Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
” ~George LoisRecently I was send a ‘chain-letter‘ through Facebook. Though I rarely look twice at these things, this one had a simple enough assignment. The ‘letter’ simply asked me to answer 15 questions about myself with the catch of having to use just one word per answer.
What surprised me was how seemingly innocent questions like “What is your favorite food‘ suddenly become quite complicated. Read the rest of this article »
I love ‘pro-active’ design. It may not be possible yet, but ‘impossible’ concept art or design paints a picture of ‘cool’. It creates the ‘why’ for technology and puts design in the lead instead of lagging behind technology. Once we want it, technology and production usually follows soon enough. Creative Close-up gathered ‘15 Designs you Wish Were Real‘ – A selection of 15 creative designs by young aspiring industrial designers.
Another Seth Godin classic – The presentation that changed my perspective on marketing. Seth talks about the Ideas that win, how ideas got adopted in the old days, and what changed over the last 20 years.
Just a quick thought from marketing superstar Seth Godin’s book ‘Unleashing the idea Virus’: The time it takes for a great idea to reach ten million users is decreasing rapidly:
“The time it takes for an idea to circulate is approaching zero” ~Seth Godin Read the rest of this article »
About 3 months I started the idea of blogging about my big passions: Ideas & Creativity. I just love to create, facilitate and manage ideas and noticed a lot of my theories and methods were helpful and valuable to people around me. Basically jumping into the small gap between ‘creatives’ who want to organize their ideation, and people looking to be inspired and kick-start their creative thinking.
One of the pillars of the insights and methods Crinid will present is ‘the anatomy of the idea’. Its my take on the concept of ‘an idea’. What makes a ‘good’ idea and how can we be more in control of creating these great ideas? How can we make the process of ideation more tangible, train it and generally become better creative thinkers? Read the rest of this article »
Brainstorming is without doubt the most commonly used technique to generate great ideas. But a common misconception is brainstorming is as straightforward as listing random thoughts and pick out the best of the bunch…
The goal of this article is to explore & explain the actual how and why of ‘the brainstorm’. How does it work and why is it such an effective method? For the conditions and rules of conducting a brainstorm see one of the previous articles: ‘The 10 commandments of brainstorming’.
The goal of every brainstorm is to generate creative, new solutions to a problem. Ideally you have gathered a team of 4 to 10 people to participate in the brainstorm. You’ve appointed a reporter, a leader and the participants and are ready to go.
But where do you start, wand what exactly constitutes as a good brainstorm? Read the rest of this article »
Like emotions, creativity has always been a bit of a scientific mystery. There is no real conclusive definition, and we have trouble measuring creativeness. Some see creativity as a level of intelligence and independent thinking (“Creativity is discontent translated into arts” ~ Eric Hoffer).
Others like Albert Einstein (“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”) or Pablo Picasso (“Good artists borrow, Great artists Steal”) see creativity as a more common skill of connecting existing ideas. Read the rest of this article »
Design: Tom Peters Essentials is part one of the ‘Tom Peters Essentials’ series, 4 books (design, leadership, talent and trends) taken from the best selling book ‘Re-Imagine!‘. In Toms typical mix of passion, anger and American ‘loud mouthiness’ he delivers some great insights and a convincing pitch for Design as an essential part of business and ideation.
Whether you are a designer, marketer, coder, or anyone else who is expected to have creative ideas – you probable know this feeling. Staring at your screen, sheet of paper, scribble on a memo and liking what you see. Your idea seems to make sense, you’ve got all angles covered, no question about it – this is your best idea yet.
Then this nagging voice in the back of your head creeps up on you. Will others like it just as much as you do? Will they see the sheer brilliance of your idea – can everyone appreciate your creative outburst or is your intellectual input refined enough. Time for some feedback…
You turn to the person next to you and ask: “Be honest, do you like this idea?”. Read the rest of this article »
“The best way to think of radical cultural changes in society is to think of them as viruses. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like they do.” is the big message of The Tipping Point by best-selling author and anthropologist Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell colorfully describes the factors involved in turning an idea into a cultural phenomena, defining clear roles for each part of the adoption curve, and the thing those small ideas with big impact have in common.
Malcolm Gladwell is also one of the best storytellers of our time. He sometimes he seems to research amusing anecdotes and stories even more than the presented theory itself, making the tales come alive and present his thoughts in nearly wrapped bits of entertainment.
"Certainly true, though not always easy to make the distinction even when you are ware of your o..."
"Nice post. I was not aware of Seth's blog. I have added it to my rss feed. One of the rules tha..."
"Great! As Arne said "I'll be back!" I really like your posts - right up my street. Can we pleas..."
"Interesting that the buzz words for creativity, "out of the box" hamper creativity! We met annu..."
"dreaming is a relavent aspect to creativity....many inventions, and profound miracles came from..."
Concept contest to build a Heineken 3.0 website, building their brand in the 'party scene'.
Small booklet that will be a recource for managing, facilitating and participating in a Brainstorm.
A forum/social part of the website used for idea notations, development and discussion.
My second creativity, inspiration and ideation lecture and workshop for the School of Applied sciences in Rotterdam
