Here are 3 potential business concepts generated using the process outlined in the activity: 1. A smart refrigerator that automatically reorders groceries when items are getting low, drawing from a database of the user's purchase history and preferences. Orders would be delivered on a scheduled day each week. 2. An in-car karaoke system that connects to a music streaming service, includes a high-quality microphone, and displays lyrics in sync with the song on the car's onboard display. Users could search songs, create playlists, and track their singing stats. 3. An augmented reality messaging app that allows users to capture messages using AR effects, costumes, locations, and interactive objects/scenes. Messages could be sent to friends

1. Opportunity, Innovation
and Entrepreneurship
The Role of Creativity

3. Creativity and Entrepreneurs
• “Entrepreneurs are able to blend imaginative & creative
thinking with a systematic, logical process ability.” (Kuratko
& Hodgetts, 1992)
• “First rule in developing entrepreneurial vision is to
recognise that problems are to solutions what demand is to
supply.” (Kuratko & Hodgetts, 1992)

4. Where does Creativity come from ?
• A divine quality - something only gifted people have.
• Serendipitous activity - much evidence supports the lucky break
theory
• Planned luck - looking for opportunities
• Endurance - hard work and persistence
• Idea generation methods

5. The Creative Process
• Creativity can be developed and improved
• Distinct way of looking at the world
• Involves seeing relationships that others may not see
• Structured and focused chaos

6. ‘Schools of thought’
• Attribute theories - creativity is something that is inherent
• Conceptual skills theories - new ways of thinking, using your brain …
can be taught / learned
• Behavioural theories - encourage creative habits
• Process theories - creativity is highly complex and multi-faceted.
Individual talents, skills, actions, and organisational conditions all
contribute.

7. Characteristics of Creative People?
• Bright
• Inquisitive
• Adaptable and flexible as opposed to rigid or dogmatic
• Good at generating ideas
• Have a positive image of themselves
• Challenge oriented - motivated
• Sensitive to their environment
• Value their independence and do not have strong need for approval
• Lead a rich, almost bizarre, fantasy life
• Able to withhold the decision on a problem
until sufficient facts have been collected

8. Myths of Creativity
• The smarter you are, the more
creative you are
• Money Is a Creativity Motivator
• Creativity exists outside of time and
circumstance • Time Pressure Fuels Creativity
• Creative people are risk takers • Fear Forces Breakthroughs
• The creative act is essentially • Competition Beats Collaboration
effortless • A Streamlined Organization Is a
• Creativity derives from eccentric Creative Organization
personalities
• Creativity exists only in the arts • Amabile
• Coming up with new ideas is the most
difficult part of creativity
• Creative output is always good
Andriopoulos & Dawson 2009

9. The smarter you are, the more
creative you are
The creative process requires a certain level of
intelligence, but above a basic level, there is no
evidence for any significant link between the
two (Amabile, 1996)

10. Creativity exists outside of time and
circumstance
The creative process is an ongoing contextual
dynamic process that is inextricably linked to
domains of knowledge.. A dynamic flow
between a person‟s thoughts and the changing
social context from which they draw and refine
their ideas (Andriopoulos & Dawson, 2009)

11. Creative people are risk takers
Willingness to take calculated risks and ability
to think in non-traditional ways figure but…You
do not have to be a bungee jumper to be
creative (Smith and Reinertsen, 2004)

12. The creative act is essential
effortless
Although creativity is a complex process, there
is a tendency to emphasise the illumination
stage, this fails to recognise the role of many
trials, dead ends and a lot of personal effort
(Placone 1989)

13. Creativity derives from eccentric
personalities
It is more useful to consider that creativity
arises from a particular behaviour then resulting
from a particular product or idea. (Andriopoulos
& Dawson, 2009)

14. Coming up with new ideas is the
most difficult part of creativity
There are many techniques to help creative
persons generate new ideas.. the difficult part..
Is to identify those that have value and are
realizable (Rogers, 1995)

15. Creativity exists only in the arts
Creativity is a human behaviour which exists in
any human activity and not just in literature or
music etc (Amabile 1996)

16. Creative output is always good
Novel ideas can also be applied to evil and
destructive ends as well as good, responsible
and constructive ends (Amabile 1996)

17. Money Is a Creativity Motivator
People are most creative when they care about their
work and they're stretching their skills. Employees
don't think about pay on a day-to-day basis-and the
handful of people who were spending a lot of time
wondering about their bonuses do very little creative
thinking. (Amabile)

18. Time Pressure Fuels Creativity
Time pressure stifles creativity because people can't deeply
engage with the problem. Creativity requires an incubation
period; people need time to soak in a problem and let the
ideas bubble up. it's not so much the deadline that's the
problem; it's the distractions that rob people of the time to
make that creative breakthrough. People can certainly be
creative when they're under the gun, but only when they're
able to focus on the work. (Amabile)

19. Fear Forces Breakthroughs
Creativity is positively associated with joy and love and
negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety.
People are happiest when they come up with a creative
idea. They're more likely to have a breakthrough if they
were happy the day before. (Amabile)

20. Competition Beats Collaboration
The most creative teams are those that have the
confidence to share and debate ideas. But when
people compete for recognition, they stop sharing
information. And that's destructive because nobody
in an organization has all of the information required
to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. (Amabile)

21. A Streamlined Organization Is a
Creative Organization
Creativity suffers greatly during a downsizing. Every single one of
the stimulants to creativity in the work environment went down
significantly during a downsizing. Anticipation of the downsizing was
even worse than the downsizing itself -- people's fear of the
unknown led them to basically disengage from the work.
Even five months after the downsizing, creativity was still down
significantly. (Amabile)

22. The Creative Process
• Entrepreneurs need ideas to pursue, and ideas seldom materialize
accidentally. Ideas usually evolve through a creative process
whereby imaginative people, germinate ideas, nurture them, and
develop them successfully.
• Various labels have been applied to stages in the creative process, but
most social scientist agree on five stages that we label as:
– Idea Germination
– Preparation
– Incubation
– Illumination
– Verification

23. Additional Notes:
Practical Tips to Enhance the „Creative Process‟
• Creativity is a process that can be developed and improved.
• Entrepreneurs have been taught to think and act creatively.
• There are 4 commonly agreed upon phases in the creative
process.
• Playing with creativity
– http://www.creativethinking.net/WP04_Exercises.htm

24. A ‘Hybrid’ Model of the Creative Process
• Idea Germination – the seeding stage of a new idea –
Recognition
• Preparation – conscious search for knowledge – Rationalisation
• Incubation – subconscious assimilation of information –
Fantasizing
• Illumination – recognition of idea as being feasible –
Realization
• Verification – application or test to prove idea has value -
Validation

26. First, in groups, list the attributes of a
screwdriver.

27. First, list the attributes of a screwdriver.
• Round steel shaft
• Wooden or plastic handle
• Wedge-shaped tip
• Manually operated
• Used for tightening or loosening screws

28. Next, focus on each specific attribute and ask
"How else can this be accomplished?" or "Why
does this have to be this way?"
• What can I substitute for this • Can I modify it in some fashion?
attribute?
• Can I put it to some other use?
• What can be combined with it?
• What can I eliminate?
• Can I adapt something to it?
• Can the parts be rearranged?
• Can I add or magnify it?
• What is the reverse of this?

29. Resulting innovations
• Focusing on the handle, a Swedish company created a handle with space
for both hands. It was so successful, they later developed a full range of
tools with a long handles.
• In the Third World, an aspiring inventor added a battery to provide
power. This power source proved to be more reliable than electricity.
• An entrepreneur came up with a better arrangement. He created shafts
that were made interchangeable to fit various size screws, which obviated
the need to have several screwdrivers.
• A Japanese engineer invented a bendable electric screwdriver with a
super-flexible shaft to reach out of the way places.

30. Phase 1: Background of Knowledge
Accumulation.
• Successful creations are generally preceded by investigation and
information gathering.
• Additional investigation in both related and unrelated fields is
sometimes involved
• There are a number of ways to practice the creative search for
background knowledge.

31. Phase 2: The Incubation Process
• Creative entrepreneurs allow their subconscious to mull
over the tremendous amounts of information they
gather during the preparation phase.
• Getting away from a problem and letting the
subconscious mind work on it allows creativity to spring
forth.

32. Phase 3: The Idea Experience
• The Idea is discovered
( keep a notepad by your bed!)
• Speeding up the Idea experience can be achieved through:
»Daydreaming
»Take regular breaks
»Put the issue to the back of
your mind

33. Phase 4: Evaluation & Implementation
• This phase involves reworking the idea from its rough draft form
• The most difficult part of the whole creative process
• To test the idea entrepreneurs can:
– seek advice from knowledgeable people
– trust their instincts
If at any stage a major unworkable problem arises then it is better to revert
back to the previous phase

34. The Creative Thinking Process
Diagram
(Kuratko & Hodgetts, 1992)
Incubation
Knowledge Creative Process Ideas
Accumulation
Evaluation &
Implementation

35. Tips to encourage creative behaviour
• Knowing when to shape environments and when to leave
them alone
• Reward creativity in those who display it
• Take sensible risks
• Overcome obstacles, don‟t let them overcome you
• Think for the long term
• Keep growing
• Be aware of the danger of knowing too much

36. Aiding Individual Creativity
• Role models
• Reward systems
• Peer Pressure
• Management Culture

37. ‘Diamond Thinking’
• Creative people are often „divergent‟ thinkers - generating
ideas
• „Business Studies‟ courses encourage „convergent thinking -
coming to solutions
• „Diamond‟ thinking encourages a period of „divergent‟ thinking
followed by a period of „convergent‟ thinking. Entrepreneurs ?

38. Convergent thinking

39. Divergent thinking

40. De bono’s hats

41. Activity 1
• With the ideas you developed in the speed innovating
seminar
• In groups, work on assessing the opportunity using the
different hats

42. Activity 2
The object of the exercise is to create at least 3 new, innovative business
concepts for one of the following:
– a product or service for the food industry
– a service or accessory for a car
– a communications device or service
Suggested process for groups of three / four:
1. Brain storming …. divergent thinking. The rules include: no criticism;
freewheeling / piggybacking; quantity is best; combinations and
improvements.
2. Consider your three best ideas, and use associative thinking to
improve further (e.g. how is this like a …. Church, space station,
Disneyland, etc ?)
3. Present your best idea to the class, indicating why you think it‟s a
viable proposition.