Archive for the ‘thinking’ Category

11 Mar

COMBINING THE UNRELATED INTO NEW IDEAS

Posted by imagineer7 in brainstorming, business creativity, conceptual blending, create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, genius, ideas, innovate, innovation, Michael Michalko, perception, problem solving, thinking, Uncategorized.

combine ideas

 

Look at the figure below.combo1

When the lines at the left are combined to form the figure on the right, we can no longer perceive the original two patterns without great effort. Instead, we see a continuous wavy line running through a series of bars. Combining the lines creates a new pattern with new properties. The illustration verifies the seemingly obvious point that from a combination can emerge new properties that were not evident in either of the original lines.

It is the same with concepts and ideas. Gregory Murphy of the University of Illinois had people rate how true certain properties were of individual concepts and their combinations. One set of concepts consisted of the individual words “empty” and “store” and their combination “empty store.” Consider the property “losing money.” Like subjects in Murphy’s study, you probably recognize that losing money is typical of “empty stores,” but not of “stores” in general or of things that are “empty.”  Meaning changes when we combine concepts, and the more novel the combination, the more novel the new meaning. This is why genius is often marked by an interest in combining previously unrelated ideas, goods and services, making novel combinations more likely. Following is one technique of many that demonstrates how easy it is get ideas using combinations.

RANDOM OBJECTS. Select 20 objects at random. You can select any objects, objects at home, objects at work, or objects you might find walking down the street. Or you can imagine you are in a technologically-oriented science museum, walking through the Smithsonian Institute, or browsing in an electronic store and make a list of 20 objects that you would likely see. Make two lists of 10 objects each on the left and right sides of the paper (See example below). Pick one from the left and combine it with one on the right. When you find a promising new combination, refine and elaborate it into a new invention.combo2

In the example, the illustrated combinations yielded the following ideas:

∙         Combining bagel with slicer yields a bagel slicer with plastic sides designed to hold the bagel and prevent rotation when slicing.

∙         Bathtub and hammock combines into a baby tub with a simple hammock in the  tub with a headrest to hold the baby’s head securely, leaving the parent’s hands free to do the washing.

∙         Sunglasses and windows combine to form the idea of tinted house windows,  like tinted sunglasses,  designed to change colors with ultraviolet light to help keep the house cool.

∙         Suntan lotion and insect repellent combines to form a new product— one lotion that protects against both the sun and insects.

You can also try the inverse heuristic to generate ideas, which states that if an object performs one function, a new artifact might be realized by combining it with an object that performs the opposite function. The claw hammer is a good example. So is a pencil with an eraser. Can you create new objects from the list of random objects by combining the object with something that performs the opposite function. How about a small cap for tightly sealing a soda can that could be attached to the lever of the pop-top device?

@

Review my book CRACKING CREATIVITY at amazon and discover a treasure trove of creative thinking techniques that will help you get the ideas you need to improve your personal and business lives.

https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Creativity-Secrets-Creative-Genius/dp/1580083110/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466278307&sr=8-1&keywords=cracking+creativity

 

30 Oct

HOW EINSTEIN EXPLAINED HIS CREATIVE TALENT

Posted by imagineer7 in attitude, business creativity, conceptual blending, create, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, einstein, genius, ideas, innovate, problem solving, thinking.

Einstein summarized the value of using your imagination to fantasize best when he said “When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”

Think of how Albert Einstein changed our understanding of time and space by fantasizing about people going to the center of time in order to freeze their lovers or their children in century-long embraces. This space he imagined is clearly reminiscent of a black hole, where, theoretically, gravity would stop time. Einstein also fantasized about a woman’s heart leaping and falling in love two weeks before she has met the man she loves, which lead him to the understanding of acausality, a feature of quantum mechanics. A caricature of special relativity (the relativistic idea that people in motion appear to age more slowly) is based on his fantasy of a world in which all the houses and offices are on wheels, constantly zooming around the streets (with advance collision-avoidance systems).

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Try to solve the following thought experiment before you read the paragraphs that follows it. The thought experiment is attributed to the German Gestalt psychologist Karl Dunker.

One morning, exactly at sunrise, a Buddhist monk began to climb a tall mountain. The narrow path, no more than a foot or two wide, spiraled around the mountain to a glittering temple at the summit. The monk ascended the path at a varying rate of speed, stopping many times along the way to rest and to eat the dried fruit he carried with him. He reached the temple shortly before sunset. After several days of fasting and meditation, he began his journey back along the same path, starting at sunrise and again walking at a varying speed with many stops along the way. His average speed descending was, of course, greater than his average climbing speed. Is there a spot along the path that the monk will occupy on both trips at precisely the same time of day?

If you try to logically reason this out or use a mathematical approach, you will conclude that it is unlikely for the monk to find himself on the same spot at the same time of day on two different occasions. Instead, visualize the monk walking up the hill, and at the same time imagine the same monk walking down the hill. The two figures must meet at some point in time regardless of their walking speed or how often they stop. Whether the monk descends in two days or three days makes no difference; it all comes out to the same thing.

Now it is, of course, impossible for the monk to duplicate himself and walk up the mountain and down the mountain at the same time. But in the visual image he does; and it is precisely this indifference to logic, this superimposition of one image over the other, that leads to the solution. The imaginative conception of the monk meeting himself blends the journeys up and down the mountain and superimposes one monk on the other at the meeting place.

Your brain is a dynamic system that evolves its patterns of activity rather than computes them like a computer. It thrives on the creative energy of feedback from experiences real or fictional. You can synthesize experience; literally create it in your own imagination. The human brain cannot tell the difference between an “actual” experience and a fantasy imagined vividly and in detail. This discovery is what enabled Albert Einstein to create his thought experiments with imaginary scenarios that led to his revolutionary ideas about space and time.

Imagination gives us the impertinence to imagine making the impossible possible. Einstein, for example, was able to imagine alternatives to the sacred Newtonian notion of absolute time, and discovered that time is relative to your state of motion. Think of the thousands of scientists who must have come close to Einstein’s insight but lacked the imagination to see it because of the accepted dogma that time is absolute, and who must have considered it impossible to contemplate any theory.

Einstein described his favorite creative thinking technique as “combinatory play” in a 1945 letter to his friend Jacque Hadamard as the essential feature in the way he thought. Our brains are conditioned to associate similar subjects but have great difficulty are forcing connections between two dissimilar and unrelated subjects or images that seem to have no associations. Our educated and practiced ability to associate similar concepts limits our ability to be creative (apples and oranges are fruit). We form ‘associative walls’ that makes us very efficient at finding common associations  but it discourages us from looking for connections between dissimilar subjects.

Overcoming these associative habits is probably one of the most important skills when it comes to creative and innovative thought. It is no coincidence that the most creative and innovative people through history are experts at forcing new connections between dissimilar subjects through combinatory play. I’ve traced the technique back to Leonardo da Vinci who wrote in his notebooks “It is not possible to think simultaneously of two subjects, no matter how dissimilar, without connections being formed.

EXAMPLE: CAN YOU GROW A BOOK? 

Following is an example of how I used the technique with a publisher who was looking for more innovative ways to publish books. The question I asked him to think about was “What is impossible to do in your industry, but if it were possible would change the nature of your business forever?”

The publisher kept a dream diary. He told me that when he had an interesting problem, he would write “key” words in a notebook by his bed before he went to sleep. When he awoke, the first thing he would do was to try to recall his dreams and record everything he could remember. Then he told me about a dream he had in the past that fascinated him.

He dreamed he was planting seeds in a large field. He nurtured the plants as they grew.  Each plant grew into a large cabbagelike head. When the plant ripened, the leaves unfolded revealing a book. Each plant produced a book. Excitedly, he raced from row to row opening each book. They were all different. Some were fiction, others were nonfiction, children’s books, coffee table books, dictionaries, biographies. He flipped through the books laughing and laughing. That was the answer to my question he said. It is impossible to grow books.

He and I discussed the meaning of the dream about growing books. We realized the impossibility of growing books but listed all the connections we could think of between growing plants and publishing books. One connection was that trees are planted and harvested for the manufacture of paper and paper is used to publish books.

Why not publish books that become trees? This would be a way to educate and inspire young readers about the need for ecologically responsible behavior. The idea the publisher decided to pursue is to publish storybooks for children about trees. The book can then be planted (planting instructions are included) and will grow back into a tree. The books will be handstitched, made from recycled acid-free paper and biodegradable inks and the cover is embedded with poplar tree seeds. Each copy comes with planting instructions. Readers are encouraged to plant and name their tree and to care for it as it grows. The marketing department plans to have the book displayed in bookshops, where it can be seen germinating by customers.

Stretching  your  imagination by trying to make impossible things possible with combinatory play between unrelated subjects makes it possible to create ideas you cannot get using your usual way of thinking.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………Michael Michalko is a renowned creativity expert whose books describe creative thinking techniques used by creative geniuses throughout history to get their breakthrough ideas. Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative Thinking Techniques; Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius; ThinkPak: A Brainstorming Card Deck and Creative Thinkering: Putting Your Imagination to Work. 

15 Nov

THE IMPORTANCE OF PERCEPTION AND PATTERN RECOGNITION SKILLS IN CREATIVE THINKING

Posted by imagineer7 in brainstorming, business creativity, conceptual blending, create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, genius, ideas, problem solving, thinking, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , .

NYC

Cognitive scientists understand the importance of perception and pattern recognition as a major component of creative thinking.  When you are committed and start to actively work on a problem that you are passionate about, you will start to notice more and more things that relate to what you are working on. With an infinite amount of stimuli constantly hitting our brains, we need the ability to filter that which is most relevant to us. And our mind is that filter. Often these connections can seem like coincidences, but cognitive scientists tell us it is simply that part of our brain that screens out information we are not interested in and focuses on the things that we can use. These connections give you different ways to look at information and different ways to focus on it.

George de Mestral was inspired to improve the zipper. He thought about the essence of zippers which is to fasten two separate pieces of fabric together. His question became “How do things fasten?” He became committed to the idea of inventing a better fastener and spent considerable time pondering how things fasten in other domains including nature.

One day when George was hunting birds with his Irish pointer, he traveled through some burdock thistles. The prickly seed burrs from the plants clung to his clothing and to his dog. While pulling off the burrs he noticed how they were removable yet easily reattached.

The burdock fascinated George and he imagined a fastener that mimicked a burdock. He studied the burrs under a microscope and discovered a hook system used by the burdock plant to migrate its seeds by attachment. The hooks could grab onto loops of thread or fur and migrate with the object it fastened itself to. This gave him the idea of creating a hook and loop fastener.

It was not logic that guided his thinking process but perception and pattern recognition between two totally unrelated subjects: zippers and burdocks. Logic dictates that burdocks are animate plants and zippers are inanimate manmade objects that are totally unrelated and, therefore, any relationship between the two is to be excluded. It was George’s creative perception, not logic, that recognized the common factor between a burdock and a zipper that fastens, not logic.

George envisioned two fabrics that could attach in this manner with one having a surface covered with minuscule hooks and another with hoops. Most of the experts he visited did not believe hooks could be created on the surface of fabric. However, he found a weaver at a textile plant that was willing to work with him. George discovered that a multifilament yarn weaved from velvet or cotton terry cloth created a surface of hooped threads. To create hooks, George would partially cut the hoops so they would become hooks. There was a great deal of experimentation to get the right density, thread sizes and rigidity. He eventually weaved the hook-side yarn from nylon and invented Velcro.

AN EXERCISE TO TEST YOUR CREATIVE PERCEPTION

Russian computer scientist, Mikhail Bongard, created a  remarkable set of visual pattern recognition problems to test one’s creative perception. The Bongard problems present two sets of relatively simple diagrams, say A and B. All the diagrams from set A have a common factor or attribute, which is lacking in all the diagrams of set B. The problem is to find, or to formulate, convincingly, the common   factor.

Below is an example of a Bongard problem. Test your perception and pattern recognition skills and try to solve the problem.   You have two classes of figures (A and B).  You are asked to discover some abstract connection that links all the various diagrams in A and that   distinguishes them from all the other diagrams in group B.

.EX.BONGARD (2) (1024x1024)

One has to take chances that certain aspects of a given diagram matter, and others are irrelevant.  Perhaps shapes count, but not sizes — or vice versa.  Perhaps orientations count, but not sizes — or vice versa.  Perhaps curvature or its lack counts, but not location inside the box — or vice versa.  Perhaps numbers of objects but not their types matter — or vice versa.  Which types of features will wind up mattering and which are mere distracters.  As you try to solve the problem, you will find the essence of your mental activity is a complex interweaving of acts of abstraction and comparison, all of which involve guesswork rather than certainty.  By guesswork I mean that one has to take a chance that certain aspects matter and others do not.

Logic dictates that the essence of perception is the activity of dividing a complex scene into its separate constituent objects and attaching separate labels to the now separated parts of pre-established categories, such as ovals, Xs and circles as unrelated exclusive events.  Then we’re taught to think exclusively within a closed system of hard logic.

In the above patterns, if you were able to discern the distinction between the diagrams, your perception is what found the distinction, not logic.  The distinction is the ovals are all pointing to the X in the A group, and the ovals area all pointing at the circles in the B group.

The following thought experiment is an even more difficult problem, because you are no longer dealing with recognizable shapes such as ovals, Xs, circles or other easily recognizable structures for which we have clear representations.  To solve this, you need to perceive subjectively and intuitively, make abstract connections, much like Einstein thought when he thought about the similarities and   differences between the patterns of space and time, and you need to consider the overall context of the problem.

BONGARD.DOT.NECK

A                                                        B

Again, you have two classes of figures (A and B) in the Bongard problem.  You are asked to discover some abstract connection that links all the various diagrams in A and that distinguishes them from all the other diagrams in group B.

SCROLL DOWN FOR ANSWER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANSWER: The rule is the “dots” in A are on the same side of the neck.

 

Learn how to become a creative thinker. Review Michael Michalko’s books http://creativethinking.net/#sthash.SBOOKS.ADS.LIST

 

5 Oct

CAN YOU THINK OUT OF THE BOX?

Posted by imagineer7 in brainstorming, create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, genius, ideas, innovation, problem solving, psychology, thinking, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

 cat.100

In the graphic above, 9 toothpicks are arranged to form a 100. Can you change 100 to form the word CAT by altering the position of just 2 toothpicks? Take a few moments and see if you can solve it.

One of the many ways in which our mind attempts to make life easier is to solve the first impression of the problem that it encounters. Like our first impressions of people, our initial perspective on problems and situations are apt to be narrow and superficial. We see no more than we’ve been conditioned to see–and stereotyped notions block clear vision and crowd out imagination. This happens without any alarms sounding, so we never realize it’s occurring.

Once we have settled on a perspective, we close off but one line of thought. Certain kinds of ideas occur to us, but only those kinds and no others. What if the crippled man who invented the motorized cart had defined his problem as: “How to occupy my time while lying in bed?” rather than “How to get out of bed and move around the house?”

Have you ever looked closely at the wheels on a railroad train? They are flanged. That is, they have a lip on the inside to prevent them from sliding off the track. Originally train wheels were not flanged–instead, the railroad tracks were. Because the problem of railroad safety had been expressed as: “How can the tracks be made safer for trains to ride on?” hundreds of thousands of miles of track were manufactured with an unnecessary steel lip. Only when the problem was redefined as: “How can the wheels be made to secure the track more securely?” was the flanged wheel invented.

Leonardo Da Vinci believed that to gain knowledge about the form of problems, you began by learning how to restructure it to see it in many different ways. He felt the first way he looked at a problem was too biased toward his usual way of seeing things. He would restructure his problem by looking at it from one perspective and move to another perspective and still another. With each move, his understanding would deepen and he would begin to understand the essence of the problem.  Leonardo called this thinking strategy saper vedere or “knowing how to see.”

To start with, it’s helpful to coin problems in a particular way. Write the problems you want to solve as a definite question. Use the phrase “In what ways might I…?” to start a problem statement. Using this phrase instead of simply asking “how” will psychologically influence you to look for alternative ways.

When we first look at our problem we read it the way we’re taught to read figures left to right. It can’t be solved this way moving just 2 sticks. In what ways might you look at the problem? One other way is to visualize the figure as being upside down read the figure from right to left.

cat.solution

The trick is that the word CAT will be upside down after you solve the puzzle. Simply take the toothpick that is the left side of the second zero, and place it horizontally and centered at the bottom of the 1. Then move the toothpick at the top of the first zero halfway toward the bottom.

Now turn it upside down.

cat.rightsideup

Genius often comes from finding a new perspective of a problem by restructuring it in some way. When Richard Feynman, the Nobel Laureate physicist, was “stuck” with a problem, he would look at it in a different way. If one way didn’t work, he would switch to another. Whatever came up, he would always find another way to look at it. Feynman would do something in ten minutes that would take the average physicist a year because he had a lot of ways to represent his problem.

************************************************************************

Best-selling creativity expert Michael Michalko shows that in every field of endeavor, from business and science to government, the arts, and even day-to-day life — natural CREATIVE THINKERINGcreativity is limited by the prejudices of logic and the structures of accepted categories and concepts. Through step-by-step exercises, illustrated strategies, and inspiring real-world examples he shows readers how to liberate their thinking and literally expand their imaginations by learning to synthesize dissimilar subjects, think paradoxically, and enlist the help of the subconscious mind. He also reveals the attitudes and approaches diverse geniuses share — and anyone can emulate.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/160868024X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_XUhvxb0YKA63R … via @amazon

*******************************************************************************

Michael Michalko is one of the most highly-acclaimed creativity experts in the world and author of the best-seller Thinkertoys (A Handbook of Business Creativity), ThinkPak (A Brainstorming Card Deck), Cracking Creativity (The Secrets of Creative Genius), and Creative Thinkering: Putting Your Imagination to Work.  http://creativethinking.net/#sthash.SXV5T2cu.dpbs

 

 

 

 

 

1 Oct

NEED IDEAS?

Posted by imagineer7 in brainstorming, business creativity, create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, education, genius, ideas, innovation, problem solving, thinking, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

thinkertoys.ad

31 Jul

CREATIVE THINKERING

Posted by imagineer7 in brainstorming, create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, genius, ideas, innovation, Michael Michalko, problem solving, psychology, thinking, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

 MAN.DOG

A Major Contribution to the Creative Literature by One of the Greats.

Sorry for the gushing title, but this book really hit the creativity spot. Michael Michalko is one of the big minds in the teaching of creative thinking and this book demonstrates why. Beginning from the principle that new ideas are the combination of existing things in new ways, Michalko describes the mindset and perspectives that are required to promote personal creativity – looking at things differently, combining random items with existing inputs, running thought experiments, for example. Michalko also provides an incredible list of positive affirmations with which to start the day to ensure a creative, positive and open attitude. It’s not your typical list of standard one-liners, but a list of affirmations that connect and build on each other. This is a segment of the lesson on playing the part of the creative person to become creative. The book also includes many powerful visuals and exercises that reinforce the lessons and points. Michalko does a masterful job of pointing out exactly how we are defective in our thinking and how we can get out of those mental ruts to revive the creative spirit we had in childhood. A must book for anyone seeking to become more creative.   – Vine Voice Amazon

https://lnkd.in/e7kTPG6 … via @amazon

thinkering.ad

26 Jul

CREATIVE THINKING TECHNIQUE: ATTRIBUTE ANALYSIS

Posted by imagineer7 in brainstorming, business creativity, conceptual blending, create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, ideas, innovation, Michael Michalko, problem solving, thinking, Uncategorized.

scamper

Attribute analysis breaks our propensity to operate at the highest level of generalization. Often, if we consider the attributes of people, things, situations, etc., we come to different conclusions than if we operate within our stereotypes.

We usually describe an object by listing its function. The way we see something is not inherent in the object itself — it grows out of experience and observation. A screwdriver’s primary function is to tighten or loosen screws. To discover new applications and ideas, you need flexibility of thought. An easy way to encourage this kind of thinking is to list the attributes or components of the subject instead of concentrating on its function. For example, let’s suppose you want to improve the screwdriver.

(1) First, list the attributes of a screwdriver.
For Example:

Round steel shaft

Wooden or plastic handle

Wedge-shaped tip

Manually operated

Used for tightening or loosening screws

(2) Next, focus on each specific attribute and ask “How else can this be accomplished?” or “Why does this have to be this way?”
Ask yourself:

What can I substitute for this attribute?

What can be combined with it?

Can I adapt something to it?

Can I add or magnify it?

Can I modify it in some fashion?

Can I put it to some other use?

What can I eliminate?

Can the parts be rearranged?

What is the reverse of this?
(3) Following are a few recent patented screwdriver innovations. The innovations were created by creative thinkers focusing on separate attributes of the screwdriver such as the handle, power source, and the shaft.

Focusing on the handle, a Swedish company created a handle with space for both hands. It was so successful, they later developed a full range of tools with long handles.

In the Third World, an aspiring inventor added a battery to provide power. This power source proved to be more reliable than electricity.

An entrepreneur came up with a better arrangement. He created shafts that were made interchangeable to fit various size screws, which obviated the need to have several screwdrivers.screwdriver

A Japanese engineer invented a bendable electric screwdriver with a super-flexible shaft to reach out of the way places.

Considering the attributes of something rather than its function, provides you with a different perspective. Different perspectives create different questions which place your subject into different contexts. Years back, the Jacuzzi brothers designed a special whirlpool bath to give one of their cousin’s hydrotherapy treatment for arthritis. This was a new product for the Jacuzzi brothers who were in the farm pump business. They marketed the tub to other victims of arthritis but sold very few. Years later, Roy Jacuzzi put the concept into a different context (the luxury bath market) by asking, “Can I put this particular hydrotherapy treatment to some other use?” and bathrooms were never the same.

Listing the attributes of a subject and then focusing on one attribute at a time helps us to break our stereotypical notion of a subject as a continuous whole and to discover relationships that we likely would otherwise miss. This happened to a group of designers who, by chance, happened upon unusable medical incubators in the third world.

Hospitals and charities had donated expensive medical incubators to third world countries to help preterm babies survive and thrive in hospitals. Spare parts for the incubators were expensive and difficult to locate in rural settings, forcing medical staff to forego regular maintenance. Additionally, they discovered that intermittent power left the devices unusable during parts of the day and voltage spikes destroyed sensitive equipment. The majority of the donated equipment were unusable after a few years.

An organization Design That Matters discovered that an abundant local resource in developing countries are car parts and the technical understanding of local car mechanics. Their designers decided to see if they could manufacture an incubator using car parts. They listed the attributes of the medical incubator and then leveraging the existing supply chain of used auto parts, they used the creative technique SCAMPER. They SUBSTITUTED car parts for medical parts; they MODIFIED and PUT TO OTHER USES sealed-beam headlights to serve as the heating element, they ADAPTED a dashboard fan for convective heat circulation, COMBINED signal lights and door chimes to serve as alarms and REARRANGED a process for emergency backup power during power outages using a motorcycle battery and a car cigarette lighter.

The remarkable incubator made out of car parts was doubly efficient, because it tapped both the local supply of parts and the local knowledge of automobile repair. You didn’t have to be a trained medical technician to fix the NeoNurture; you just needed to know how to replace a broken headlight.

These newly-designed incubators will help provide millions of at-risk infants with shorter hospital stays and can enable infants who might otherwise have faced a lifetime of severe disability to experience full and active lives. 

Often great ideas like this one are works of bricolage. They are, almost inevitably, old parts strung together to form something radically new. We take something we stumbled across, and we jigger them together into some new shape. The NeoNuture is an incubator that has been cobbled together with spare auto parts that happened to be sitting in junkyards.

 

LEARN THE CREATIVE TECHNIQUES USED BY CREATIVE GENIUSES THROUGHOUT HISORY: http://creativethinking.net/#sthash.SXV5T2cu.dpbs

THINKERTOYS

 

 

 

 

13 Jun

A LEONARDO DA VINCI CREATIVE THINKING TECHNIQUE

Posted by imagineer7 in business creativity, conceptual blending, create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, genius, ideas, perception, psychology, thinking, Uncategorized.

davinci

Leonardo DaVinci’s grotesque heads and famous caricatures are an example of the random variations of the human face made up of different combinations of a set number of features.  He would first list facial characteristics (heads, eyes, nose, etc.) and then beneath each list variations.  Next he would mix and match the different variations to create original and grotesque caricatures.  Below is a hypothetical example of a box similar to one that DaVinci might have constructed:

While the number of items in each category is relatively small, there are literally thousands of possible combinations of the listed features. The circled features indicate only one out of thousands of different grouping of features that could be used for an original grotesque head.

grot

From his notebooks, it is clear that DaVinci used this strategy in his production of art and invention.  He advised to be on the watch to take the best parts of many beautiful faces rather than create what you consider to be a beautiful face.  It is intriguing to speculate that the Mona Lisa, probably the most admired portrait in the world, is a result of DaVinci combining the best parts of the most beautiful faces that he observed and systemized.  Perhaps this is why admirers find so many different expressions in the mix of features on the face of the woman in the painting.  It is especially interesting to consider this possibility in the light of the fact that there is so little agreement about the actual identity of the subject.

One can almost see Leonardo composing a matrix of elements (Apostles, types of reactions, conditions, facial expressions, types of situations) and experimenting with their variations and combinations until he found the right configuration to create that once in a lifetime masterpiece — the “Last Supper.”  Many other artists before him hadlast supper made their own versions of Jesus Christ having his last meal with the twelve apostles, but when Leonardo painted the picture, the scene came alive with new meaning that no one else was able to give, or has been able to give since.

DaVinci would analyze the structure of a subject and then separate the major parameters (parameter means characteristic, factor, variable, or aspect).  He would then list variations for each parameter and combine them.  By coming up with different combinations of the variations of the parameters, he created new ideas.

Think of the parameters as card suits (hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds), and the variations as the different cards within each suit.  You choose the number and nature of the parameters of your subject; what’s important is to generate parameters and then list variations for each parameter.  By experimenting with different combinations of the variations, you create new ideas.

The procedures for using DaVinci’s technique are:

1.     Specify the challenge.

2.     Separate the parameters of the challenge.  The parameters are the fundamental framework of the challenge.  You choose the nature and the number of parameters that you wish to use in your box.  A good question to ask yourself when selecting parameters is: “Would the challenge still exist without the parameter I’m considering adding to the box?”

3.     Below each parameter, list as many variations for the parameters that you wish.  The complexity of the box is determined by the number of parameters and the number of variations used.  The more variations and the more different the variations of each parameter, the more likely the box will contain a viable idea.  For instance, a box with ten parameters, each of which has ten variations, produces 10 billion combinations of the parameters and the variations.

4.     When you are finished listing variations, make random runs through the parameters and the variations for the parameters, selecting one or more from each column and assemble the combinations into entirely new forms.  During this step, all of the combinations can be examined with respect to the challenge to be solved.  If you are working with ten or more parameters, you may find it helpful to randomly examine the entire group, and then gradually restrict yourself to portions that appear to be particularly fruitful.

carwash

5.  Let’s look at an example.  A car-wash owner wanted to find an idea for a new market or new market extension.  He analyzed the activity of “product washing” and decided to work with four parameters: Method of washing, products washed, equipment used, and other products sold.

He listed the parameters and listed five variations for each parameter.  He listed four parameters on top.  Under each parameter he listed five variations for each parameter.  He randomly chose one or more items from each parameter, and connected them to form a new business.

NEW BUSINESS: The random combination of (Self + Dogs + Brushes + Dryers + Stalls + Sprayers + Related Products) inspired an idea for a new business.  The new business he created was a self-service dog wash.  The self-service dog wash has ramps leading to waist-high tubs where owners spray them, scrub them with brushes provided by the wash, shampoo them and blow dry them.  In addition to the wash, he also sells his own line of dog products such as shampoos and conditioners.  Pet owners now wash their dogs while their car is being washed in the full-service car wash.

Five alternatives for each parameter generate a possible 3,125 different combinations.  If only 10% prove useful, that would yield 312 new ideas.  In theory, if you list the appropriate parameters and variations, then you should have all of the possible combinations for a specified challenge.  In practice, your parameters may be incomplete and/or a critical variation for a parameter may not have been described.  When you feel this may be the case, you should reconsider the parameters you specified and adjust the parameters or the variations accordingly.

We tend to see the elements of our subject as one continuous “whole,” and do not see many of the relationships between the elements, even the obvious ones.  They become almost invisible because of the way we perceive things.  Yet, these relationships are often the links to new ideas.  When you break down a subject into different parts and combine and recombine the parts in various ways, you restructure your perception of the subject.  This perceptual restructuring leads to new insights, ideas, and new lines of speculation.

The Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Kohler demonstrated perceptual restructuring with animals.  He would present an ape with a problem in which bananas were displayed out of reach and could only be obtained by using techniques new in the ape’s experience.  For example, he would give an ape boxes to play with for a few days.  Then Kohler would hang bananas from the ceiling out of the ape’s reach.  When he placed the boxes behind the ape, the ape would try all the familiar ways of reaching the fruit and fail.  When he placed the boxes in front of the ape so that they were visible, the ape would sit and think and suddenly have insight and use the boxes to stand on to reach the bananas.  What happened was that the visibility of the information restructured the ape’s perception.  It suddenly saw the boxes not as playthings but as supports with which to build a structure. It saw the relationship between the boxes and bananas.

In the same way, when you combine and recombine information in different ways, you perceptually restructure the way you see the information.  In addition, the greater the number of combinations you are able to generate, the more likely it is that some combination will serve as an associative link to ideas you could not come up with using your usual way of thinking (i.e., A, B, and D may become associated because each in some way is associated with C).  For example, the three words “surprise,” “line,” and “birthday” in combination serve as an associative link to the word “party.”  I.e., “surprise party,” “party line,” and “birthday party.”

In the car wash example, an associative link was made from the information that was listed to the idea of a bird wash.  The bird wash is a miniature clamp-like device that holds the bird securely in an upright stance so it can be gently washed and hosed (much like a car wash).  It’s designed to help workers cleanse birds who are damaged from tanker oil spills at sea.  It’s expected to save thousands of birds that now expire from the rough handling during clean-up operations.

Michael Michalko me.small Creative Thinkering: Putting Your Imagination to Work by Michael Michalko

http://www.amazon.com/dp/160868024X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_XUhvxb0YKA63R … via @amazon

 

 

 

 

20 Apr

THE ARTIST IS A CHIMPANZEE

Posted by imagineer7 in create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, genius, ideas, perception, positive thinking, psychology, thinking, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

CHIMPS

Zoologist Desmond Morris performed some interesting experiments with chimpanzees which may provide some insight into intention. In one experiment, chimps were given canvas and paint. They immediately began to paint balanced patterns of color. In fact, some art critics saw incredible similarities between their work and the work of abstractionists. The chimps became so interested in painting and it absorbed them so completely, that they had little interest left for sex, food, or other activities. Similar experiments were performed with children. Their behavior was remarkably like that of the chimps.

It seems to indicate that there is a natural desire to create, to accomplish, to perform, yet, somehow this desire fades as we become adults. An extension of Morris’s experiment involved rewarding the chimps for producing the paintings. Very soon their work began to degenerate until they produced the bare minimum that would satisfy the experimenter. They became bored and uninterested in creating.

A similar behavior was observed in young children as they became “self-conscious” of the kind of painting they believed they were supposed to do. This was generally indicated to them by subtle and implicit rewards, such as praise and approval and the need to conform to what other children were doing. The creative act of painting no longer has meaning in itself. It now has become an activity to experience satisfaction in the form of an external reward or reinforcement. Eventually, the children learn to seek only satisfying words of praise from others, and to collude with others in exchanging flattering remarks that lead to mutual satisfaction.

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Here’s an interesting experiment which illustrates the power of internal and external forces on awareness and attention. First, have someone blindfold you. Then make a volitional movement of your choice, for example, walking in figure eights. Make a variety of complex movements. Do something that requires thought. Next, while still blindfolded, have someone passively move you around the room in the same amount of time and then stops you at a certain point.

The next day, have someone blindfold you again and then reproduce the movements of the day before. You will find that your performance accuracy is far better when you made the movements of your choice as compared with situations in which you were passively moved by someone else.

In the first case, because you took an active role and allowed yourself to behave naturally, you became “aware” and “attentive.” This created some passion for the exercise. In the second case, you were passively led around, which did not create much interest or passion.

We are taught to be linear thinkers and to have a fundamentally mechanistic view of the world. We are taught to look for external causes and effects and that these cause-and-effects are predictable and knowable and predictable. This kind of thing emphasizes external control.   For example, flip the light switch, and the light goes on. If the light doesn’t go on, there is an uncomplicated explanation – burned-out bulb, blown fuse, wire down in a storm, or a bad switch.

This sense for external control is what freezes thinking and what prevents the “free” play of awareness and attention. Just as water is metamorphosed into ice, your thinking, which should be fluid and free, becomes frozen. All one has to do is desire and visualize outcome and the creative forces in you will act through you as if you were a medium.  Then you will see that your brain and body are free to do the work naturally and will find the way for you to produce the desired outcome.

CELLO Musicologists say that the cellos made by Stradivarius are even more impressive instruments than his violins. Some years ago, some physicists – experts in Newtonian mechanics, especially the laws of acoustics – analyzed the cello. They studied the wood used to make it, the mixture used to make the glue, the recipe for the varnish, the number of coats of varnish, and so on. They researched all stringed instruments and cataloged the dimensions and sounds.

They concluded that the cellos made by Stradivarius are too small. The ideal cello, according to their research, ought to be three times the size of a violin, but the Stradivarius cellos are noticeably smaller. The scientists concluded that they could make a better cello by making it bigger. So they did, and it sounded awful. Not only wasn’t it anywhere near the quality of a Stradivarius, it wasn’t even as good as the mass-produced cellos that copied the size of a Stradivarius. So, what was the secret Stradivarius knew that the acoustical experts didn’t?

Stradivarius had no secret.

There are just too many interacting variables to reduce the making of a cello to a formula. The quality of the wood makes a difference, of course, but once a piece of wood is cut for the back of the cello, there will never be another piece of wood exactly like that one. Stradivarius had the attitude and belief that building a good cello requires the maker to have the attitude and belief in one’s ability to do so.

What Stradivarius knew that the acoustical experts didn’t is what to do about it. He knew what to change to adjust for the differences in the wood or in the number of pieces of wood used for the ribs or in the number of coats of varnish.

The point is understood by one of the best modern makers of stringed instruments, who, when asked if he could build a Stradivarius, deemed the question absurd. “I can only build my own cello” was his response.

***

Michael Michalko is a creative expert and author of Thinkertoys, Cracking Creativity, Creative Thinkering and ThinkPak. You can review his books at  http://creativethinking.net/#sthash.SXV5T2cu.dpbs

 

 

2 Apr

Why are some people creative and others not?

Posted by imagineer7 in brainstorming, conceptual blending, create, creative thinking, creative thinking articles, creative thinking blogs, creative thinking exercises, creative thinking techniques, creativity, einstein, genius, ideas, innovate, innovation, Michael Michalko, problem solving, psychology, thinking, Uncategorized.

why.2

The key question isn’t “Why are some people creative and others not?” It is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where and how was our potential lost? How was it crippled? Why does education inhibit creativity? Why can’t educators foster more creativity instead of less? Why is it that the more expert people become in their fields, the less creative and innovative they become? Why is it that people who know more create less, and people who know less create more? Why are people amazed when someone creates something new, as if it were a miracle?

We’ve been educated to process information based on what has happened in the past, what past thinkers thought, and what exists now. Once we think we know how to get the answer, based on what we have been taught, we stop thinking. The Spanish word for an “answer” is respuesta, and it has the same etymological root as response (responsory), the song people sing to the dead. It’s about what has no life anymore. In other words, when you think you know the answers, based on what has happened in the past, your thinking dies.

This is why, when most people use their imaginations to develop new ideas, those ideas are heavily structured in predictable ways by the properties of existing categories and concepts. Creative thinking requires the ability to generate a host of associations and connections between two or more dissimilar subjects, creating new categories and concepts. We have not been taught to process information this way.

CONCEPTUAL BLENDING

The key to creatively generating associations and connections between dissimilar subjects is conceptual blending. This is a creative-thinking process that involves blending two or more concepts in the same mental space to form new ideas.

Imagine, for a moment, that thought is water. When you are born, your mind is like a glass of water. Your thinking is inclusive, clear, and fluid. All thoughts intermingle and combine with each other and make all kinds of connections and associations. This is why children are spontaneously creative.

In school you are taught to define, label, and segregate what you learn into separate categories. The various categories are kept separate and not allowed to touch each other, much like ice cubes in a tray. Once something is learned and categorized, your thoughts about it become frozen. For example, once you learn what a can opener is, whenever someone mentions “can opener” you know exactly what it is.

You are taught, when confronted with a problem, to examine the ice cube tray and select the appropriate cube. Then you take the cube and put it in a glass, where your thinking heats and melts it. For example, if the problem is to “improve the can opener,” the glass will contain all you have learned about can openers, and nothing more. You are thinking exclusively, which is to say you are thinking only about what you have learned about the can opener. No matter how many times the water is stirred, you end up creating, at best, a marginal improvement.

ice cubes

Now if you take another cube (for example, vegetables) and put it in the same glass with the can-opener cube, your thinking will heat and melt both together into one fluid. Now when you stir the water, more associations and connections are made and the creative possibilities become immensely greater. The vegetable cube, once blended with the can-opener cube, might inspire you to think of how vegetables open in nature. For example, when pea pods ripen, a seam weakens and opens, freeing the peas. This might inspire you to come up with novel ideas. You could, for example, manufacture cans with a weak seam that can be pulled to open the can. You cannot get this kind of novel idea using your conventional way of thinking.

What happens when you think simultaneously, in the same mental space, about a showerhead and a telescope orbiting the earth? When the Hubble telescope was first launched into space, scientists were unable to focus it. It could be salvaged only by refocusing it using small, coin-shaped mirrors. The problem was how to deliver the mirrors and insert them precisely into the right location. The right location was in a light bundle behind the main mirror. The NASA experts who worked on the problem were not able to solve it, and the multi¬million dollar Hubble seemed doomed.

Electrical engineer James Crocker was attending a seminar in Germany when he found out about the problem. He worked on it all day. Tired, he stepped into the shower in his hotel room. The European-style shower included a showerhead on an arrangement of adjustable rods. While manipulating the showerhead, Crocker suddenly realized that similar articulated arms bearing coin-shaped mirrors could be extended into the light bundle from within a replacement axial instrument by remote control. Mentally blending the Hubble telescope and the showerhead created this remarkable solution.

Crocker was startled by his sudden realization of the solution that was immensely comprehensive and at the same time immensely detailed. As Crocker later said, “I could see the Hubble’s mirrors on the shower head.” The NASA experts could not solve the problem using their conventional linear way of thinking. Crocker solved it by thinking unconventionally — by forcing connections between two remotely different subjects.

Look at the following illustration of the square and circle. Both are separate entities.

2crcles. book

Now look at the extraordinary effect they have when blended together. We now have something mysterious, and it seems to move. You can get this effect only by blending the two dissimilar objects in the same space. The power of the effect is not contained in the circle or in the square, but in the combination of the two.

1circle.book

Creativity in all domains, including science, technology, medicine, the arts, and day-to-day living, emerges from the basic mental operation of conceptually blending dissimilar subjects. When analyzed, creative ideas are always new combinations of old ideas. A poet does not generally make up new words but instead puts together old words in a new way. The French poet Paul Valéry is quoted by mathematician Jacques Hadamard in Jacques Hadamard, A Universal Mathematician, by T. O. Shaposhnikova, as saying, “It takes two to invent anything. The one makes up combinations; the other one chooses, recognizes what he wishes and what is important to him in the mass of the things which the former has imparted to him.” Valéry related that when he wrote poetry he used two thinking strategies to invent something new. With one strategy, he would make up combinations; and with the other, he would choose what was important.

Consider Einstein’s theory of relativity. He did not invent the concepts of energy, mass, or speed of light. Rather, he combined these ideas in a new and useful way.

Think for a moment about a pinecone. What relationship does a pinecone have to the processes of reading and writing? In France in 1818, a nine-year-old boy accidentally blinded himself with a hole puncher while helping his father make horse harnesses. A few years later the boy was sitting in the yard thinking about his inability to read and write when a friend handed him a pinecone. He ran his fingers over the cone and noted the tiny differences between the scales. He conceptually blended the feel of different pinecone scales with reading and writing and realized he could create an alphabet of raised dots on paper so the blind could feel and read what was written with it. In this way Louis Braille opened up a whole new world for the blind.

Braille made a creative connection between a pinecone and reading. When you make a connection between two unrelated subjects, your imagination will leap to fill the gaps and form a whole in order to make sense of it. Suppose you are watching a mime impersonating a man taking his dog out for a walk. The mime’s arm is outstretched as though holding the dog’s leash. As the mime’s arm is jerked back and forth, you “see” the dog straining at the leash to sniff this or that. The dog and the leash become the most real part of the scene, even though there is no dog or leash. In the same way, when you make connections between your subject and something that is totally unrelated, your imagination fills in the gaps to create new ideas. It is this willingness to use your imagination to fill in the gaps that produces the unpredictable idea. This is why Einstein claimed that imagination is more important than knowledge.

Just as conceptual blending allows information to intermingle in the mind of the individual, when people swap thoughts with others from different fields this creates new, exciting thinking patterns for both. As Brian Arthur argues in his book The Nature of Technology, nearly all technologies result from combinations of other technologies, and new ideas often come from people from different fields combining their thoughts and things. One example is the camera pill, invented after a conversation between a gastroenterologist and a guided-missile designer.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Learn how to get the ideas that can change your life.

http://creativethinking.net/#sthash.SXV5T2cu.dpbs

 

« Older Entries