Daily Routines of Famous Creative People March 2, 2009

Mark McGuinness over at the Lateral Action Blog discovered a new blog which described the daily habits of famous creative types.  The collection includes Vladimir Nabokov, Benjamin Franklin, Jasper Johns, Franz Kafka and Ingmar Bergman. Mark describes it as an “Aladdin’s Cave for students of creativity and productivity.” The entries are categorised both by occupations (Architects, Artists, Filmmakers, Musicians and Composers etc) and by habits.

As an example, here’s Haruki Murakami’s typical working day:

When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long – six months to a year – requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.

Read the full blog entry and the link here.

Video on the Relationship Between Creativity and Play March 2, 2009

At the 2008 Serious Play conference, Tim Brown, CEO of the design firm Ideo presented on the relationship between creative thinking and play.He delivers some fascinating insights:

• Our tendency to categorize things self-edit our ideas
• The need for brainstorming rules
• The value of prototyping
• The usefulness of role playing

See this great video here.

Innovation and the 20% Solution February 9, 2009

A fascinating article on the Computerworld website takes a closer look at Google’s often admired but seldom imitated “20 percent rule,” which allows engineers to spend one-fifth of their time on corporate projects of their choosing, even if the project isn’t part of their job descriptions. What caught my eye about this article is this keen assessment of the real value that this exceptional practice brings to Google:

“What the 20 percent rule has done at Google is turn a significant chunk of the company into something akin to a venture-capital innovation laboratory, but without outside funding to seed the work.”

Read the full article here.

TRIZ and DeBono’s Six Thinking Hats February 9, 2009

The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) is built on solid technical rather than psychological foundations. Combining TRIZ with psychology-based researcher Edward DeBono’s six thinking hats concept can enhance the power of TRIZ.The premise of the hats concept is that the human brain works in different modes depending on the task it is performing – the brain mechanisms used when generating new ideas are significantly different to those present when calculating pros and cons of an existing idea. DeBono identified six thought modes relevant during the problem-solving process and identified each mode by a different colored hat. Each color denotes a different thinking mode

This concept has been integrated into a generic TRIZ-based problem definition and solving procedure.

Read the full article on RealInnovation.com here.

How Creative Thinking Can Help in the Downturn January 26, 2009

It doesn’t matter what the economic conditions are, better thinking is never a luxury. In fact, better thinking is an absolute necessity when times are hard, according to noted creativity expert Edward de Bono. de Bono is a prominent thinker in creativity circles.  This brief article serves to incentivize leaders to think laterally about their situation to improve their chances for survival and success.

Read the article here.