of the heart, mind or the physical properties of the materials, it falls apart, and the process starts over. There is a huge amount of room for trial and error, and failure. This is the artistic thinking process.
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to see Professor Alun Munslow speak in London. His Ph.D (awarded 1979) addressed the political assimilation of European immigrants in the United States around the turn of the century. He dotted his i’s and crossed his t’s. He had 50 pages of supporting data, but he had also come across a few minor pieces of information that did not support his thesis. He chose to overlook these inconveniences and instead created a seamless picture.
In his reflections, he saw that he had to choose between getting the Ph.D or acknowledging that this history was inaccessible. According to his lecture, we can dig up artifacts, we can hear stories, we can remember, even intuit and feel, but history itself is a closed a door. We can factually say, “The queen died and then the king died”. But once we say, “The queen died and then the king died of grief,” we are not conjuring history, but telling a story, a poetry.
The historian, just as the artist must carry on. The unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates), and without this story, this poetry of history, how will we ever examine it? Real laws, real results are the product of sifting through changing variables and extracting the useful and meaningful ones. It may even be that we live in an environment entirely consisting of problems. Some problems were solved with thoughtfulness and others solved and unsolved with limited capacities or resources.
Often times, the artist is willing to look at the inconsistencies, even bring them into focus – make them the center piece of study. The grey areas are pieces of unsolved problems, or badly pieced together or incomplete problems. The heart breaks open in wonderment at the acknowledgement of broken systems and failed ideas. Taking a good hard look at previously solved problems and spinning poetry is the artist’s job. What distinguishes the artistic thinking process is that hard laws, real rules are not impossible barriers, but malleable variables.
Featured image: "The three muses" by Willy Bo Richardson
Tags: art, artistic, artistic expression, artists, arts, creative, creative process, creativity, creativity debate, education, imagination, information, learning, philosophy, psychology, science, students, think different, thinking, thought, work
Recommended for you
March 10, 2012 The Artistic Thinking ProcessFebruary 23, 2012 Are Depressed Poets More Creative?February 01, 2012 Are Definitions of “Art” Stupid?January 26, 2012 Art Beyond the MuseumPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus
Nine Easy Ways to Get Ideas
By Michael Michalko | Mar 24, 20120 comments -->Synopsis
A checklist of questions that will inspire hundreds of ideas.
An easy way to generate a lot of ideas is to apply a checklist of nine creative-thinking principles that were first formally suggested by Alex Osborn and later arranged into the following mnemonic SCAMPER.
S = Substitute?
C = Combine?
A = Adapt?
M = Magnify? = Modify?
P = Put to other uses?
E = Eliminate?
R = Rearrange? = Reverse?SCAMPER is based on the notion that everything new is some addition or modification of something that already exists. You take a subject and change it into something else. (E.g., drilled petroleum becomes chemical feedstock becomes synthetic rubber becomes automobile tires. Natural gas becomes polyethylene becomes milk jugs. Mined ore becomes metal becomes wire becomes parts of a motor.)you can take anything that exists and change it into a new idea.
The blueprint for using SCAMPER is:
(1) Isolate the subject you want to think about.
(2) Ask the SCAMPER questions about each step of the subject and see what new ideas emerge.
(3) For every new idea you discover, ask "How can...?" "What else...?" "How else...?"
(4) List and evaluate the ideas.Suppose you wanted to improve the ordinary paperclip? You would start looking for ideas by asking:
- What can be substituted in the clip?
- What can I combine the clip with to make something else?
- What can I adapt to the clip?
- How can I modify the clip?
- What can I magnify or add to the clip?
- What other uses can I find for the clip?
- What can be eliminated from the clip?
- What is the reverse of a clip?
- What other rearrangement of the clip might be better?One manufacturer substituted plastic for metal, added color, and produced plastic clips in various colors so that clipped papers could be color-coded thereby finding another use for clips.
Think about any subject from improving your productivity to reorganizing your organization and apply the AScamper@ checklist of questions. You will find that ideas start popping up almost involuntarily, as you ask:
SUBSTITUTE SOMETHING? The principle of substitution is a sound way to develop alternative ideas to anything that exists. Think up ways of changing this for that and that for this. The scientist, Paul Ehrlich, kept substituting one color for another---well over 500 colors---until he found the right dye to color the veins of laboratory mice. You can substitute things, places, procedures, people, ideas, and even emotions. Ask:
Can you substitute something? Who else? What else?
Can the rules be changed?
Other ingredient? Other material? Other power? Other place? Other approach?
What else instead? What other part instead of this?COMBINE IT WITH SOMETHING ELSE? Much of creative thinking involves combining previously unrelated ideas or subjects to make something new. This process is called synthesis, and is regarded by many experts as the essence of creativity. Gregor Mendel created a whole new scientific discipline, genetics, by combining mathematics with biology. Ask:
What can be combined?
Can we combine purposes?
How about an assortment? A blend? An alloy? An ensemble?
Combine units? Combine materials? What other article could be merged with this?
How could we package a combination?
What can be combined to multiply possible uses?
Combine appeals?ADAPT SOMETHING TO IT? One of the paradoxes of creativity is that in order to think originally, we must first familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others. Thomas Edison put it this way: "Make it a habit to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea needs to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are working on." Ask:
What else is like this? What other ideas does it suggest?
Does the past offer a parallel?
What could I copy? Whom could I emulate?
What idea could I incorporate?
What other process could be adapted? What else could be adapted?
What different contexts can I put my concept in?
What ideas outside my field can I incorporate?MAGNIFY IT? An easy way to create a new idea is to take a subject and add something to it. Japanese engineer Yuma Shiraishi made the home VCR possible by figuring out how to lengthen videotapes so they would be long enough for feature-length movies. Ask:
What can be magnified, made larger, or extended?
What can be exaggerated? Overstated?
What can be added? More time? Stronger? Higher? Longer?
How about greater frequency? Extra features? What can be duplicated?
What can add extra value?
How can I carry it to a dramatic extreme?MODIFY IT? What can be modified? Just about any aspect of anything. The hub-and-spoke transportation system that makes Federal Express work was a feature of at least three air freight services as early as 1930. What Fred Smith did was to modify the dimensions, process and purposes of the system and turned an old idea into an elegant concept. Ask:
How can this be altered for the better? What can be modified?
Is there a new twist?
Change meaning, color, motion, sound, odor, form, shape? Change name?
What changes can be made in the plans? In the process? In marketing? Other changes?
What other form could this take? What other package? Can the package be combined with the form?PUT IT TO SOME OTHER USE? A subject takes its meaning from the context in which you put it. Change the context, and you change the meaning. George Washington Carver, botanist and chemist, discovered over 300 different uses for the lowly peanut. Ask:
What else can this be used for?
Are there new ways to use as is?
Other uses if modified?
What else can be made from this?
Other extension? Other markets?ELIMINATE? Sometimes subtracting something from your subject yields new ideas. Trimming down ideas, objects, and processes may gradually narrow the subject down to its truly necessary part or function--or spotlight a part that=s appropriate for some other use. Ask:
What if this were smaller? Understate?
What should I omit? Delete? Subtract? What=s not necessary?
Should I divide it? Split it up? Separate it into different parts?
Streamline? Make miniature? Condense? Compact?
Can the rules be eliminated?REARRANGE IT INTO SOMETHING ELSE? Creativity, it could be said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Rearrangement usually offers countless alternatives for ideas, goods, and services. A baseball manager, for example, can shuffle his lineup 362,880 times. Ask:
What other arrangement might be better?
Interchange components?
Other pattern? Other layout? Other sequence? Change the order?
Transpose cause and effect?
Change pace? Change schedule?REVERSE IT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS? Reversing your perspective opens your thinking. Look at opposites and you'll see things you normally miss. Ask "What is the opposite of this?" to find a new way of looking at things. The historical breakthroughs of Columbus and Copernicus were the polar opposites of the current beliefs of their day. Ask:
What are the opposites?
What are the negatives?
Can I transpose positive and negative?
Should I turn it around? Up instead of down? Down instead of up? Consider it backwards?
Reverse roles?
Do the unexpected?Even the hot dog, as we know it, is the result of the right idea-spurring question being asked at the right time. Antoine Feutchwanger sold sausages at the Louisiana Exposition in 1904. He first sold them on plates, but this proved too expensive. He then offered white cotton gloves along with the franks to prevent customers from burning their fingers. The gloves also were expensive, and customers walked off with them. Antoine and his brother-in-law, a baker, sat down and brainstormed. "What could be added (MAGNIFY) to the frankfurter that would be inexpensive and would prevent people from burning their fingers?" His brother-in-law said: "What if I baked a long bun and slit it to hold the frank?" "Then you can sell the franks, and I can sell you the buns. Who knows, it might catch on.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..Michael Michalko is the author of the highly acclaimed Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative Thinking Techniques; Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius; ThinkPak: A Brainstorming Card Deck and Creative Thinkering: Putting Your Imagination to Work.
http://creativethinking.net/WP01_Home.htm
Tags: activism, brain, creative, creative thinking, creativity, education, imagination, psychology, thinking
Recommended for you
April 01, 2012 The No Quarter PuzzleMarch 29, 2012 Ditching the Dread…of SuccessMarch 28, 2012 What Scientists Can Learn From BalletMarch 25, 2012 The Mysterious Maze PuzzlePlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. blog comments powered by Disqus
Have you hit a creative roadblock? In his new book, “Unstuck,” Noah Scalin presents 52 inspiring prompts designed for any field and any level of experience. They’re divided by time commitment (from 30 seconds to several hours) so you can pick one that fits your schedule. The book is also peppered with inspiring advice, and many of the exercises include visual examples, objects you can cut out and lists you can draw from. Here’s a sampling of 5 exercises for a work-week’s worth of inspiration.
Want more ways to get unstuck?
- Get your very own copy of “Unstuck”
- Enter our online sweepstakes for a chance to win a copy of the book
- Share your progress getting unstuck and see other designers’ results: MakeSomething365.com
30-Second Project: Haiku Everywhere
Not everyone is a poet, but everyone can write a haiku, and it can be done just about everywhere. This traditional form of non-rhyming Japanese poetry is usually written with 17 syllables in English, which are broken into three lines (five, seven and five syllables per line, respectively). Initially haiku were about nature, but modern ones can be on any topic. Their brevity encourages condensing complex thoughts and emotions into simple, elegant forms. While you could take hours to compose one, the goal of this exercise is to do it within a 30-second time limit to help hone quick visual and mental interpretation reflexes. I’ve written hundreds of haikus, and not only did they give me a nice bit of quick creative satisfaction, but I was able to mine them later as source material for creative projects.
How To Do It:
1. Use whatever you’re working on at the moment as your inspiration. Alternately: Use anything that you can see at the moment.2. Say your thoughts out loud while counting the syllables on your fingers. Remember, it’s five, then seven, then five again. You can do this in your head if you’re somewhere that talking out loud is inappropriate, but it does help to vocalize your thoughts.
3. Don’t be critical of the results. Just keep adjusting the words to get it short enough to fit the format and then write it down.
4. Keep your favorites in your journal or sketchbook so you can return to them from time to time.
Hint:
The tricky part is finding the right word to fit the syllables remaining. This is a great time to start boning up on synonyms in your handy thesaurus. Use a real book as an excuse to get away from the computer if you’re on one all day.
Two-Minute Project: Doodle Dandy
If you want to be ready for being creative whenever and wherever, it’s important to develop the ability to see the potential in everything. Children have done this activity for ages, but how many people try it out again later in life? Don’t worry about making art. They key is to just get your brain turning and your hand moving.
How To Do It:
1. Create a squiggle on a piece of paper.2. Use a phrase from the list below (or create one of your own).
3. Using whatever tools you like, transform the squiggle into a doodle that visually expresses the phrase in some way. It could be literal or just a response to the phrase.
Phrase List:
Happy as a clam
I can’t get no satisfaction
Where in the world?
A hard day’s night
Human nature
Is there a doctor in the house?
The art of noise
Here comes trouble
Abracadabra!
What’s that sound?
10-Minute Project: Super Sized
Professor Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message,” but if you’re stuck, the message may be that you need a new medium! In this exercise, you’re going to spend a bit of time working at a different scale and on a different surface so that your ideas are freed of the constraints of the normal media you work with.
How To Do It:
1. Find a piece of chalk or charcoal. It doesn’t have to be sidewalk chalk. It’s always better to work with material you have at hand.2. Head outside to the nearest sidewalk. If the weather won’t allow you to work outside, a garage or other indoor space where the floor is meant to get dirty will work too.
3. Spend 10 minutes continuing whatever your current project happens to be, but at the scale and angle that is required by this new surface and tool. This may involve some creative problem solving if your project isn’t just writing or drawing.
4. Document what you did, how you felt and how other people responded. Be sure to take a picture or two as well, since this should be a purely temporary thing you’ve created.
What messages did your medium give you?
Alternative:
Buy several yards of the largest paper you can find on a roll at an art or craft store and use it as your surface. Try using it on both the floor and hanging it on the well and see how the different locations affect you.
30-Minute Project: X Marks the Spot
A lot of creativity is about translation. Sometimes, you’re just as inspired by something you’ve seen and create something new based on it, or you’re given a message and asked to interpret it for a client. Honing this skill can help you jump right into the process of translation when you might otherwise be stumped about how to move forward.
How To Do It:
1. Choose a place that you how to get to. It could be somewhere near or far.2. Create a map to that place that doesn’t use any words or traditional map symbols. Think about what things you tell people when you direct them to places verbally. What landmarks do you talk about? Consider what people might hear or smell along the way. Don’t restrict yourself to drawing. Try using other materials or even work in three dimensions.
3. If you choose somewhere nearby, instead of just making your map from memory, go on a walk and use photography and/or found objects to help create it.
Bonus:
Have someone use the map and follow them on their journey to see where you end up.
1-Hour Project: A Year in an Hour
While I think everyone should take the time to do a yearlong, daily creative project, I realize that’s not something everyone can just jump into, especially when they may need an immediate solution to a particular creative woe. This task is a way to get a taste of that 365 experience in a super-condensed time frame. Use this as an opportunity to get messy and have fun.
How To Do It:
1. Gather together plenty of random material to work with. I recommend digging in the recycling bin for this project. The more diverse the materials the better. It’s also good to have plenty of cutting and marking tools along with items like staplers, string, tape and glue sticks for attaching things as well.2. Think of a simple shape you’re comfortable making (star, heart, skull, etc.).
3. Try to create at least 30 versions of that shape in the next hour, using the materials you’ve collected. This is definitely about quantity over quality. Don’t try for perfection. Just make it and move on to the next thing. If you find yourself stuck, move on to another material.
4. Document each item as you finish so that you can reuse parts of it as you move forward if need be!
5. When you’re done, note how you felt during this exercise and the things you learned about yourself in the process.
Bonus:
If you finish all 30 things before the hour is up, see how many more things you can make!
More resources for designers who want to kick-start their creativity:
