This document discusses the complex and contested nature of creativity. It provides various definitions of creativity from past research but also highlights contradictions in how creativity is defined. It questions whether creativity is an internal cognitive process or a social phenomenon. It also explores debates around whether creativity is a special ability or a common human capacity. The document advocates moving away from trying to precisely define creativity and instead analyzing how the concept is constructed through different discourses. It also raises issues around assessing creativity given its ambiguous nature.
A class presentation for ADV 6383 - Creativity as Problem Solving by graduate students Jingya Huang, Danielle Latta and Katie McCarney at SMU's Temerlin Advertising Institute.
On Context: Methods and Mindsets for Situational AwarenessWilliam Evans
It could be argued that tribes, communities of practice, organizations, and societies accrete symbolic systems that forge a common language over time to accomplish tasks usually related to the preservation, extension of power, and access to resources needed to continue to flourish and allow these networks within boundaries to feel a sense of agency and empowerment. Indeed, when one group or tribe within a larger ecosystem feels threatened or produces radical new ideas, the heretical rebels leverage common metaphors, symbols, and tactics to achieve strategic goals – at first rebelling against the existing power structure (writing manifestos, throwing molotov cocktail), supplanting the existing “high priests”. Eventually, though, they develop the same rituals that previous power structure utilized to maintain and extend their power base – the heretics eventually become the high priests of a new caste system and then anoint their own saints.
We have seen this evolution in social systems and the accretion of ‘webs of signification’ in the context of IT in general and software design and development in particular. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz said that “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs,” which can inform our understanding of tribes in a software enterprise setting. With each new principled-based movement within IT, from RUP to Agile, to Lean Software, to Lean UX and more recently DevOps and Lean Startup, the new tribe has the need to extend it’s power base beyond the context for which it was originally intended. Even if each tribe armed with their own methods and practices makes sense at a given time and place, this does not necessarily mean it’s appropriate or strategic from a systems, wholistic, enterprise, or societal perspective.
This notion is important in making strategic decisions from an enterprise perspective in terms of which ideology to deploy, how to allocate resources, and how to ensure that across the portfolio of potential ‘bets’ the appropriate methods are deployed. This tension – between tribes that wish to enjoy greater agency by proselytizing their ideology and methods into other domains, and the needs of the organization, which seeks balance across multiple competing factions to actually achieve enterprise-wide goals, is the primary challenge faced by leaders.
We’ll explore these notions, and seek to understand the various roles, practices, and methods that are either local-optima or more global in perspective, to seek to provide a framework for decision-making in uncertain and turbulent times. We’ll unpack the relationship between different horizons from probable to possible, and provide some heuristics for when things like Design Thinking or LeanUX are most appropriate, and when Agile, PMBOK, or ITIL frameworks might be the most authentic satisficing lens through which to make decisions.
Psychology Of Creativity - London IA 30.03.10Claire Rowland
A basic and pragmatic introduction to the psychology of creativity, from empirical research. PDF with notes: full academic references included in the notes.
A class presentation for ADV 6383 - Creativity as Problem Solving by graduate students Jingya Huang, Danielle Latta and Katie McCarney at SMU's Temerlin Advertising Institute.
On Context: Methods and Mindsets for Situational AwarenessWilliam Evans
It could be argued that tribes, communities of practice, organizations, and societies accrete symbolic systems that forge a common language over time to accomplish tasks usually related to the preservation, extension of power, and access to resources needed to continue to flourish and allow these networks within boundaries to feel a sense of agency and empowerment. Indeed, when one group or tribe within a larger ecosystem feels threatened or produces radical new ideas, the heretical rebels leverage common metaphors, symbols, and tactics to achieve strategic goals – at first rebelling against the existing power structure (writing manifestos, throwing molotov cocktail), supplanting the existing “high priests”. Eventually, though, they develop the same rituals that previous power structure utilized to maintain and extend their power base – the heretics eventually become the high priests of a new caste system and then anoint their own saints.
We have seen this evolution in social systems and the accretion of ‘webs of signification’ in the context of IT in general and software design and development in particular. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz said that “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs,” which can inform our understanding of tribes in a software enterprise setting. With each new principled-based movement within IT, from RUP to Agile, to Lean Software, to Lean UX and more recently DevOps and Lean Startup, the new tribe has the need to extend it’s power base beyond the context for which it was originally intended. Even if each tribe armed with their own methods and practices makes sense at a given time and place, this does not necessarily mean it’s appropriate or strategic from a systems, wholistic, enterprise, or societal perspective.
This notion is important in making strategic decisions from an enterprise perspective in terms of which ideology to deploy, how to allocate resources, and how to ensure that across the portfolio of potential ‘bets’ the appropriate methods are deployed. This tension – between tribes that wish to enjoy greater agency by proselytizing their ideology and methods into other domains, and the needs of the organization, which seeks balance across multiple competing factions to actually achieve enterprise-wide goals, is the primary challenge faced by leaders.
We’ll explore these notions, and seek to understand the various roles, practices, and methods that are either local-optima or more global in perspective, to seek to provide a framework for decision-making in uncertain and turbulent times. We’ll unpack the relationship between different horizons from probable to possible, and provide some heuristics for when things like Design Thinking or LeanUX are most appropriate, and when Agile, PMBOK, or ITIL frameworks might be the most authentic satisficing lens through which to make decisions.
Psychology Of Creativity - London IA 30.03.10Claire Rowland
A basic and pragmatic introduction to the psychology of creativity, from empirical research. PDF with notes: full academic references included in the notes.
This presentation aims at boosting your creativity, whether you need it for your innovation processes, for your marketing and sales or for other purposes.
It will inform you about:
- what the creativity process is
- how creativity was perceived in history
- what are the main scientific discoveries about creativity
- what cutting edge creativity building techniques exist today
- practical information about these techniques, for instance :
- brainstorming and related approaches
- innovation games
- lateral thinking, 6 hats
- mindmaps
- improvisation derived approch
- who have been the main innovators in creativity techniques and what they have developped
By the way, I practice these techniques and teach them to companies and at the "Ecole Supérieure de Ventes" of Saint Germain en Laye.
Most people are born creative. As children, we revel in imaginary play, ask outlandish questions, draw blobs and call them dinosaurs. But over time, because of socialization and formal education, a lot of us start to stifle those impulses. We learn to be warier of judgment, more cautious, more analytical. The world seems to divide into “creatives” and “noncreatives,” and too many people consciously or unconsciously resign themselves to the latter category.
And yet we know that creativity is essential to success in any discipline or industry. According to a recent IBM survey of chief executives around the world, it’s the most sought-after trait in leaders today. No one can deny that creative thinking has enabled the rise and continued success of countless companies, from start-ups like Facebook and Google to stalwarts like Procter & Gamble and General Electric.
In this presentation you will discover why you lost your creative confidence—the natural ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out, and how to restore it back.
Process
Nathaniel Barr, PhD
What is creativity, anyway?
“Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel and appropriate”
~ Sternberg & Lubart
“Humans are animals that specialize in thinking and knowing, and our extraordinary cognitive abilities have transformed every aspect of our lives. In contrast to our chimpanzee cousins and Stone Age ancestors, we are complex political, economic, scientific and artistic creatures, living in a vast range of habitats, many of which are our own creation.”
-Cecelia Hayes
3
Systems view of Creativity
Hennessey & Amabile, 2010,
Annual Review of Psychology
“The term ‘cognition’ refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations... Given such a sweeping definition, it is apparent that cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do; that every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon.”
Ulric Neisser, 1967, Cognitive Psychology
5
Spontaneous or deliberate creativity
Spontaneous: Insight
Deliberate: CPS
Meliorism
“humans can, through their interference with processes that would otherwise be natural, produce an outcome which is an improvement over the aforementioned natural one”
In order to interfere with processes and improve them, we need to know how things work…
Understanding your mind
Interfering with the natural way you think
Improvement of performance
Deliberate creativity
J.P. Guilford’s 1950 APA Address
“The neglect of this subject by psychologists is appalling…I examined the index of the Psychological Abstracts for each year since its origin. Of approximately 121,000 titles listed in the past 23 years, only 186 were indexed as definitely bearing on the subject of creativity.”
-Guilford
J.P. Guilford’s 1950 APA Address
“In other words, less than two-tenths of one per cent of the books and articles indexed in the Abstracts for approximately the past quarter century [1925-1950] bear directly on this subject.”
-Guilford
Intelligence
“Some of you will undoubtedly feel that the subject of creative genius has not been as badly neglected as I have indicated, because of the common belief that genius is largely a matter of intelligence and the IQ.”
-Guilford
Galton, Cattell, Cox, Terman, Spearman
Not just intelligence
Guilford’s address marked the “the emergence of a wider psychological interest in the non-intellective components of cognitive performance.”
-Shouksmith, 1970, p. 205
Increased attention
In decade following Guilford’s address, more than 800 records exist
-Arons, 1965
1927-1950: 4.5 papers per year
1950-1960: 80 papers per year
Ways of thinking, not just raw ability
“It took the genius of thinkers like Alex Osborn, an advertising executive, and Sidney Parnes, an academic research, to realize that ...
CHAPTER 1Two Case Studies in Creativity Creative thinking brings a.docxwalterl4
CHAPTER 1Two Case Studies in Creativity Creative thinking brings about new things—innovations—ranging from solutions to simple puzzles and riddles to ideas and inventions that have radically altered our world. Creative people are those who produce such innovations, and the creative process consists of the psychological processes involved in bringing about innovations. Figures 1.1A and 1.1B give examples of some of the more impressive products of creative thinking. In Figure 1.1C are some simple exercises that might result in creative thinking on your part. If you had never seen those puzzles and riddles before, and if you solved one or more of them, then you were thinking creatively when you did so—you produced something new. In this book, we will consider the full range of creativity, ranging from solving simple puzzles to producing the seminal innovations shown in Figures 1.1A and 1.1B. We will examine a wide range of recent research on creativity, as well as theories that have been developed to explain the processes involved when people produce innovations. There are many reasons why creativity is a critically important topic for psychologists to understand. First of all, our world has been shaped by the products of creative thinkers. All of our modern conveniences—the telephone and other modes of communication, the automobile, the airplane, computers, and so forth—have been brought about through the creative work of inventors and scientists. Our healthy existences and our ever-longer lives are the result of scientific and medical advances, which are the result of creative thinking on the part of scientists in many domains. Much of the richness of our lives—art, music, drama, literature, poetry—is the result of artistic creativity. Society values greatly the products of creative thinking; we bestow honors, such as Nobel Prizes, on those who have produced such things, and the stories of their lives and accomplishments fill our history books and encyclopedias. By understanding how creative products are brought about, we may be able to increase the likelihood that innovations will occur, thereby making life better for us all. Figure 1.1 Examples of creative thinking (1937): A, DNA: The double helix; B, Picasso’s Guernica; C, Examples of problems In addition, creative thinking is also big business. Our largest and most prestigious corporations, as well as the largest government agencies, are constantly searching for ways to be more innovative, and they pay handsome fees to consultants who will help them achieve new levels of innovation from their employees. Institutions of higher education also take interest in teaching creative thinking. Many university business schools offer courses that are designed to provide business leaders—both those of the future and present-day ones who return for a refresher—with skills that will enable them to solve on-the-job problems. At the grassroots level, one constantly reads accounts of debates concerning the.
En el marco del evento Emoción Desnuda, Marco Bevolo compartió su experiencia como directivo de Philips Design y su visión sobre cómo alcanzar una nueva aproximación al proceso creativo.
This presentation aims at boosting your creativity, whether you need it for your innovation processes, for your marketing and sales or for other purposes.
It will inform you about:
- what the creativity process is
- how creativity was perceived in history
- what are the main scientific discoveries about creativity
- what cutting edge creativity building techniques exist today
- practical information about these techniques, for instance :
- brainstorming and related approaches
- innovation games
- lateral thinking, 6 hats
- mindmaps
- improvisation derived approch
- who have been the main innovators in creativity techniques and what they have developped
By the way, I practice these techniques and teach them to companies and at the "Ecole Supérieure de Ventes" of Saint Germain en Laye.
Most people are born creative. As children, we revel in imaginary play, ask outlandish questions, draw blobs and call them dinosaurs. But over time, because of socialization and formal education, a lot of us start to stifle those impulses. We learn to be warier of judgment, more cautious, more analytical. The world seems to divide into “creatives” and “noncreatives,” and too many people consciously or unconsciously resign themselves to the latter category.
And yet we know that creativity is essential to success in any discipline or industry. According to a recent IBM survey of chief executives around the world, it’s the most sought-after trait in leaders today. No one can deny that creative thinking has enabled the rise and continued success of countless companies, from start-ups like Facebook and Google to stalwarts like Procter & Gamble and General Electric.
In this presentation you will discover why you lost your creative confidence—the natural ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out, and how to restore it back.
Process
Nathaniel Barr, PhD
What is creativity, anyway?
“Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel and appropriate”
~ Sternberg & Lubart
“Humans are animals that specialize in thinking and knowing, and our extraordinary cognitive abilities have transformed every aspect of our lives. In contrast to our chimpanzee cousins and Stone Age ancestors, we are complex political, economic, scientific and artistic creatures, living in a vast range of habitats, many of which are our own creation.”
-Cecelia Hayes
3
Systems view of Creativity
Hennessey & Amabile, 2010,
Annual Review of Psychology
“The term ‘cognition’ refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations... Given such a sweeping definition, it is apparent that cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do; that every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon.”
Ulric Neisser, 1967, Cognitive Psychology
5
Spontaneous or deliberate creativity
Spontaneous: Insight
Deliberate: CPS
Meliorism
“humans can, through their interference with processes that would otherwise be natural, produce an outcome which is an improvement over the aforementioned natural one”
In order to interfere with processes and improve them, we need to know how things work…
Understanding your mind
Interfering with the natural way you think
Improvement of performance
Deliberate creativity
J.P. Guilford’s 1950 APA Address
“The neglect of this subject by psychologists is appalling…I examined the index of the Psychological Abstracts for each year since its origin. Of approximately 121,000 titles listed in the past 23 years, only 186 were indexed as definitely bearing on the subject of creativity.”
-Guilford
J.P. Guilford’s 1950 APA Address
“In other words, less than two-tenths of one per cent of the books and articles indexed in the Abstracts for approximately the past quarter century [1925-1950] bear directly on this subject.”
-Guilford
Intelligence
“Some of you will undoubtedly feel that the subject of creative genius has not been as badly neglected as I have indicated, because of the common belief that genius is largely a matter of intelligence and the IQ.”
-Guilford
Galton, Cattell, Cox, Terman, Spearman
Not just intelligence
Guilford’s address marked the “the emergence of a wider psychological interest in the non-intellective components of cognitive performance.”
-Shouksmith, 1970, p. 205
Increased attention
In decade following Guilford’s address, more than 800 records exist
-Arons, 1965
1927-1950: 4.5 papers per year
1950-1960: 80 papers per year
Ways of thinking, not just raw ability
“It took the genius of thinkers like Alex Osborn, an advertising executive, and Sidney Parnes, an academic research, to realize that ...
CHAPTER 1Two Case Studies in Creativity Creative thinking brings a.docxwalterl4
CHAPTER 1Two Case Studies in Creativity Creative thinking brings about new things—innovations—ranging from solutions to simple puzzles and riddles to ideas and inventions that have radically altered our world. Creative people are those who produce such innovations, and the creative process consists of the psychological processes involved in bringing about innovations. Figures 1.1A and 1.1B give examples of some of the more impressive products of creative thinking. In Figure 1.1C are some simple exercises that might result in creative thinking on your part. If you had never seen those puzzles and riddles before, and if you solved one or more of them, then you were thinking creatively when you did so—you produced something new. In this book, we will consider the full range of creativity, ranging from solving simple puzzles to producing the seminal innovations shown in Figures 1.1A and 1.1B. We will examine a wide range of recent research on creativity, as well as theories that have been developed to explain the processes involved when people produce innovations. There are many reasons why creativity is a critically important topic for psychologists to understand. First of all, our world has been shaped by the products of creative thinkers. All of our modern conveniences—the telephone and other modes of communication, the automobile, the airplane, computers, and so forth—have been brought about through the creative work of inventors and scientists. Our healthy existences and our ever-longer lives are the result of scientific and medical advances, which are the result of creative thinking on the part of scientists in many domains. Much of the richness of our lives—art, music, drama, literature, poetry—is the result of artistic creativity. Society values greatly the products of creative thinking; we bestow honors, such as Nobel Prizes, on those who have produced such things, and the stories of their lives and accomplishments fill our history books and encyclopedias. By understanding how creative products are brought about, we may be able to increase the likelihood that innovations will occur, thereby making life better for us all. Figure 1.1 Examples of creative thinking (1937): A, DNA: The double helix; B, Picasso’s Guernica; C, Examples of problems In addition, creative thinking is also big business. Our largest and most prestigious corporations, as well as the largest government agencies, are constantly searching for ways to be more innovative, and they pay handsome fees to consultants who will help them achieve new levels of innovation from their employees. Institutions of higher education also take interest in teaching creative thinking. Many university business schools offer courses that are designed to provide business leaders—both those of the future and present-day ones who return for a refresher—with skills that will enable them to solve on-the-job problems. At the grassroots level, one constantly reads accounts of debates concerning the.
En el marco del evento Emoción Desnuda, Marco Bevolo compartió su experiencia como directivo de Philips Design y su visión sobre cómo alcanzar una nueva aproximación al proceso creativo.
Critical Race Theory: “[I]ntellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour.” (Britannica)
Similar to CEMP : Mark Readman (OCR Media Conference 2009) (20)
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Generative AI Deep Dive: Advancing from Proof of Concept to ProductionAggregage
Join Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks, in this new session where he'll share a practical framework to transform Gen AI prototypes into impactful products! He'll delve into the complexities of data collection and management, model selection and optimization, and ensuring security, scalability, and responsible use.
Alt. GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using ...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Climate Impact of Software Testing at Nordic Testing DaysKari Kakkonen
My slides at Nordic Testing Days 6.6.2024
Climate impact / sustainability of software testing discussed on the talk. ICT and testing must carry their part of global responsibility to help with the climat warming. We can minimize the carbon footprint but we can also have a carbon handprint, a positive impact on the climate. Quality characteristics can be added with sustainability, and then measured continuously. Test environments can be used less, and in smaller scale and on demand. Test techniques can be used in optimizing or minimizing number of tests. Test automation can be used to speed up testing.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Enhancing Performance with Globus and the Science DMZGlobus
ESnet has led the way in helping national facilities—and many other institutions in the research community—configure Science DMZs and troubleshoot network issues to maximize data transfer performance. In this talk we will present a summary of approaches and tips for getting the most out of your network infrastructure using Globus Connect Server.
Welcome to the first live UiPath Community Day Dubai! Join us for this unique occasion to meet our local and global UiPath Community and leaders. You will get a full view of the MEA region's automation landscape and the AI Powered automation technology capabilities of UiPath. Also, hosted by our local partners Marc Ellis, you will enjoy a half-day packed with industry insights and automation peers networking.
📕 Curious on our agenda? Wait no more!
10:00 Welcome note - UiPath Community in Dubai
Lovely Sinha, UiPath Community Chapter Leader, UiPath MVPx3, Hyper-automation Consultant, First Abu Dhabi Bank
10:20 A UiPath cross-region MEA overview
Ashraf El Zarka, VP and Managing Director MEA, UiPath
10:35: Customer Success Journey
Deepthi Deepak, Head of Intelligent Automation CoE, First Abu Dhabi Bank
11:15 The UiPath approach to GenAI with our three principles: improve accuracy, supercharge productivity, and automate more
Boris Krumrey, Global VP, Automation Innovation, UiPath
12:15 To discover how Marc Ellis leverages tech-driven solutions in recruitment and managed services.
Brendan Lingam, Director of Sales and Business Development, Marc Ellis
SAP Sapphire 2024 - ASUG301 building better apps with SAP Fiori.pdfPeter Spielvogel
Building better applications for business users with SAP Fiori.
• What is SAP Fiori and why it matters to you
• How a better user experience drives measurable business benefits
• How to get started with SAP Fiori today
• How SAP Fiori elements accelerates application development
• How SAP Build Code includes SAP Fiori tools and other generative artificial intelligence capabilities
• How SAP Fiori paves the way for using AI in SAP apps
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
zkStudyClub - Reef: Fast Succinct Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge Regex ProofsAlex Pruden
This paper presents Reef, a system for generating publicly verifiable succinct non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs that a committed document matches or does not match a regular expression. We describe applications such as proving the strength of passwords, the provenance of email despite redactions, the validity of oblivious DNS queries, and the existence of mutations in DNA. Reef supports the Perl Compatible Regular Expression syntax, including wildcards, alternation, ranges, capture groups, Kleene star, negations, and lookarounds. Reef introduces a new type of automata, Skipping Alternating Finite Automata (SAFA), that skips irrelevant parts of a document when producing proofs without undermining soundness, and instantiates SAFA with a lookup argument. Our experimental evaluation confirms that Reef can generate proofs for documents with 32M characters; the proofs are small and cheap to verify (under a second).
Paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1886
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Removing Uninteresting Bytes in Software FuzzingAftab Hussain
Imagine a world where software fuzzing, the process of mutating bytes in test seeds to uncover hidden and erroneous program behaviors, becomes faster and more effective. A lot depends on the initial seeds, which can significantly dictate the trajectory of a fuzzing campaign, particularly in terms of how long it takes to uncover interesting behaviour in your code. We introduce DIAR, a technique designed to speedup fuzzing campaigns by pinpointing and eliminating those uninteresting bytes in the seeds. Picture this: instead of wasting valuable resources on meaningless mutations in large, bloated seeds, DIAR removes the unnecessary bytes, streamlining the entire process.
In this work, we equipped AFL, a popular fuzzer, with DIAR and examined two critical Linux libraries -- Libxml's xmllint, a tool for parsing xml documents, and Binutil's readelf, an essential debugging and security analysis command-line tool used to display detailed information about ELF (Executable and Linkable Format). Our preliminary results show that AFL+DIAR does not only discover new paths more quickly but also achieves higher coverage overall. This work thus showcases how starting with lean and optimized seeds can lead to faster, more comprehensive fuzzing campaigns -- and DIAR helps you find such seeds.
- These are slides of the talk given at IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop, ICSTW 2022.
2. Making Sense of Creativity
• A work in progress
• A case for engaging critically with the term
• A sense of a future direction for research
• An enquiry into some assessment issues
• The implications of this for A level work
• No easy answers!
6. The uncritical embrace of creativity
• Creativity is something unambiguously positive/desirable
• Emotional/intellectual/financial investment in creativity
• Multiple references to creativity in benchmark statements and
performance descriptors
• Increasingly enshrined in policy
• Rarely interrogated - reliance on common sense/folk psychology
7. Typical definitions
“Novel associations which are useful” (Isaksen and Treffinger,
1993)
“A process needed for problem solving…not a special gift enjoyed
by a few but a common ability possessed by most people” (Jones,
1993)
“The achieving of tangible products such as works of art or
science” (Abra, 1997)
“The making of the new and the rearranging of the old” (Bentley,
1997)
“Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of
three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person
who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts
who recognize and validate the innovation.” (Csikszentmihalyi,
1996)
8. Contradictions
Creativity is:
Rule breaking/boundary testing yet ‘appropriate’
A function of the unconscious yet the product of rational agency
A rarefied form of human production yet any form of human
production (exclusive/inclusive)
A ‘gift’ yet a ‘burden’
A process yet an outcome
A trait yet a state
Conceptual yet practical (a kind of knowledge/ a skill set)
Potential yet actual
Non-commercial yet ‘marketable’
9. Roberts’ Report: Nurturing Creativity
in Young People
‘…creativity is not only related to the arts but to all
subjects, including science and maths, and…it should
permeate everything children and young people do
in, and outside, of school.’ (p67)
10. Roberts’ Report: Government
Response
‘We believe, as QCA makes clear, that:
• Creativity involves thinking or behaving imaginatively;
• This imaginative activity is purposeful: that is, it is
directed to achieving an objective;
• These processes must generate something original;
• The outcome must be of value in relation to the
objective.’ (p4)
11. Themes and questions
1. Is creativity an internal cognitive function, or is it an external
social and cultural phenomenon?
2. Is creativity a pervasive, ubiquitous feature of human activity,
or a special faculty, either reserved for particular groups,
individuals, or particular domains of activity, in particular artistic
activity?
3. Is creativity an inevitable social good, invariably progressive,
harmonious and collaborative; or is it capable of disruption,
political critique and dissent, and even anti-social outcomes?
4. What does the notion of creative teaching and learning imply?
Banaji, Burn & Buckingham (2006)
13. The pragmatic response
• “Creativity has been defined…as ‘the ability to bring something
new into existence’; and this definition will serve our present
purpose well enough.” (Anthony Storr)
• “…this particular understanding of creativity involves the
physical making of something, leading to some form of
communication, expression or revelation. Of course there are
other forms, and other kinds, of creativity. But then it gets more
fuzzy, and can start to seem meaningless. In this context, going
with a ‘common sense’ interpretation of the term is probably as
good as any…” (David Gauntlett)
• “We favour a more inclusive notion of creativity that embraces
personal creativity used in problem working but the outcome
would not change the domain.” (Norman Jackson)
14. Research tendencies
• Neuroscientific
• Psychoanalytical
• Social/environmental/biographical
• ‘instrumental’
• Attribution based/social judgment theory
15. Neuroscience:
brain damage = creativity?
It is proposed that there are four basic types of
creative insights, each mediated by a distinctive
neural circuit. By definition, creative insights occur
in consciousness. Given the view that the working
memory buffer of the prefrontal cortex holds the
content of consciousness, each of the four
distinctive neural loops terminates there. When
creativity is the result of deliberate control, as
opposed to spontaneous generation, the prefrontal
cortex also instigates the creative process. Both
processing modes, deliberate and spontaneous, can
guide neural computation in structures that
contribute emotional content and in structures that
provide cognitive analysis, yielding the four basic
types of creativity. (Arne Dietrich)
16. Attributional/Social Judgment Theory
“This finding suggests that
having a perceived handicap
(such as being unpolished)
sometimes leads catchers to
judge a pitcher as more creative
than individuals who appear
more conventional. This
phenomenon might be termed
the quot;Woody Allen effectquot; after the
famously neurotic but talented
writer, director, and actor.”
Elsbach and Kramer, 2003
18. A philosophical problem?
• Creativity tends to be treated as a ‘given’
• Research tends to ‘work backwards’
• But the concept under scrutiny is inadequately
defined – does not have unproblematic ‘object’ status
19. A ‘cultural theory’ turning point
• “If we have learnt anything from cultural theory, it is
that a term like ‘violence’ cannot simply be a
descriptive collection of naturally grouping items.
Rather, it is a concept, a category of which we need
to ask a number of questions. What is, and isn’t,
contained under it - and how are the boundaries of
the concept policed against intrusions?”
Martin Barker
20. ‘Creativity works like violence’
• Both are used to connect rhetorically a range of
disparate human activities
• Both are predicated on a concept of ‘human nature’
• Both are ‘slippery’ and ‘sticky’ – hard to pin down, yet
often anchored with the attachment of modifiers
(‘gratuitous’/ ‘pure’)
• Both are built around ‘problems’ – how do we make it
happen?/how do we stop it?
• Both cling to a priori status, despite empirical
complications
21. Future directions
• Shift away from attempting to define a ‘phenomenon’
• Analysis of the construction of the concept through
academic, popular and public discourses and
representations (ideologies of creativity)
• Analysis of historical shifts in the meaning/importance
of the concept
• Analysis of language (rhetoric & temporary alliances
– talent/genius/art/craft/play)
• Examination of the ideological construction of a
‘creative identity’ (students/practitioners)
• ‘a refusal to operate with the category any longer’?
22. ‘The creative affordances of
technology’
‘If creativity is not inherent in human mental powers
and is, in fact, social and situational, then
technological developments may well be linked to
advances in the creativity of individual users. This
rhetoric covers a range of positions, from those who
applaud all technology as inherently improving, to
those who welcome it cautiously and see creativity as
residing in an, as yet, under- theorised relationship
between contexts, users and applications.’
Banaji, Burn & Buckingham (2006)
25. A problematic assessment term
‘Production of an artefact in an appropriate medium
which displays creativity and originality to
demonstrate your reflection on and exploration of
the theoretical concept.
In this artefact, and adjunct material, students are able
to demonstrate the successful synergy of a theoretical
position with contemporary media practice techniques in
an original way.’
MA in Creative & Media Education (Practice Unit)
29. Assessing (or not) creativity
‘The musical artefacts represent a considered
attempt to discover aspects of creativity through
different modes of production and, as such, they
constitute a contribution to this debate. There is some
originality in this approach and evidence of
attempting to problematise the nature of musical
production. A level of technical skill necessary to
produce coherent, appropriate products is also
evident.’
(Mark Readman: assessment of MACME Practice unit)
30. Human judgments
‘There is no absolute judgment. All judgments are
comparisons of one thing with another.’ (Donald
Laming)
31. Assessment
‘We cannot assess learning on its own, we can only
assess learning plus its form of representation.’
(Jenny Moon)
35. Grading Criteria?
‘For a great song...you need a great
chorus, you need a great voice singing
it and then I think you need to be
original with the instrumentation, the
arrangement. You just need to give
people something different.’
James Oldham
38. A pragmatic approach
• Acknowledge that assessment may not assess what
we think it assesses
• Strive for transparency in what is being assessed
• Consider difference between ‘knowledge object’ and
‘art object’
• Strive for a fit between objectives and criteria
• Identify implicit ‘assessment constructs’, particularly
with ‘creative work’
• Encourage students to engage with the construction
of the term, rather than accept it as a given