EyeWire Creativity Cards Get Creative! Creative-Inspiring People, Places & Things on Creativity-Portal.com Home : Get Creative! Creative-Inspiring People, Places & Things We often find our richest sources of inspiration through our experiences with other people, places, and things. Here is a listing of sections on the Creativity Portal that will open the door of creative inspiration to you! Inspiring Sections on the Creativity Portal Inspiring Creativity Success Stories Success stories contributed by artists, writers, and others who've followed their passions into the marketplace and enjoy financial rewards for their creative products and services. Be Creative! Imagination Prompt Generator Push-button story starters! Q & A: Help Along the Way A question and answer feature helping readers find answers to questions related to art, crafts, writing, and creativity. How-to Directories Hand-selected resources with free learning instruction for art, crafts, writing, and creativity. Art and Craft Articles, Lessons, and Tutorials "How to" features within the Creativity Portal. Be Creative!
Creativity Processes, Creative Thinking and Lateral Thinking from MindTools © iStockphoto/pavlen The tools in this section can help you to become more creative. They are designed to help you devise creative and imaginative solutions to problems, and help you to spot opportunities that you might otherwise miss. Before you continue, it is important to understand what we mean by creativity, as there are two completely different types. The first is technical creativity, where people create new theories, technologies or ideas. Many of the techniques in this chapter have been used by great thinkers to drive their creativity. Approaches to Creativity There are two main strands to technical creativity: programmed thinking and lateral thinking. The other main strand uses 'Lateral Thinking'. Programmed Thinking and Lateral Thinking Lateral thinking recognizes that our brains are pattern recognition systems, and that they do not function like computers. The benefit of good pattern recognition is that we can recognize objects and situations very quickly. Using Creativity
Creative Techniques This A to Z of Creativity and Innovation Techniques, provides an introduction to a range of tools and techniques for both idea generation (Creativity) and converting those ideas into reality (Innovation). Like most tools these techniques all have their good and bad points. I like to think of these creativity and innovation techniques as tools in a toolbox in much the same way as my toolbox at home for DIY. It has a saw, spanner, hammer, knife and all sorts of other things in it, they are all very useful, but you have to pick the right tool (creativity / Innovation technique) for each job. This site will try and provide a little guidance along with each tool to let you know whether it's best used for cutting paper or putting in nails. For the future, the aim is to also have sub-categories which will identify Techniques for; Problem Definition - including problem analysis, redifinition, and all aspects associated with defining the problem clearly. Subcategories
Three Principles Behind All Tools || Take me back to the main ToolKit page || || Take me back to the DirectedCreativity Home page || There are many tools for creative thinking in the literature... Edward de Bono presents 13 tools in his book Serious Creativity Grace McGartland has 25 tips and techniques in Thunderbolt Thinking(TM) Arthur VanGundy covers 29 tools in Idea Power Michael Michalko describes 34 techniques in Thinkertoys Roger von Oech has 64 methods in his Creative Whack Pack Koberg and Bagnall give guidance on 67 tools in The Universal Traveler James Higgins tops them all with his book 101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques. While there is overlap among these compilations, there are at least 250 unique tools in these seven books. Unfortunately, this variety leaves the impression that no one really knows how to stimulate creativity. Despite the diversity of tools to support creative thinking, all such tools are based on three simple principles: attention, escape, and movement. Attention Escape Movement Summary
201 Ways to Arouse Your Creativity Arouse your creativity Electric flesh-arrows … traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm. ~ Anais Nin Creativity is like sex. I know, I know. The people I speak of are writers. Below, I’ve exposed some of their secret tips, methods, and techniques. Now, lie back, relax and take pleasure in these 201 provocative ways to arouse your creativity. Great hacks from Merlin Mann of 43 Folders
Copy and Share Documents with your Cell Phone Camera Conrad Hametner is passionate about globalizing technology and building forward thinking companies to address consumer and community needs. He has been called an “all-around executive athlete,” experienced in Marketing, Business Development and Operations. Conrad is also known by many foreign companies as “our man in the US” for his ability to launch technologies into US markets. Conrad led the US effort to build the French-based Qipit service, recognized by Red Herring as a top 100 "Most Promising" European private technology companies to drive the future of technology. Conrad served a vital role in building Dwango Wireless, the first publicly traded pure play mobile media publisher in the US. Dwango achieved an industry first: the first application capable of in-app billing, laying the groundwork for a viable freemium business model in the mobile industry. Earlier in his career, Conrad was President and co-founder of Trip.net, an application and Internet service provider.
Selnajaya 'How Creativity Works': It's All In Your Imagination iStockphoto.com What makes people creative? What gives some of us the ability to create work that captivates the eyes, minds and hearts of others? Jonah Lehrer, a writer specializing in neuroscience, addresses that question in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer defines creativity broadly, considering everything from the invention of masking tape to breakthroughs in mathematics; from memorable ad campaigns to Shakespearean tragedies. He finds that the conditions that favor creativity — our brains, our times, our buildings, our cities — are equally broad. Lehrer joins NPR's Robert Siegel to talk about the creative process — where great ideas come from, how to foster them, and what to do when you inevitably get stuck. Interview Highlights On comparing Shakespeare with the inventor of masking tape "I think we absolutely can lump them all together. "... On how Steve Jobs redesigned Pixar studios to maximize collaboration and creativity " ... "It's near midnight.
Copy and Share Documents with your Cell Phone Camera At Qipit, I worked to make the ability to copy and scan a standard feature on mobile devices. In multiple roles as the Vice President of Mobile Services and as the Vice President Consumer Marketing, my primary responsibility was launching, managing and marketing the Qipit service. The Qipit consumer service was first launched at the Demo Conference in 2006 (Click here to see the Qipit launch at Demo). You can also see qipit explained in this interview. The Qipit consumer, enterprise and application services allowed for a fully automatic, integrated (and patented) process designed to overcome the inherent drawbacks in camera phone images through advanced imaging processes. For more detailed view on the challenges of using camera phones as a scanning device and how Qipit overcame these challenges, please reference the embedded slide share slide deck.
4 Ways To Amplify Your Creativity The holidays are over, the weather is lousy, and we’re sober again. We made all kinds of New Year’s promises, but the big one that will change our careers, if not our lives, is the promise to ourselves to become more creative. In my new book, Creative Intelligence, I show that creativity is learned behavior that gets better with training--like sports. You can make creativity routine and a regular part of your life. That’s true for big companies as well as small startups, corporate managers as well as entrepreneurs. The huge national policy storm brewing over “dwindling innovation” and an “innovation shortfall” also gives creativity an even greater agency. So here are four specific ways to lead a more creative life and boost your creative capacities. 1. Nearly every creative entrepreneur, artist, musician, engineer, sports players, designer, and scientist works with one, two, or a handful of trusted people, often in a small space. So you need to engage with creative people. 2. 3. 4.
The Simple Truth About Happiness “The opposite of happiness isn’t sadness — it’s boredom.”Tim FerrissTweet Over the past 4 years, I’ve read a countless number of articles on following your bliss, building passions, and being happy. Most articles touch on some common themes: finding passionate work, building positive and healthy relationships, being open-minded, and trying new things. This is, as you know, is all great advice. But over time, even though I started to explore and define my own life with these themes in mind, something felt off. There would be days where I would be insanely happy and days where I felt immensely depressed. But the down days were much, much worse. On the surface, there didn’t seem to be any correlation. But after a couple of months of accepting my bad days as normality, I stumbled across the reason for exactly why the worst days occurred and why my happiest days were so awesome. The Principle A mentor told me a couple years ago a core principle that he lives by: And it makes total sense. Examples: