The Creativity sessions are some of my favorites to explore with my students. The picture, right, is from my 2008 sessions which I carefully documented from my courses at ZSEM.This week in class we examined creativity as part of the entrepreneurial process. Incorporated into lessons are a variety of tools that one can use to curiously explore hidden potential. We used an Ebay song parody by Weird Al Yankovic to further inspect the transformation of "junk" - useless objects to "treasure" - renewed value as seen in the eyes of the customer. Students were encouraged to try out techniques of random input, word association, forced relationships, brainstorming, reverse brainstorming, mindmapping, Gordan's method and storyboarding.
Through the class session, students worked on each method and discovered which ones worked for them. If you are interested in more creativity exercises, check out some of my favorite links below and/or leave some of your favorite ones for the rest of us to explore in your comments.
Creativity for the lifelong learner starts at MindTools.com.
Mentalrobics exercises for Creativity
Psychology Today article with creativity exercises as part of Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project
Creativity Portal for endless creative prompts
Get the pulse on what's next from Springwise.com and their team of worldwide idea scouts
Creating space for innovation is explored in this BusinessWeek slideshow profile on Jump Associates
Discover what all the buzz is about Kickstarter.com which is making funding the arts as simple as a click, pay and perk.
Hello Prof. Zec,
ReplyDeletethank you very much for these useful websites. I particularly appreciated springwise.com, it shows how inventive the human being can be!
And thank you for bringing creativity time in class!
Julien Bavencoffe
Mind mapping is so useful, i can't get enough of it! Just the other day i was creating a plan how to do the European Union seminar, and the next moment i was mind mapping.
ReplyDeleteI think is the best 'individual' technique because it's a 'mind opener'.
Fran Ćurković
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ReplyDeleteKickstarter is somehow very interesting, and very useful for some ideas that can not be developed and tracked in some surroundings, so people can transfer it to someone else who will develop their ideas.
ReplyDeleteIvo Šiško
I enjoyed word association the most because the way I went about it was associating each word with the previous word rather than the original word - An insight into how my mind works! :) Besides word association, I found mind mapping to be the most comprehensive and with the highest utility.
ReplyDelete- Ali Saleem.
I really like Brainstorming. It is the most helpful technique. Everything is easier when you think like a group. Everyone has a different idea, and when you put them together you get a great result.
ReplyDeleteMaja Dobranić
The creativity techniques I prefer is reverse brainstorming. I like it because it looks so easy, simple and unusable. And the results are very usable.
ReplyDeleteI also like word association because it is simple.
Josip Baršić
I really enjoyed learning all of these creative techniques. I have to admit that before I did not knew that there are so many. It is really useful and help to develop ideas. Most I liked the technique of mind mapping, which stimulates imagination and develops the idea.
ReplyDelete