10 Responses

1. Creative Thinking
   Hi Peter and thanks for your response. I was already aware of your work and it’s good to see you up there in YouTube land so thanks for that. As an undiscovered rock God myself (all be it barre chords and turned up to 11 t drown out the mistakes), it’s great to see how you use the connections.

   Alec

2. Rock is all about simplicity
   HI again,

   Nothing wrong with some good old barre chords and a bit of overdrive to cover up mistakes. Miles Davis reminds us that ‘there are no mistakes’ and Lou Reed said ‘anything nore than 3 chords is jazz’

   Most businesses cannot handle complexity and it is one of the reasons why new products never reach the market place, so another good connection.

   Keep on going to 11!

   Peter

3. Stellar Learning – brain friendly experts
   Hi

   I know that Stellar Learning are specialists in this area, give them a yell, perhaps they can help

   http://www.stellarlearning.co.uk/cms/

   I know them as I sell their excellent books on my site.

   Carolyn

4. Creative Process
   Hi Alec

   I’m working on something similar at the moment and you may be interested in these resources:

   The Yin & Yang of Creating: http://www.shapeshifters.net/stories/1861/

   You may already know of Mark from Wishful Thinking, another creative coach like ourselves. He’s got some great resources on http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk (motivating creatives etc) and on Lateral Action (Creativity + Productivity = Success mantra): http://lateralaction.com/

   NESTA has articles relating to creative process, entrepreneurship & start-up (some great videos etc): http://www.nesta.org.uk/creative-start-ups-guide/

   Art Design Media HE Academy projects info talks a lot about creative process (often within HE but relevant outwith): http://www.adm.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/adm-hea-projects

   Happy to chat more via marie.milligan@gmail.com if you want to!

   Thanks, Marie

5. Insight Out Learning
   Hi Alec
   One fantastic resource you may be interested in is: http://www.insightoutlearning.org.uk/pdf/07.pdf
   Designed for coaching creative students but some fantastic values & motivational downloads.
   Thanks,
   Marie

6. David Bowie on Creativity
   If you enjoyed that You Tube video, you may like this slightly bizarre amateur attempt at reframing the lyrics from Bowie’s classic ‘Ziggy Stardust’:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1FradOgJNA&feature=PlayList&p=DB73A1A7A782ACCF&index=1

   On a more serious note, Bowie pioneered brainwriting in the method he used for cutting up lyrics from newspapers. This probably explains the line ‘jamming good with wierd and gilly, the spiders from mars’!! 🙂

   And purely for fun, the master of rock parody and creativity John Otway – performing at an aftershow of a career development conference at Pfizer. Otway is a master of upside down thinking (known as ‘reversal’ in creative thinking terms):

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsIgYjQvsDw&feature=channel_page

   And Tim Smit, CEO of the Eden Project on music and leadership – a very wise point or three are made about requisite diversity in this video I made for the Institute of Directors:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpDE_KhVeNs&feature=channel_page

7. Tim Brown on Creativity & Play
   Fun talk from LEGO Serious Play: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html

8. Look within to find the answers…
   No, this isn’t some deep and meaningful ‘zen’ theory or anything – just thought I’d direct you to a recent article within our very own Trainingzone
   https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/topic/leadership/tools-help-creativity-flow

   Rock on!

   (Now there’s a thought – TZ’s own jamming sessions – a forum for L&D with musical interludes; what could be more creative than that????)

   Owen

9. Roger von Oech’s favourite creativity blogs
   Creative thinking guru Roger von Oech listed his Top 10 Creativity Blogs here: http://www.blogs.com/topten/10-blogs-to-stimulate-your-creativity/index.html

   I’d particularly recommend Bad Banana Blog, Logic + Emotion and Innovation Tools.

   Marie – thanks for mentioning my blogs!

10. Creative Thinking Tools
    Hi Alec,

    I use these 3 techniques outlined below frequently in Creative Brainstorming sessions and I find them really effective and useful in enabling people to come up with fresh insights, new ideas and possibly untapped solutions to problems/challenges.

    1. Ask the participants if they could swap places with anyone in the world who would that be? Then, as that person, how would they approach this task; what would they do about solving this problem? e.g. How would Barack Obama face that particular task?

    2. Wishful Thinking: Invite participants to dream up their ideal solution if the usual practical parameters and conventions didn’t apply. Ask them to imagine having unlimited power/resources and what would they do then with this particular problem. Each idea must begin with “I wish” ( http://www.synectics.com)

    3. Identify (and transform) limiting assumptions : Ask participants to identify what assumptions they have about the problem; these assumptions are frequently based on the past and how things have always been done here. Being aware of these assumptions is a great first step, then reverse the assumptions to generate fresh thinking.

    For an overview of how I facilitate Creative Brainstorming sessions please click on link: http://lifetravelling.com/2009/05/creative-brainstorming/

    Isobel