Tag Archives: Creativity

What can an Architect learn from a bunch of web designers and developers?

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I was fortunate enough to be one of about 130 people to attend the Grok event last week in Greenville, SC. This great event was organized by Matthew Smith and the great people at Cowork Greenville. The crowd was a great mix of developers and designers with widely varying influence and experience. Yet, the Grok format levels the playing field allowing everyone to contribute and everyone to learn.

Personally, the Grok afforded me the opportunity to meet new people outside of my profession who think very much as I do. The result: challenging some of my ideas and the way I go about doing things. It was a great privilege to hang out with men and women, most of whom were much younger than I am, and to feed off of their creative energy, and to see the way they are taking their creative skills and making a living.

The openness embodied in this kind of event is a challenge to those who think they benefit from guarding their knowledge as if they play a zero sum game. The power of shared ideas and collaboration is amazing. And it is all based on trust… that people genuinely want to help and that their idea is safe with the group.

So, how do you value what I gained? You cannot place a finite value on connections, relationships, and creative energy…but it is a high value indeed.

For video: What is a Grok?

Twitt

Developing Your Creative Genius

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In his article “Promoting Human Creativity,” David S. Walonick, Ph.D. looks at what constitutes human creativity. Though all people are capable of creativity in different ways at different times, according to Walonick, those who excel in innovative creativity demonstrate ten common traits. The first four come from Joyce Wycoff:

1.  Willingness to take risks and have the courage to be wrong.

2.  Willingness to express their thoughts and feelings.

3.  A sense of humor.

4.  Acceptance and trust in their own intuition.

The last six traits come from David Perkins, of Harvard University:

5.  A drive to find order in a chaotic situation.

6.  Interest in unusual problems, as well as solutions.

7.  The ability to make new connections and challenge traditional assumptions.

8.  Willingness to temper idea creation by testing and judgment.

9.  Enjoyment in pushing the boundaries of their competence.

10.  Internally motivated by the problem itself, rather than any kind of reward or recognition.

There is disagreement in the field as to whether creativity in innate or learned. I don’t think is all one or the other. Some people are clearly born with creative tendencies while others may grow up in an environment that promotes the ten traits. So, if you want to develop your creative genius, try developing these traits in yourself and surround yourself with others who help you push the limits of your thinking.

Twitt