THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2023 - CREATIVITY

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3RD, 2023 - CREATIVITY - PART I

Wikipedia says, “Creativity is a characteristic of someone or some process that forms something new and valuable. The created item may be intangible or a physical object. Scholarly interest in Creativity is found in several disciplines, primarily psychology, business studies, and cognitive science.”

Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. If you have ideas but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.— Linda Naiman

“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.” — Rollo May, The Courage to Create 

Scenario.

Ronald Templeton retired from his small drill bit company a few years back. His son-in-law, Tom Rollins, became the new owner and manager.  

On his first official day as boss, Tom Rollins called the employees together. He said, “Friends, we are no longer in the drill bit business.”

There was a gasp - after all, Ron Templeton had started the drill bit business from scratch. How dare Tom Rollins want to change everything on his first day?

But Tom continued, “No, we are in the ‘hole-making business.’ Yes, we will still make specialized, quality drill bits, but we are doing more than that. We are expanding into laser-cutting devices and almost anything that can make holes appropriately.”

Tom added, “I think we will avoid guns, at least for a while - but guns make holes too.”

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It is a perspective thing - a creative thing. Let’s do something differently. Let’s approach the situation from a totally different viewpoint.

I gave similar assignments to some of my classes to improve on something. They brainstormed and generally came up with some real creative answers. Before Alexa, Google Nest, and other such devices came out, students suggested voice-activated television (it sure sounded funny back in 2005. (Alexa came out in 2014). How about tv reacting to my brain waves? If I want to watch reruns of Steinfeld, the television could understand and show me that. I might not even need a television device as a hologram image of a Steinfeld episode would just appear before me (like Princess Leia in the First Star Wars movie - putting a disk into R2D2 and saying, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi”).

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How creative are you?

I took a creative quiz from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

The quiz is here: https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/uzzi/ftp/page176.html. 

My score was 76 - primarily creative. (There were, of course, some questions that could have gone in different directions).

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More on Creativity next week!!!

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

FINDING NEW WAYS TO LOVE IS CREATIVE

KAREN ANNE WHITE, ©, AUGUST 3, 2023