This document discusses how IT professionals can benefit from adopting more artistic sensibilities. It argues that while IT work traditionally focuses on analysis and avoiding surprises, today's complex technological landscape requires more creative approaches. Specifically, it suggests IT professionals would be helped by practices like generating alternative possibilities, synthesizing disparate ideas, inverting constraints, and communicating concepts in novel ways. The document advocates cultivating a more positive mood to encourage creative thinking and outlines how creativity will become increasingly important as technology continues to rapidly change and evolve.
Innovation. It's the heartbeat of today's economy. It's also where meeting professionals need to focus their attention, time and resources to compete in the meetings marketplace.
Average meetings are planned by average meeting professionals. Yet, most conference attendees don't want to pay for an average conference. They want a unique experience.
Innovative conferences are planned by innovative meeting professionals. Innovators think and act differently. Discover the Conference Innovators DNA
Learn the 5 Discovery Skills of Out-Performing Innovators
Based on the innovator’s DNA study by Christensen et al
Presented by Linda Naiman Founder, Creativity at Work.com
For ProductCamp, Vancouver 2013
Innovation. It's the heartbeat of today's economy. It's also where meeting professionals need to focus their attention, time and resources to compete in the meetings marketplace.
Average meetings are planned by average meeting professionals. Yet, most conference attendees don't want to pay for an average conference. They want a unique experience.
Innovative conferences are planned by innovative meeting professionals. Innovators think and act differently. Discover the Conference Innovators DNA
Learn the 5 Discovery Skills of Out-Performing Innovators
Based on the innovator’s DNA study by Christensen et al
Presented by Linda Naiman Founder, Creativity at Work.com
For ProductCamp, Vancouver 2013
Sparking Creativity And Fostering Innovation Biz Library WebinarBizLibrary
We know innovation is important. In this new webinar, you\'ll learn about the critical elements to an "innovation ecosystem" that - if present and nurtured - will enable your organization to encourage the creativity of your employees and foster a culture where innovative ideas turn into profitable solutions.
Sparking creativity and fostering innovation biz library webinarBizLibrary
We know innovation is important. In this new webinar, you'll learn about the critical elements to an "innovation ecosystem" that - if present and nurtured - will enable your organization to encourage the creativity of your employees and foster a culture where innovative ideas turn into profitable solutions.
Virtual SDGC20 Workshop | Oct 23, 2020 | Dungeons and designers play baseService Design Network
Workshop | Dungeons and (Service) Designers: Play-Based Worldbuilding With Research
PlayBase is a game/workshop format that allows participants to speculate on possible situations and take on different skillsets to problem-solve as a team. In this workshop Kokaew Wongpichet and Molly Oberholtzer are taking participants through the session from characters creation, game session and reflections on design application.
From FrontendConf Zurich 2016
As the web development landscape rapidly changes, good communication and collaboration between multiple job functions is key to not just a project’s success, but to a successful career as a front end developer. In this talk, we’ll discuss why it is important to grow yourself into a “T-shaped” developer - someone with deep knowledge in front end development, who can collaborate across multiple other disciplines. You'll leave knowing how to incorporate essential empathy and communication skills into your daily work life, leveling up your career, and the career of those around you.
Unlocking Innovation: Training Teams and Individuals to Have Every Day Breakthroughs
In order to stay ahead of the competition, people and teams must be creative and innovative. The key to success is engaging in ways of thinking that inspires breakthroughs. Science and technology is about using talent and skills to create possibilities. Did you know that there are proven tools to inspire teams to have every day breakthroughs? Uncover hidden talent on your team; learn strategies that are not only fun and creative, but also just might help you create the next breakthrough.
Learning Outcomes: Improve leadership skills to motivate, inspire, and foster innovation within an organization
At the end of this seminar participants will be able to:
a) Explore leadership skills that encourage creativity
b) Learn techniques and tools that support an inventive mind
c) Play games that inspire creativity and innovation
Sensemaking & Wayfinding: Why IA is Essential When Navigating Complex SystemsMatt Arnold
An increasingly complex world demands essential and ethical IA practices. This talk explored sensemaking, wayfinding, complexity, and essential IA practices.
Uncharted lands, or why games are not designed but discoveredJakub Stokalski
Even though we say we 'design' games the process is often similar to exploration of unknown seas. During a storm. In a ship that just started leaking - and is on fire. The lecture was given during Digital Dragons 2016 conference. It meant to highlight some mental and processual tools a game designer and his/her producer can use to maximise the quality of their work.
Deriving value from analytics requires much more than purchasing technology. University of Kentucky's analytics journey utilized fostering a bottom-up emergent community of practice as well as top-down organizational maneuvers. This presentation shares different aspects of the University of Kentucky score.
Sparking Creativity And Fostering Innovation Biz Library WebinarBizLibrary
We know innovation is important. In this new webinar, you\'ll learn about the critical elements to an "innovation ecosystem" that - if present and nurtured - will enable your organization to encourage the creativity of your employees and foster a culture where innovative ideas turn into profitable solutions.
Sparking creativity and fostering innovation biz library webinarBizLibrary
We know innovation is important. In this new webinar, you'll learn about the critical elements to an "innovation ecosystem" that - if present and nurtured - will enable your organization to encourage the creativity of your employees and foster a culture where innovative ideas turn into profitable solutions.
Virtual SDGC20 Workshop | Oct 23, 2020 | Dungeons and designers play baseService Design Network
Workshop | Dungeons and (Service) Designers: Play-Based Worldbuilding With Research
PlayBase is a game/workshop format that allows participants to speculate on possible situations and take on different skillsets to problem-solve as a team. In this workshop Kokaew Wongpichet and Molly Oberholtzer are taking participants through the session from characters creation, game session and reflections on design application.
From FrontendConf Zurich 2016
As the web development landscape rapidly changes, good communication and collaboration between multiple job functions is key to not just a project’s success, but to a successful career as a front end developer. In this talk, we’ll discuss why it is important to grow yourself into a “T-shaped” developer - someone with deep knowledge in front end development, who can collaborate across multiple other disciplines. You'll leave knowing how to incorporate essential empathy and communication skills into your daily work life, leveling up your career, and the career of those around you.
Unlocking Innovation: Training Teams and Individuals to Have Every Day Breakthroughs
In order to stay ahead of the competition, people and teams must be creative and innovative. The key to success is engaging in ways of thinking that inspires breakthroughs. Science and technology is about using talent and skills to create possibilities. Did you know that there are proven tools to inspire teams to have every day breakthroughs? Uncover hidden talent on your team; learn strategies that are not only fun and creative, but also just might help you create the next breakthrough.
Learning Outcomes: Improve leadership skills to motivate, inspire, and foster innovation within an organization
At the end of this seminar participants will be able to:
a) Explore leadership skills that encourage creativity
b) Learn techniques and tools that support an inventive mind
c) Play games that inspire creativity and innovation
Sensemaking & Wayfinding: Why IA is Essential When Navigating Complex SystemsMatt Arnold
An increasingly complex world demands essential and ethical IA practices. This talk explored sensemaking, wayfinding, complexity, and essential IA practices.
Uncharted lands, or why games are not designed but discoveredJakub Stokalski
Even though we say we 'design' games the process is often similar to exploration of unknown seas. During a storm. In a ship that just started leaking - and is on fire. The lecture was given during Digital Dragons 2016 conference. It meant to highlight some mental and processual tools a game designer and his/her producer can use to maximise the quality of their work.
Deriving value from analytics requires much more than purchasing technology. University of Kentucky's analytics journey utilized fostering a bottom-up emergent community of practice as well as top-down organizational maneuvers. This presentation shares different aspects of the University of Kentucky score.
Innovation and economic growth depends on company's ability to gain insight into data. However, data is growing exponentially, but our ability to make use of it is not. Untapped economic value resides in this unutilized data, called "dark data." This presentation looks at some of the causes for the explosion of data, some of the impediments preventing exploring and creating business value from dark data; and some ideas for ways around those impediments.
Logistics, Data in Motion and Paradigm Shift of the CIO: The economics and psychology of the flow of information. Advances in IT, especially cloud technologies, are causing a shift in the role of the CIO.
1. Why IT Needs Artistic Sensibilities
Royalty, Lenora Clark Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2007
Vince Kellen
CIO, University of Kentucky
November 5, 2010
2. What do we typically do in IT?
Analyze
Explore cause & effect
Dissect
Examine parts
Decompose
Identify risk
Avoid surprises
Make things work
2
3. Some assembly required
We do build things
• But according to rules
We copy eagerly
• Even if it is not quite right
We need an example
• Before we start
We want the requirements
• Written down
We hate not knowing
• What to do
We seek competency
• In repeatability
3
4. IT people speak in codes
About abstract concepts
Geekness
That only those who study IT
Actually know
We cannot easily express
In other languages
This abstract knowledge
Even to our spouses
And we get used to it
4
5. Stability
Change is effortful and hard yet we often implement change
We then work to stabilize the change
• To preserve the investment
• Because everyone wants us to
Since tool and tool maker shape each other, we acquire a deep,
bodily attachment to the tool and the product
Because some changes are spurious, or perceived as such
• Changes are often treated with skepticism
Because we are the tool
• Changes are sometimes consciously and non-consciously resisted
5
8. “That’s too
visual. I can’t
talk about it.”
Wit, childlike, old, worn,
organic, man-made,
geometric, textured,
nuanced, deep colors
8
9. Creativity
Generate or recognize patterns, ideas, alternatives, possibilities
(strange)
Fusion: bringing together disparate parts in novel, surprising and
appropriate solutions. Rethinking the parts. Synthesis.
While some of this may be explicit, it is usually implicit, non-
conscious, but definitely influenced by experience, training and
thought
Counterfactual thinking, thinking about what is NOT there, or
thinking with relaxed rules of construction
Seeking to eliminate constraints to thoughts
9
10. Ask a 14 year old…
How do you do it?
• “I don’t know. I just look
inside myself.”
Do you copy?
• “No!”
Does it take courage?
• “Yes.”
10
11. IT and art share some things
Tool identification and a reluctance to shed the tool
Procedural skill: craftsmanship, knowledge of the materials
Public critiques of concrete, observable artifacts
Difficulty with personal re-invention
11
12. Theorizing about future states
Common
• Understand the goal
• Understand the current constraints
• Connect the dots around the constraints
Uncommon
• In a constant cycle
– Invert, move or remove the current constraints
– Experiment with designs
– Understand and redefine the goal
12
13. Mood and creativity
Negative mood encourages externally driven, focused on threat
identification, aggressive searching of problem states/solutions
(Outward-in, bottom-up)
Positive mood encourages application of more automatic, internal
views of things to be applied to our actions (Inward-out, top-down)
13
14. What is happening today?
Lots of moving parts
Quick change
Unanticipated events
Fear
14
15. Complexity of IT
One must fit many, substitutable, overlapping parts together:
While the parts are constantly changing and evolving
While the organization is learning and adapting to IT
While external pressures ‘force’ even more adoption
And internal forces are increasingly conflicted
15
16. What do we need?
Novel ways of reframing constraints
Novel ways of reframing parts: IT, individual, organizational
Novel ways of reorganizing parts and constraints
Ability to detect our own and others’ dogma
Ability to inspect and unpack rules
Ability to communicate different concepts, methods
An openness to entertaining different concepts, methods
Suspension of disbelief
16
17. What makes the great great?
Team expertise
++ Team creativity
Benefit
Superior
Solution
0 ++
Cost
17
18. With EpicMix, all your activity on the slopes is automatically captured
and uploaded to your EpicMix dashboard. Now you can follow your days
skied, track your vertical feet, see where you rode, earn EpicMix pins for
your achievements, and collect points. You can also connect with your
social networks like Facebook and Twitter and share your stats, pins and
points. All this is possible because of Radio Frequency scanners at the
base of every lift, and RF technology built into every Vail Resorts season
pass, and PEAKS lift ticket.
18
19. IT is quickly evolving from largely an analytic, solution-fitting skill
to a rule-bending, integrative and creative skill
As more IT can be packaged and outsourced, we need people
who can re-conceptualize more than just the technology parts
We need people who can re-imagine multiple future states
across human-technical lines
Who can easily listen to and learn from others
Who can inspire others to participate in this dialog
19