Creativity needs time...

An interesting experiment on video, to prove that creativity does need time.

Tragedy of the creatives

It's been a while since I last blogged, and many things have inspired me to start blogging again. It will take a lot more effort on my part to work on my blogging articles nowadays, what with the presence of my twin bundle of joys recently, but I think in order to maintain my sanity, I should continue using this platform as an outlet for some of my professional rants.

I was honoured to be part of the group of educational skunkworks of sorts, that is looking to make some changes in the educational scene, although maybe perhaps, for a start, a rather small one. But it is a good start, and I definitely can see the potential for such a small band of outliers to work on something, that would eventually create a domino effect that would eventually effect the mainstream masses. What I really got out of the first conversations that I had was this idea and potential of creativity, and its implications on leadership. I'm not going to dwell any deeper into what transpired during the discussions, but I thought it was one of those intellectual discourses that freshens my cognitive elements, and sets me thinking, about what it is really like to be creative.

No doubt there have been numerous articles and other collaterals that talk about creativity from different perspectives, but I thought I just like to pick up on the idea of having some degree of structures in place in order to promote creativity. I know this might sound oxymoronic, but the irony of creativity is that we would have to know and understand where our boundaries are, before realising how to work within (or out of) these boundaries, in order to get or be creative.

I came across the term 'straight-jacketing' and I thought the word is perhaps an apt yet beautiful description of what would need to be done, in order to induce creativity. Isn't the existence of barriers and limitations a precursor to the development of creativity? Isn't the understanding of known boundaries, or of knowing what has been done before, a catalyst for one to be creative...and to be creating something new? I guess that's is where the term 'out of the box' come into the picture, when one is talking about creativity.

When being Innovative is more important than being Creative

I had some time to think things through this 'debate' the last couple of days, on what makes somebody creative or innovative. And perhaps the debate on whether it is more important to be creative, or innovative. The debate seems to stem from the idea that I had that there should be a balance between the two, especially in my approaches towards teaching my charges this idea of 'creativity versus innovation'. But could there really be only one thing that one should focus on, in order to give that sense of value-addedness? 

I was reminded the other time about how Apple is not necessarily the most creative company in the world. A case in point was that they were NOT the ones who invented the portable digital music player, nor the mouse, and neither the tablet. But what they did to the idea of

• how a portable digital music player should be part of an 'ecosystem', 
• how a mouse should operate buttonlessly and 
• how a tablet should look like and be experienced with multi-touches and gestures...

now...these are indeed examples of innovation. Yes they were not original ideas, nor their overarching concepts of working totally original, but the very fact that they have managed to leverage on an existing design concept, and work on how to transform these elements into a 'disruptive' tool to the current status quo...now that's innovation at its finest.

So perhaps creativity does have its place in the whole scheme of things, but in order for things to get really moving, and exciting, the innovative piece of the puzzle must also be present, and in order. And then perhaps...just perhaps, things could move along along a more 'disruptive' mode!

The chance favours the connected mind...

When half a hunch is better than none...an enlightening clip.

Ideation: the cartographic potential

Taken from: http://bit.ly/sbMOCk

One of the main challenges that I have as an educator in the creative fields is the challenge of following and 'seeing' how my charges swim through their mish-mash of ideas, and counter-ideas. Mind-maps, concept-maps, sketches and words might help, but I thought there ought to be an effective way of putting all of these together in an 'orderly-yet-choatic' manner, akin to how the human mind perceives things.

I chance upon the idea of cartographing these mish mash, perhaps in the form of a map of sorts, that would enable the human subject to capture and enunciate his or her thoughts and ideas in a more visual, and perhaps be better understood by those around.

Wikipedia defines cartography as "...the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively."

I would like to proposed the idea of mapping these thoughts and ideas much like how a map would show the terrains and geographical information on a piece of real estate. And more than just about representing such information on a 2-D flat form, I would like to see such a visualisation being done in more than just the 3D that one can leverage on. A timeline, incorporated into such a visualisation scheme of things would definitely help to put some things in context. Having such a chronological perspective adds up to the richness of the information. In fact, having such details being mapped out in a terrain-like manner, akin to those found representing the different elevation levels, would be one way of looking at it.

And how do one make connections from one piece of the jigsaw to another. Tributaries, and other means of links could be introduced. Perhaps pathways, water tributaries, and maybe even the use of similar representations of elevation could be one suggested way.

I personally and professionally think that this means of information visualisation could be thought through a little deeper, and perhaps worked on by my charges. Let me see how I can crystalise such a scheme a little more clearly over the coming weeks and months.

The irony between creativity and experience

Taken from: http://bit.ly/dvew1X

I find it initially disconcerting to know that at most times the best of ideas come not from the richness of one's experience. There are those that blossoms from one's seemingly lack of understanding and experience in dealing with a given scenario. But is this necessarily an undesirable thing?

I for once don't rule out the fact that as creativity becomes a more valued commodity in this day and age, such 'wealth' is no longer the domain of those who are valued simply based on their past experiences. There are numerous times that I have been led to believe that things would work out fine if one were to get someone with a wealth of experience to do the job.

I guess it is alright if one were to look at non-creative solutions to a problem, or having the tried-and-tested methods being executed by a team that has already been there...and done that. But the workplaces of the future is no longer just about doing the same thing, again and again, and expecting the same results. Pretty much summed up by what Eistein used to say about insanity:

'Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again 
and expecting different results.'

And it is not just about the creative potential of one who has not seen the issue, or the creative options that could be explored by someone who has lesser experience. More so, it is about having both the creativity to know what's doable, and then the GUMPTION to do what one thinks is the right thing to do...though not necessarily popular.

And this is where the irony lies! Having a wealth of experience doesn't mean that one has the creative potential, or has more creative juices to offer. Ironically, this wealth could actually work against him or her. Alternatively, having that fresh pair of eyes to offer insight and look at the issue is not necessarily a bad thing altogether. Perhaps, more can be offered when the mind is unhindered, and when emotions are not attending to any baggage, whether emotional or otherwise.

...to end this short blog post, a quote from me, based on my experience the last few months:

Creativity is not necessarily the domain of those who are experienced; and neither does experience contributes to one's creativity basket. But the one who is able to see this difference and then leverage on its distinction, will be secured of his creative sight, and experience, without forgoing either...Irfan Darian

Standardising Multi-touches & gesturing...

It's been a while....and I've been busy. But I do hope that I can start to actively blog, well at least for the next few weeks, when things at work start to wind down.

My inspiration for today's blog comes from watching this video from Microsoft:

Although I'm a Mac user, I thought it is a nice video to showcase the possibilities that the future can hold for the masses. But looking at the clip, I was just wondering whether there would be a need for some form of a international standardisation of sorts in terms of how multi-touches and gesturing on a touchscreen would be done. Especially so when there exists a greater variety of platforms currently available on the smart phones and tablets. And more so when there is that remote possibility of moving touchscreen gesturing into the third dimension, when graphics processing power and the likes would be able to be handled by processors with smaller footprints.

And why should gesturing just be confined to the fingers, or the fingertips too. How about incorporating and integrating finger-like gestures with other input elements, such as audio (voice-recognition perhaps), retinal-movement, full-hand swiping (such as those found in current generation of game consoles)...and even full-body gesturing. You just never know the possibilities.

But of course the problem would be how can these (gesturing) be standardised across the various platforms. Could there be different standards for different devices? Or perhaps just one standard across all these devices? You could just never imagine what can transpire, can we?

'Uncovering' critical thinking through play

This is part 2 of my article on ideation using Playdoh, and I thought it was apt for me to highlight some key findings and observations.

In my first article written a few days ago, I mentioned briefly about how the use of Playdoh could overcome the brain block that most of our students would have when they were told to be creative and ideate. In this article, I would try to elucidate this further by touching on 2 examples that I have deemed to be creative, and that allowed me to make 'critical thinking' more tangible.

One good example is the idea of the door stopper done by one of the students as shown below. Moving away from the idea that a door stopper is always either located underneath or at the sides of doorways, this student decided to test out an idea on placing a door stopper on top of the door instead:

Design by Chin Wai Kit (Class of 1-07, 2011, SST)

What I really love about this idea was the fact that the student had considered firstly, the shape of his door stopper during the critical ideation and design phase. I thought that the shape and theme of his design was rather appropriate for the target audience of pre-primary school students (ages 6 and below). The fact that this was located at the top of the door, and not the bottom or the sides, also fulfilled the other requirement of the design challenge, i.e. the stopper must be able to be removed only with adult supervision.

The other critical thought that was apparent was when he was asked to pose for a picture. He realizes that the weight of the protruding section of his design was rather heavy when using the same material; it made him realize about the importance of detailing even further. Changing or using lesser materials, or redesigning that section, were some considerations that were uncovered when the student was asked about possible improvements. I thought this was a good and realistic example of how a teacher could leverage on an appropriate teachable moment, seize it, and have the students aware and reflect about it, more critically!

The other example was the idea of a mobile-phone charging unit that was able to store the charging equipment, and had a coiler element to prevent wires from getting entangled and becoming a mess. The student's idea is as shown below:

Design by Ragul (Class of 1-08, 2011, SST)

I thought the idea was creatively simple...being inspired by the shape of his hand. What I did like more about his concept was the fact that the student, upon being inquired, was able to articulate how his idea worked, and more importantly, the reasons for some of the product features. The fingers were not merely there to just 'complete' the idea, but acted also as coilers for the wires of the charging cables. The fact that the space allotted for the placement of the phone was rather wide, was also a design consideration, as the student reasoned that it was supposed to be designed for the general phone sizes, instead of just a particular brand or type of phone. I thought his idea of 'inclusive' design is interesting, coming from a situation whereby the focus was only for them to work on the type of mobile phone that they were familiar with, or were using at that point of time.

Of course there were more examples that I had uncovered that really enlightened me on how some of these critical thinking could be 'seen' or demonstrated. I do strongly believe that there were a lot more findings that I would need to uncover further, as I continue to study some of the works done by the students, as well as the sketches that they have followed up with in order to illustrate their ideas even clearer. It was really an interesting and elucidating moment, coming from an educator like myself, to see and visualise critical thinking really happening in front of me. I do hope that I could do and follow up with more articles and thoughts about my classes when time permits. But until then...

Signing off

Irfan Darian

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