Tag Archives: creativity

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

A sense of wonder

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Embrace the feeling of surprise and admiration that occurs when you see something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.
This sense of wonder can drive creativity.  The feelings associated with wonder are driven by curiosity and create a desire to know more, to discover.  This is the underpinning of innovation. 

Keep it Real

Wonder often starts with things we don’t understand but which have something exceptional about them that draws us in.   The mystery of the thing is compelling.

Acknowledging the unknown exists is our first step but then processing the reality of the situation we are wondering about can lead us to something better.

We must determine the underlying factors that create the object of our wonder as these will allow us to both replicate and expand on that which we wonder about.

Embrace the Opportunity

Things that amaze represent an opportunity for you to use them.  First work on understanding the phenomenon and then let your thoughts turn toward how to leverage it.

How can you use the power of this amazing and mysterious experience to improve yourself, and others.   It makes sense not to ignore your curiosity but build on it.  Things that make you wonder can be fuel for your creativity, to your benefit.

Beautiful, amazing yet mysterious, the thing you see and experience that develops a sense of wonder can provide you with a chance to surprise both others and yourself, seize the moment.

Take Action

Viewing and experiencing the wonders of the world may take your breath away but this is just wasted is you do not use the feeling to expand the opportunity.    Don’t just enjoy the things you wonder about use them to your benefit.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Innovative Creativity

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Innovation and creativity are probably near the top of my list of favorite buzzwords.   Buzzwords for me are those that sound impressive but for which the meaning is unclear.

They are often adopted by a culture for a brief time but subsequently replaced by the trend of the moment and forgotten (e.g., flavour of the month). 

Be Creative/Innovative

In and of itself the use of the use of the imagination or creation of original ideas (i.e., creativity/innovation) is easily pronounced.   The challenge in determining the presence of innovation/creativity lies with the subjective nature of the terms. 

While the interpretation of original should be an objective measure it is often clouded by personal perspective.  Imagination is totally subjective, although extreme imagination is usually readily recognizable as such (also usually impractical).

Song copyright legal challenges are a good example of how the determination of originality is not necessarily a simple manner. 

Numerous court battles have been fought over whether a song was copied or not (i.e., was it original).  Based on many of these cases it is apparently never an easy determination.   

Was I?

Overall the very definition of the terms leads to creativity being somewhat of a subjective measure.   So for me, the words are unclear, I am not sure when I have done it, I am not sure how it is measured.  

Hence the terms fall into my buzz word category.  Sounds good, but really what does it mean?

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Inspiration

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Inspiration is most commonly associated with the process of developing creative ideas.  The outcome can be behavioral or physical.

For example, I was inspired to run faster (behavioral) or I was inspired to build a better mousetrap (physical) Mostly the act of inspiration is considered positive, although that might not always be true of the results.

That is to say, by definition the ideas and plans arising from inspiration are exciting and something worth attempting.  Unfortunately the result might not inspire.

Where does it come from?

Does inspiration arise from logical planning and concentrated deep thoughts?  It can, but it also can just arise from out of the blue.  There is no formula to creating inspiration.

Of course deep thought can act as fertilizer for your brain and the growth that arises from the fertile soil (your active brain) could be inspiring.  Or it might not be.

Troubled thoughts, worry, frustration or concern can often overshadow your thinking process and dampen the opportunity for inspiration.

Inspiring thoughts can be helpful to resolve issues or conflicts and they are to be encouraged so whenever possible avoid stressful situations that with restrict the opportunity to come up with solutions that inspire not only yourself but others as well.

Seeking Inspiration

A word of warning, particularly for those seeking creative inspiration (e.g., poets, artists, authors, even bloggers) attempting to proactively seek inspiring ideas can backfire and dry up the well for a while.

Don’t push for it, just let it come.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Prioritizing effort

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You might have an idea of your overall goal associated with a specific strategy.  At a very top level, it could be something like; attaining the most recognized brand,  having total customer loyalty (100%) or the most efficient operations (profitable).

Next

The next step is to determine the objectives that support your goals and the associated implementation activities.  You can blue sky the objective gathering and hope for the best or you can be a bit more rigorous in your methodology

Blue Sky

Innovation and creativity are typically present when there is no bad idea.  Just gather up all the thoughts, throw them in the wide opening of the funnel and hope they don’t get stuck on the way down.

Of course this method, while it is highly collaborative, is not efficient.  It can work where efficiency is not a priority, creativity is.  The result might really knock the overall goal out of the park once it oozes out of the neck of the funnel.

In many cases though analysis paralysis and too many cooks collaborating without direction leaves the output wanting.

Planned and Controlled

Filtering the ideas and objectives, through the use of defined filtering criteria, before they get into the funnel, improves the flow through the neck of the funnel.

These might not be highly innovative and creative ideas but they will work and it is a good probability the overall goal can be attained.