Innovation

The purpose of the online learning is for you to develop your own learning.  There are a number of tasks that you should complete before you undertake the next section.  You can work through this section at your own pace.  It is expected that you would take up to 3 hours to complete this section.  You must complete this section before you move to the next section.

 

Task 1

Within our framework creativity plays an import role.  We argue that in order to solve problems within organisations you need to be able to be creative.  But what does creativity actually mean?  What does it mean to you to be creative? Is creativity a reactive or proactive activity? Do you think you are creativity? In your workbook  write your answers to these questions.

This activity is designed to get you thinking about the nature of creativity.

 

Task 2

Watch the video Embrace the Remix.  You may want to makes some notes as you watch the video.

This video gives you a view on what creativity is and how it gets used to bring us new things.

 

Task 3

Read the article “Embrace the Remix”. Then answer the questions in your workbook .

This article discusses the video and gives you a deeper understanding of what the video is presenting.

 

Embrace the Remix

The video presents a compelling case that nothing is original and that everything is simply existing things rearranged.  Ferguson describes creativity as a remix; in that we take something change it in some way.  He describes this process as copy, transform and combine.  While it may be argued and easily demonstrated that artistic creativity is a remix of existing objects it is a little harder when it comes to technology or products.  However, Ferguson demonstrates even technology is a remix of different items.  Apple took existing technology, the touch screen, and rearranged it to a slide to unlock your phone.  In fact everything about your smart phone is a remix.  In the last section you did an activity where you looked at how many different products a smart phone has replaced.  We have identified over 130 (how many did you find?).  While some of these products such as physical books and cameras have not been completely replaced the volumes originally sold is substantial.  As a result of the smart phone some products have changed their purpose substantially.  An example of this is a watch.  If you look back at watches from the 1970’s and 80’s to watches today you can see while they still tell the time they are seen more as fashion accessories today than they were 40 years ago.  Interestingly many people still wear watches, but rely on their smart phones to tell the time.

Ferguson quotes Ford that we build on the work of others, and only when everything is in the right place does an innovation emerge.  This raises some questions about ethics and innovation.  Patent laws actually prevent us from being creative.  Yet, we still pursue this approach of copy, transform and combine.    

Ferguson argues that creativity comes not from within but without.  Unless you have the external factors to inspire, you cannot be creative.  You cannot make something from nothing.  He says that this should be liberating and encourage us to be more creative than we normally are.

In the previous section there was a slide on time lags between different innovations.  One innovation is the gearing system in a water wheel and how this system has been copied; transformed and combined to end up in a car.  Clearly there are time lags between the appearance of an innovation and its remixed use.  This raises two interesting questions about creativity and innovation.  If we have had a gearing system for around 5000 years that converts movement in one direction to movement in another direction why did it take 4800 years to get the system out of a stationary machine and into a mobile machine?  The second question is what innovations have we missed on the way?

You need to answer the questions in your workbook.

 

Task 4

Watch the video Creative Confidence.  You may want to make some notes as you watch the video.

This video looks at how we tend to divide people into creative and non-creative people and challenges this notion.

 

Task 5

Read the article “Creative Confidence”. Then answer the questions in your workbook .

This article discusses the video and gives you a deeper understanding of what the video is presenting.

 

Creative Confidence

Like innovation, and in fact most things in life, there are some serious misconceptions around what creativity is and is not.  The present in the video argues that we are actually all capable of being creative.  Clearly creativity is not necessarily about wonderful works of art, or amazing life changing products.  That sort of creativity is real, but it is also very rare.  But the sort of creativity Kelley is talking about is much more accessible and much more common.

Essentially the social structures that we live in are quite judgemental and this has a profound effect on our confidence, but not our ability to do something.  It is a point that we seem to miss.  You may well not have the confidence to do something but that does not mean you do not have the ability to do it.  Unfortunately, creativity is something that gets judged.

When you look closely at people’s behaviour you can see that in fact we are naturally creative. We have an amazing innate ability to solve problems in many different ways.  This is an outcome of being creative.  However, this judgemental social structure that we reside in gives us option to opt out of behaving creatively.  We end up developing a fear of being creative.

Kelley gives an interesting example of a truly creative resolution to a problem that never occurred to Doug Dietz.  The focus of Dietz’s creativity was to design machines that help diagnose serious illnesses. One would expect patients to welcome the opportunity to use the machines, yet counter-intuitively patients, and children in particular, resisted using the machines.  Rather than opt out of being creative beyond designing the machines he embraced the problem and came up with a solution that is not quite that obvious.  Dietz was willing to try something extraordinary, in that his solution was very different from what he was trained to do.  His solution could have failed, yet he was confident enough to take that risk.

This video is about re-discovering your own creative ability and developing the confidence to use it.  Kelley highlights how people who overcome a phobia often overcome other phobias. There is no doubt that an increase in confidence improves the outcomes of your actions.  Furthermore this fear of your own ability of creativity raises the question of what opportunities have you missed. 

We raised the point of how there is a time lag between the development and adoptions of new innovations.  We also pointed out that innovations can only occur when all of the pieces are in place.  So if so many of us have a phobia around our ability to be creative, to what extend does this imped our ability to innovation?

You need to answer the questions in your workbook.

 

Task 6

Watch the video Empathy.  You may want to make some notes as you watch the video.

This video suggests that a way to develop your creative ability is to develop your empathy for the world around you.

 

Task 7

Read the article “Empathy ”. Then answer the questions in your workbook.

This article discusses the video and gives you a deeper understanding of what the video is presenting.

 

Empathy

In this video Roman Krznaric looks at the role empathy can play in resolving problems.  Empathy is the ability to put yourself in the position of others and understand the issues and difficulties they face.  You need to adopt a position of vulnerability.  Krznaric explains how empathetic people are good listeners and share stories about themselves with others in a way that develops mutual understanding.  He argues that empathy is a critical component of being able to solve social, political and economic problems.  There are a number of examples in the video; the help line in Israel as a way of trying to engage in peaceful dialogue and similar support services.  Another example of empathy solving a problem was the initial ending of the slave trade followed by the abolition of slavery.  Yet the people who resisted the abolition of slavery feared an economic disaster.  The economic disaster never occurred. 

Clearly, empathy makes a great contribution to the solving of problems.  You will recall in the video how Dietz while watching children’s distress at having to have MRI scans came up with a solution. It was Dietz ability to empathise with the children that lead to the solution.  Dietz was quite rightly proud of the machines he built, but deeply disturbed by the stress they caused.  He could have walked away and tried to find a solution within the machine.  However, he realised that the solution laid not in the machine its self, but in the minds of the children.  By diverting the fear of the machines to a fun characteristic he was able to significantly reduce the stress faced by children.  Dietz made himself vulnerable and exposed himself to possible failure.  What made the solution work was he was able to empathise with the children and understand exactly what made the machine so frightening.

Empathy works in creativity by developing understanding of the problem by looking at the problem from the person experiencing the problem’s perspective.  Often we try and solve problems from our own perspective.  We look at an issue and assume that the solution is one that suits us, when in fact it is always the opposite.  Understanding a problem from the sufferer’s perspective means that the solution is much more likely to be appropriate.

You now need to answer the question in your workbook.

 

Task 8

Watch the video 4 Lessons in Creativity  You may want to make some notes as you watch the video.

This video looks at different was of being creative

 

Task 9

Read the article “4 Lessons in Creativity”. Then answer the questions in your workbook .

This article discusses the video and gives you a deeper understanding of what the video is presenting.

 

4 Lessons in Creativity

The focus of this video is artistic, but the lessons are applicable across any creative act.  As Burstein talks about creativity she refers to a number of concepts we have already discussed.  One thing that does jump out is when she is discussing her own artistic activities.  When describing the beauty of raku pottery, Burstein explains how people cherish the imperfections.  This is an important notion about creativity; it is often the imperfections that make the creative act work.

The four successful artist’s stories are very much about how they embraced the various imperfections of their lives to develop their art.  This is something everyone can do; finding the opportunities to be innovative lays within our life experiences.  Burstein also talks about playing with the elements.  This is something we have argued in early sections.  Play in the sense of exploring is a critical element of being creative and finding solutions to problems.

The four lessons that Burstein introduces are:

• Being open to an experience that might change you
• Embrace the challenges
• Limitations we have
• Stand in the space of loss – empathy

 All of the artists talked about how they experience something that changed the way they acted.  Nair talked about how itinerant actors inspired her to become a documentary film maker.  It was a crack on the shoulder from a police officer that stimulated Meyerowitz.  Being open to experiences is something we saw in the video about empathy.  Shaw opened himself to experiences in a way that help him become a great writer.  However, you may not be talented enough to become a great artist, but you own creative skills can be enhanced by being more open to the experiences of life.  We often close our self to experiences outside of our interests.  An example of this is that students studying a programme about the bio-tech industry object to having to learn about how a company not connected to the bio-tech industry solves problems.  Yet, by looking outside of their interests they would widen their experiences and probably see things in a different light.

Embracing challenges is a stimulating way to explore life.  I mentioned in an earlier section how innovation is driven by our addiction to convenience; this actually has an impact on our ability to be creative at an everyday level.  We tend to not embrace challenges quite as much as we should.

The sculptor Serra explains how he realised the limitations he had in painting.  This is something quite important in being creative and finding innovative solutions to problems.  We often focus on what we think we are good at, but it can be just as helpful to understand what we are not so good at as well.  This is really clear with the writer Ford.  His ability to read was impaired through dyslexia; yet he work with the limitation to find an ability to recognise the nature of language and use this to overcome his dyslexia and write amazing stories.  Ford could have just as used the dyslexia as an impediment, instead he chose to use the limitation as a leverage to embrace language.  Essentially both Ford and Serra picked up the pieces of their skills that were not working and made something new.  What both did was to play around with what they were good at until they discovered an opportunity to solve problems.

When Burstein talks about standing in the gap between failure and success, she is referring to empathy.  We have already seen how being empathetic to the world around you opens up experiences and leads to great understanding of issues and situations.  This greater understanding leads to a wider volume of knowledge you can draw on to develop your innovative problem solving skills.  Meyerowitz recognised this when he realises that someone needs to record the events of 9/11.  He was open to the event and had a sense of empathy with what had happened.

While few of us will ever become great artists, the lessons here all give us the chance to become more creative in terms of our lives and works.  By being more open to what is going on around you develops your knowledge of life more fully.  By being more willing to take on problems enables us to develop our problem solving skills.  Knowing what we can’t do is just as important as knowing what we can do.  Building empathy with the people and situations around use also enhances our understanding of what solutions would work.

 

Task 10

Watch the video “7 Ingredients of Creativity”. You may want to make some notes as you watch the video

This video suggests that to be creative there are 7 factors that need to be present.

 

Task 11

Read the article “7 Ingredients of Creativity”. Then answer the questions in your workbook .

This article discusses the video and gives you a deeper understanding of what the video is presenting.

 

The 7 Ingredients of Creativity

There are some similarities here with this video and Burstein’s video on the 4 lessons.  However, Villani offers a slightly broader view.  He discusses what he sees as the 7 ingredients that make up creative acts.  This short video looks at creativity in a much broader context.

Villani mentions documentation as the first ingredient.  You may recall from earlier sections we discuss the myth of the lone innovator.  Newton is quoted as saying only by standing on the shoulders of giants has he been able to see farther.  This supports the argument that essentially creativity and the outcomes of creativity are just remixes of existing elements.

Being motivated seems and obvious one, but that is not always the case.  Here is a link to curiosity and play.  If you cannot be bothered or you find the notion of play ludicrous then you will not be motivated to be creative and find innovative solutions to problems.

Having an environment that encourages curiosity and play is crucial.  Nothing shuts down curiosity faster than a negative environment.  Some years ago, an artist was talking to some 11 and 12 year old students and asks them if they could draw.  They all said no.  Yet, had he asked them just 3 years earlier they would have all said yes.  In an earlier video Kelley tells the story of how a school friend was laughed at while trying to be creative.  The school friend never made anything again.  This sort of negativity can crush innovation.

Returning to the myth of a lonely inventor, communication is vital.  You may want to protect your innovation from someone else using it and profiting from it, but the downside of that is that you limit the depth of the solution.  Collaboration is critical; you cannot know everything and need to share what you are doing.

Burstein like Villani recognise the limitations.  Except in Villani’s case he is suggesting that you need to put boundaries around your creativity.  Otherwise where will you focus your efforts?  You could waste a lot of time looking at something that does not add value to the solution.  In Burstein’s video the sculptor, writer and photographer all explained their limitations.  The sculptor with the shift from painting; the writer with a focus on language; and the photographer the need to preserve the scene while still maintaining the dignity of the situation are all examples of recognising the limitations or boundaries.

Illumination and meticulous work is necessary.  Moving between controlling and letting go enables you to develop solutions.  This combined with the boundaries helps focus on solutions that are relevant and useful.

Villani’s last ingredient is the combination of luck and tenacity.  By luck he means that all of the parts are available at the right time in the right place.  We have consistently argued that some problems are unsolvable because not all of the pieces are there.  Still you need to be tenacious.  This is because tenacity can bring you the luck you need to find all of thein pieces.

You need to answer the questions in your workbook.

 

Task 12

Quick quiz

 

You should undertake further reading on the topics in this section.  We recommend that you read the following:

Burstein, J. and Andersen, K., 2011. Spark. Harper Collins. Chapters 1,2 and 3

Hennessey B. & Amabile, T. (2010) Creativity, Annual Review of Psychology, 61:1 p569 -598

Nussbaum, B., 2013. Creative intelligence: Harnessing the power to create, connect, and inspire. Harper Collins. Chapters 1 and 2

 

The next section is Unit 1 SDL 2