Rocktails Blog > Flunking Creativity Course Blues #9

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> Flunking Creativity Course Blues #9

Richard Jones, iMagineer-in-Chief // 12 November 2006

Now I'd rate myself as something of an ideas man. I've got notebooks and scraps of paper all over my apartment collecting random thoughts, concepts, site ideas, sketches and the like. That type of abstract stuff tends to bombard my brain here, there and everywhere - inspired in real time by a technicolour cross-section of people, media and day-to-day events. Off the wall thoughts come in the middle of a meal, in the shower, walking around town.

My working day is maybe 30% devoted (in terms of mental energy) to all sorts of ideas generation - new products, creating 2+2=5, getting people working together in novel and productive ways, brand and design work etc etc I gravitate towards and dabble in the creative arts. It is my lifeblood.

So I was looking forward to attending a course on innovation and creativity.

It did not go brilliantly.

Turns out that when the actual point of an event is creativity I'm decidedly average. And that is being generous (hell it is my blog, I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt).

My peer group for this occasion : a cross section of professionals working in human resources, IT, finance, training and professional services. Now, some of these people are not what you would describe as archetypal "creative types". Polite, nice, pleasant to chew the fat with. But not exactly bursting at the seams with conceptual insight. Ask them about their life at a party and there would be a lot about their next holiday, how interest rates are looking, and the fact that they have to paint their bathroom on Sunday.

Turns out MOR appearances can mask some real weirdness (at least one component of creativity and innovation). I suppose having witnessed the wackiness of the web - and the duplicitous (not to mention dubious) online existences that people can create for themselves when no one is watching - this should not have come as such a shock.

The course kicked off with a group brainstorm about unusual uses for a brick. I stuttered. My mind tried to scrabble together something outré and impressive. Oh dear. Meanwhile others - the plain clothes brigade - were churning out all sorts of uninhibited suggestions around space travel, volcanoes, and ice cream. OK, some of it was just being spurious for the sake of it (yeah, so why couldn't I do that?) but there was some startling stuff too.

And so it went on.

Turns out my group brainstorming on abstract topics is not what I thought it was. Others in the group, the less obvious "creative types" had plenty to bring to the party. I guess all this supports the principle that group diversity breeds creative thinking and organisational innovation.

It was not a total disaster. I did score highly on creative association :- connecting up words, concepts and ideas into new forms. Looking at my own projects that rings very true. Most are about pulling new and (I think!) exciting shapes with existing products, services and ensuring that 2+2=5 (or higher). In that area I was prolific - and fast too. In those contexts I can see and articulate a range of interesting angles, my imagination is let loose and the outpouring of possible answers is pretty wide ranging. I can then innovate through to rounded and novel solutions.

I also picked up some interesting innovation techniques ("test the opposite of what you were thinking", "stretch the idea out to the extreme", "think of another 5 words you would put with the one you were thinking of, then put combinations together").

I was also lucky. The course facilitator explained why I was struggling. For some, there needs to be a period of assimilation in the brain, for the connections to become apparent and creative thoughts to start to flow. Or in short : "some are just a bit slower on the uptake when it comes to brainstorming". Or alternatively : I'm one of those guys who has this stuff bubbling in my conscious and subconscious 24/7 and the wires connect when they want to, not on demand. This is not uncommon; I'm one of the many who will crack problems / come up with brand new ideas in the middle of an entirely unrelated activity like chatting about the weather. That explains all the scraps of paper - all those "shit, must make a note of that in case I forget it" moments. Creativity "lives" with me as a constant - in contrast to those that tune in for the purposes of a brainstorming session at work and then entirely switch off back home as they paint their bathroom.

For those who know Sherlock Holmes, I seem well advised to treat any exercise that requires startling innovation as a "three pipe problem" (i.e. it takes me three pipes' worth of tobacco and deliberation before flashes of insight begin to emerge - at which point there is no stopping me).

That's the last damn course I go on. Who needs 'em anyway?

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