http://thinkinghow.com a journey into thinking, ideas, creativity and innovation Sun, 11 Mar 2012 10:55:37 +0000 en hourly 1 2006-2007 steve@thinkinghow.com (thinkinghow.com) steve@thinkinghow.com (thinkinghow.com) http://thinkinghow.com/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpghttp://thinkinghow.com 144 144 a journey into thinking, ideas, creativity and innovation thinkinghow.com thinkinghow.com steve@thinkinghow.com no no http://thinkinghow.com/staring-out-the-window-on-a-sunny-day/ http://thinkinghow.com/staring-out-the-window-on-a-sunny-day/#comments Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:24:39 +0000 Steve Swann http://thinkinghow.com/?p=277 http://thinkinghow.com/staring-out-the-window-on-a-sunny-day/feed/ 2 http://thinkinghow.com/innovation-in-a-down-economy/ http://thinkinghow.com/innovation-in-a-down-economy/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 03:36:51 +0000 Steve Swann http://thinkinghow.com/?p=243 http://thinkinghow.com/innovation-in-a-down-economy/feed/ 4 http://thinkinghow.com/becoming-a-better-thinker/ http://thinkinghow.com/becoming-a-better-thinker/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:25:13 +0000 Steve Swann http://thinkinghow.com/?p=226 http://thinkinghow.com/becoming-a-better-thinker/feed/ 0 0:03:36 While reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” recently one passage struck me and I thought how could it be applied to creative thinking. That passage was: “How good people’s decisions are under fast moving, high stress condi[...] While reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” recently one passage struck me and I thought how could it be applied to creative thinking. That passage was: “How good people’s decisions are under fast moving, high stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training, rules and rehearsal.” I replaced “decisions” with “creative thinking” in the original statement and I get this: “How good people’s creative thinking is under fast moving, challenging conditions is a function of training, rules and rehearsal.” So could this revised statement be true? Can we be more creative and generate better ideas faster if have some rules, train our minds and practice (rehearse). Let’s take a look and see. Rules: Your first thought might be that there should be no rules to creativity and idea generation. But, if the rules are kept simple and everyone knows and agrees with them they can really help. Here are some examples. 1. Anything goes. 2. Record all ideas. 3. Generate as many ideas as possible. 4. Evaluate later. Understanding and applying these rules gives us permission to think freely. When everyone in a group complies with the rules the barriers come down and the ideas flow. Training: Can we train ourselves to be better thinkers? Perhaps it’s actually training us to not be bad thinkers. To do that we need to learn to challenge assumptions. Learn to recognise associations that are limiting our thinking and step around them. We need to train ourselves that it’s ok to have grand visions and then design the way there. We can use observation, discussion and critiques to understand how other people innovate and teach ourselves in the process. Practice: If we understand the rules and can apply what we learn then we have a suite of creative thinking tools we can apply every day in our work, and in other personal and community projects. If we accept that rules, training and practice can increase our ability to generate ideas, think creatively, and innovate at speed; is there anything that could slow our thinking down? One of the points that Gladwell makes in Blink is that people often wait for more information, analysis, or the opinions of others to support their own decisions. With each additional piece of data comes assumptions and associations and thinking becomes more conscious and linear. He argues that when you move away from trusting your instinctive responses the quality of your decisions fall. His argument is that those with a trained mind focused on the right elements can make instant and accurate decisions. Transferring that thought to creative thinking we could say that by applying the rules, our training and practice, the quality, quantity and spontaneity of our ideas will improve. Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO, talks about some of these themes in this recently released TED video “forgetting the adult behaviors that are getting in the way our ideas.” Ideas, Innovation, Thinking steve@thinkinghow.com no no http://thinkinghow.com/beware-the-intelligence-trap/ http://thinkinghow.com/beware-the-intelligence-trap/#comments Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:04:35 +0000 Steve Swann http://thinkinghow.com/?p=87 http://thinkinghow.com/beware-the-intelligence-trap/feed/ 1 0:01:57 I’ve been reading two books recently and picked up a theme from both that’s worth mentioning. In Chip and Dan Heath’s book “Made to Stick” they talk about the Curse of Knowledge. In short this is the assumption that ot[...] I’ve been reading two books recently and picked up a theme from both that’s worth mentioning. In Chip and Dan Heath’s book “Made to Stick” they talk about the Curse of Knowledge. In short this is the assumption that other people know what you know, or the inability to see things as other people might. In Edward De Bono’s “Thinking Course” he talks about the Intelligence Trap and two ways that it manifests it’s self. The first is that intelligent people take a position and use their intelligence to defend that point of view. Equally, the speed in which an intelligent person can dispose of another’s argument simply reinforces the original position. And there’s the trap! Does this imply that creativity and innovations come from those who are less intelligent? Not really. What it does say is that you need to look out for embedded attitudes that might be inhibiting your creativity. Have you ever listened to or read an interview of a successful person where they’ve said “If I’d known then what I know now I probably wouldn’t have done it.” What got them through the hard time and past the failures? Was it simply naivety, was it just guts and determination, or was it a grand vision. It was probably all of those things and more. They certainly broke out of the Intelligence Trap and shattered the Curse of Knowledge. How did they break the trap and shatter the curse? I think it was Openness. They were able to look for and consider alternate view points. They did it by challenging assumptions about the current state. They did it with passion, not for their current position but for finding something new, something not yet discovered. Doing, Ideas, Innovation, Thinking steve@thinkinghow.com no no