This document discusses creativity and innovation. It provides definitions of creativity from various sources that commonly describe it as the production of novel and useful ideas or solutions. Barriers to creativity like negative attitudes, fear of failure, and overreliance on logic are discussed. The document also outlines Csikszentmihalyi's systems model of creativity, which describes it as the interaction between an individual, their domain of work, and the field that judges whether the work is creative.

1. Creativity and Innovation
ARCT 351
CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
INTRODUCTION
Yasser Digitally signed by Yasser Mahgoub
DN: cn=Yasser Mahgoub, c=QA,
o=QU, ou=DAUP,
Mahgoub
email=ymahgoub@qu.edu.qa
Date: 2012.03.02 18:20:05 +03'00'
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2. Creativity
• Creativity comes from
the Latin term creō "to
create, make" .
• Mumford suggested: “Over
the course of the last
decade, however, we seem
to have reached a general
agreement that creativity
involves the production of
novel, useful products”
(Mumford, 2003, p. 110)
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4. • Dictionary.com has the following definition of creativity:
The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns,
relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas,
forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality,
progressiveness, or imagination.
• A "new" idea is a combination of old elements.
• Being able to devise new combinations depend on your ability
to discern relationships between seemingly disparate items.
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5. • Creativity is…
1. having the ability to create
2. characterized by originality of thought; having or showing imagination: a creative
mind
3. designed to or tending to stimulate the imagination: creative toys
4. characterized by sophisticated bending of the rules or conventions: creative
accounting
Creativity is…
• Doing something new in a new way.
• Doing something you’ve done before as if for the first time.
• Seeing with new eyes.
• A way of expressing your unique vision or perspective.
• Utilizing an essential human gift that you can give yourself in any moment.
• A way of accessing your life force.
• A process in which we can make our dreams a reality.
• A method of becoming one with your higher self.
• Creativity is allowing an inner voice to sing.
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7. Definitions
• From Creativity - Beyond the Myth of Genius, by
Robert W. Weisberg.
..."creative" refers to novel products of value.
• "The airplane was a creative invention."
• "Creative" also refers to the person who produces
the work?
• “Picasso was creative.“
• "Creativity," then refers both to the capacity to
produce such works and to the activity of
generating such products." (page 4)
• It is not enough for it to be novel: it must have
value, or be appropriate to the cognitive demands
of the situation." (page 4)
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8. Definitions
• From Human Motivation, 3rd ed., by Robert E.
Franken:
Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or
recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that
may be useful in solving problems, communicating
with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.
(page 396)
• Three reasons why people are motivated to be
creative:
– need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation
– need to communicate ideas and values
– need to solve problems (page 396)
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10. Definitions
• In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or
from a different perspective, you need to be able to generate new
possibilities or new alternatives.
• Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that
people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability
to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by
change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such
as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment
of things unknown. (page 394)
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11. What prevents people from being creative or innovative?
Barriers Blocks and Limiting Beliefs Switch To Positive Attitude
The tendency to focus on the negative
Negative Attitude aspects of problems and expend energy Seek the inherent opportunities in the situation.
on worry.
Fear of looking foolish or being laughed Failure is a necessary condition of and a stepping
Fear of Failure at. stone to success.
Not having time to think creatively. The
over-stressed person finds it difficult to
Long-term success is linked to the ability to
Executive Stress think objectively at all. Unwanted stress
innovate .
reduces the quality of all mental
processes.
A tendency to conform to accepted Some rules are necessary, but others encourage
patterns of belief or thought – the rules mental laziness.
Following Rules and limitations of the status quo – "Every act of creation is first of all an act of
hampers creative breakthrough. destruction." ~ Pablo Picasso
Identify and examine the assumptions you are
Making Many both conscious and unconscious
making to ensure they are not excluding new
Assumptions assumptions restrict creative thinking.
ideas. Challenge assumptions.
Investing all your intellectual capital into
"Innovation is not the product of logical thought,
Over-reliance on logical or analytical thinking – the step-
although the result is tied to logical
Logic by-step approach – excludes
structure." ~ Albert Einstein
imagination, intuition, feeling or humor.
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12. Systems Model of Creativity
• From Creativity - Flow and the Psychology of Discovery
and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Ways that "creativity" is commonly used:
– Persons who express unusual thoughts, who are
interesting and stimulating - in short, people who
appear to unusually bright.
– People who experience the world in novel and
original ways. These are individuals whose
perceptions are fresh, whose judgments are
insightful, who may make important discoveries that
only they know about.
– Individuals who have changes our culture in some
important way. Because their achievement are by
definition public, it is easier to write about them.
(e.g., Leonardo, Edison, Picasso, Einstein, etc.) (pages
25-26)
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14. Systems Model of Creativity
• According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi creativity
happens in the interaction between:
– an individual, who “is” creative
– a domain, in which the creative work is
situated, and
– a field, which judges this work as creative.
• So creativity is the result of an individual
working in an area (domain) whose work is
considered by someone (field) as creative.
• “Creativity is any act, idea, or product that
changes an existing domain, or that transforms
an existing domain into a new one. What counts
is whether the novelty he or she produces is
accepted for inclusion in the domain." (page 28
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15. A scientific definition
• Individual
Person who “is” creative and is often associated
with the creativity.
• Domain
Symbol system, immaterial, e.g. mathematics,
physics, art of drawing.
• Field
People who work in the domain or use its
products/processes (e.g. the public in art, fellow
researchers in science).
• Creativity is the interplay between the
individual, the domain and the field. Keep this
in mind if you want to be creative, if you want
to assess the quality of your work and when you
choose your domain.
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16. Daniel Libeskind's 17 words of
architectural inspiration
• http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/daniel_libeskind_s_17_words_of_architectural_inspiration.htm
l
• Optimism vs Pessimism
• Expressive vs Neutral
• Radical vs Conservative
• Emotional vs Cool
• Inexplicable vs Understood
• Hand vs Computer
• Complex vs Simple
• Political vs Evasive
• Real vs Simulated
• Unexpected vs Habitual
• Raw and Refined
• Pointed not Blunt
• Memorable vs Forgettable
• Communicative vs Mute
• Risky vs Safe
• Space vs Fashion
• Democratic vs Authoritarian
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17. END
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