1.
10 Hands-On Tools to
Boost Creativity & Projects
Charles M. Wood, Ph.D.
University of Tulsa

2.
Why these 10 exercises?
• Variety of purpose:
• Warmups, set the stage and culture
• Early successes
• Collaboration, directed creativity, controlled chaos
• Flexiblity: Can do them anywhere with anyone

3.
What’s New? [warmup]
• Find real, everyday examples from the world
around us
• (e.g., green ketchup, discontinued products)
• Pass them around
• Get conversations started

4.
• HAPIfork
• http://www.tuaw.com/2013/01/07/ces-unveiled-the-hapifork-aims-to-help-you-track-your-eating-ha/
• Water wheel
(20 gallons)

5.
What’s New? [warmup]
• Lessons:
• Creativity is the foundation
• Creativity is not the same as innovation
• Innovations solve problems, relieve pain, …
• Also, warmups set the tone:
• This is a safe, supportive environment.
• We model the proper behavior, build on their
responses

6.
Not Bad! [warmup]
• Find examples of unusual or dubious innovations
• Ask:
• “What is good about this?”
• “Does it solve a real problem? …for many people?”

7.
Not Bad! [warmup]
• Lessons:
• Learn to see potential in any idea
• Withhold criticism
• All ideas are welcome
• We are builders – so give us something to build on

8.
Two Buckets [early success]
• Try this one! Form teams of 3-4.
• Each team: randomly choose a card from each of 2
buckets
• One has major brand names (e.g, Nike, Apple, Nestle).
One has product categories (e.g., tools, bikes, carseats)
• Combine them to make a new product.
• Task:
• Describe your new product’s features and benefits
• Who would buy it?
• Can you name your new product?
• Any ad ideas?

9.
(also, pick 2 numbers or roll dice)
1. NIKE
2. LEGO
3. HARLEY DAVIDSON
4. COVER GIRL
5. PORSCHE
6. COLGATE
7. APPLE
8. CENTURY 21
9. BUDWEISER
10. COCA-COLA
11. CATERPILLAR
12. U.S. GOVERNMENT
1. CRAYONS
2. CAR SEATS
3. CONCRETE
4. PHONES
5. FURNITURE
6. JEWELRY
7. BICYCLES
8. TOOTHBRUSHES
9. BACKPASKS
10.FAST FOOD
11.TOYS
12.THEME PARK

10.
Two Buckets [early success]
• Lesson: Combinations can be a great source of
ideas

11.
Innovation as Combination
• Combining ideas is a key ability for innovation that can
be developed.
• Netflix = Book of the month club + DVD rentals
• Kiva.org = Venture Capital + 3rd World Relief
• Google AdWords = Ad placement + Auctions
• Hunger Games = Reality show + Iraq war
• Biomimicry = Nature + Technology

12.
Innovation You [first projects]
• Ask students: “Create a poster about YOU”
• Their favorite quote
• Inspirational person
• What they know the most about -outside of family and
school
• (Gladwell’s “outliers” idea)
• When, where they have experienced “Flow”
• Their Jung typology
• Gardner’s multiple intelligences: “How are you smart?”
• A 3-D item

13.
Innovation You [first projects]
• Lessons:
• Identifies how and where students are most likely to
innovate successfully.
• We are all different, and that’s good!

14.
iWish [early success]
• Try this one!
• First, think of a problem or hassle people face often
• Awkward social situations, parking tickets, bad breath,
late,…
• Can direct – e.g., visually impaired
• Form teams, share ideas, and choose a problem
that can be addressed by a new app.
• “I wish a cell phone could _______.”
• Grab an Expo marker, draw its screen on the iPhone
whiteboard, and be ready to present

15.
Make a meal from what
is available in the home
Get color matching tips
for colorblind people
What should I wear today
based on weather forecast

16.
iWish [early success]
• Lessons:
• The power of collaboration
• The power of the pen
• “Hey, our ideas might actually be worth something!”

17.
What’s happening
• Confidence is increasing
• A supportive culture is building

18.
Generativity Theory
• “Multiple, competing repertoires are the seeds of
new ideas.”
• from Epstein’s book: Creativity Games for Trainers
• “Combinatory play” – Einstein
• “Forced association”

19.
100 uses [collaboration]
• In teams, ask students to write down 100
uses for old newspapers
• in 10 minutes!
• Lesson:
• This helps lower inhibitions for sharing ideas
• Remember that feeling

20.
R&D / Prototyping [collaboration]
Try working the standard innovation process
backwards:
• Instead of starting with problems and developing
many possible innovations, start with innovations
and consider their application to many problems
• “What else could we do with this technology?”
• R&Dmag.com: Spider silk, Nanobatteries, …
• Inventables.com: Rapid prototyping, MakerBots

21.
www.rdmag.com
Spider silk: 5x stronger than steel
Ask: “What could we do with this?”

22.
Get your hands on prototyping
• FabLabs in major cities
• Materials at (e.g.) Inventables.com

23.
R&D / Prototyping [collaboration]
• Lessons:
• Look around for ideas and inventions
• There are alternate uses for existing ideas
• We can re-use existing materials too

24.
Innovation Challenges [project]
• A simple challenge: “ADD VALUE”
• Create something new and useful – art, new product, …
using:
• Post-its (e.g., Stanford’s ImagineIt! program)
• Pizza boxes
• Old computer diskettes, CDs, parts
• Social innovation challenges too
• Reach out!
• Invite the campus, other schools, get community judges

25.
2 entries made from unused pizza boxes

26.
Biomimicry [directed creativity]
• How does nature solves a problem?
• Lesson: Learn from others’ successes, blend
innovations

27.
Resources
• Biomimicry Institute:
• The Biomimicry Institute — Nature-Inspired Innovation

28.
Build Up [collaboration]
• Put challenge questions at the top of large note cards
• “How might we…”
• Write an idea beneath the question, pass it to the right.
• On each card, build on the ideas of others.
• Last round of ideas must be “wild ideas”
• The Worst Idea Ever
• Write down a really bad product or service idea on
large note cards, pass it to the right.
• Make the idea worse, pass it on (x2)
• Now, get with your team and find a nugget of a good
idea in what you see; make it into a good idea.
• Lesson:
• When we build together, we can get better outcomes

29.
Visioning [directed creativity]
• Create a fictional, super positive news story about
your students, school, or organization
• http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.a
sp

30.
Visioning [directed creativity]
• Ask the group to offer a few ideas about what the
organization must have done to deserve this
recognition or win this award.
• Lesson:
• Sometimes a “pull” works better than a “push.”

31.
Empathy [directed creativity]
• Empathize first
• Then discuss solutions to this group’s problems

32.
The “Very Senior Games”
• Empathy for the elderly

33.
Client Projects [advanced]
• Find worthy causes in your community
• They all need help!
• Another way to develop empathy in students/employees
• Try the “Human-Centered Design” process used by
IDEO:
• Hear
• Go into the environment, observe, interview => Inspiration
• Create
• Process the data, brainstorm solutions => Ideation
• Develop
• Select, prototype, rinse and repeat => Implementation

34.
Students visited a local prison and produced TV PSAs calling for
action on the issue of Oklahoma’s high rate of female incarceration
Girl Scout meeting with inmates / daughters
at Eddie Warrior Correctional Facility

35.
• Bergan pet
products
• Student
project

36.
• Other student ideas for a pet products manufacturer
Students visited a local prison and produced TV PSAs calling for
action on the issue of Oklahoma’s high rate of female incarceration

37.
Places and programs
• A “place”
• Consider IDEO, Google, … => We proposed “Studio Blue”
• A program
• Nova Fellowship
• Students from all majors collaborating to innovate and
implement for their favorite community causes

38.
"Most of the really great breakthroughs in science
are unifications.”
- Owen J. Gingerich, science historian at Harvard
http://www.novafellowship.org/ (1-minute video)
The Nova Fellowship

39.
Resources and Credits:
• Get the basic Jung profiles (free) at: www.humanmetrics.com
• Robert Epstein, Creativity Games for Trainers
• www.RDmag.com
• www.Inventables.com , http://www.instamorph.com/
• https://biomimicry.org/biomimicry-examples/
• www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp
At the University of Tulsa:
• https://business.utulsa.edu/studio-blue/
• www.novafellowship.org
Questions? Please email me at: charles-wood@utulsa.edu