Crucible
Creativity and Innovation
Crucible
Creativity and Innovation
No grazing, no milk
Crucible
Objectives for the Session
• Explore creative thinking techniques
• Develop your ideas
Crucible
Creative Thinking
• A technique for producing ideas
• Reverse engineering
• Biomimicry
Crucible
New & DifferentNew & Different
Pro
fita
bili
tyP
rofi
tab
ility
Crucible
A Technique for Producing Ideas
•Improving on nature
•Hard work
•Frustrating
•Bringing to front of mind
•Something people take for granted
Crucible
A Technique for Producing Milk
• Grazing
• Chewing the cud
• Digestion
• Producing milk
• Bottling
Crucible
But first...
What is an idea?Examples
Why do you need them?3 situations
Where do they come from?You vs. the ether?
Crucible
What is an Idea?
• An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements
‘A Technique For Producing Ideas.’ A Step-By-Step Technique For Sparking Creativity in Advertising or Any Field by James Webb Young
• Collecting elements
• Combining them
• Spotting relationships
Crucible
Grazing
Observe Specific and general
‘Life observations’ will come to you
Scrapbooks
ThinkSome thoughts will be more original
Write
Crucible
Chewing the Cud
Until it hurts
Write down all the partial ideas
Crucible
Digestion
Like the process of digestionthis stage is automatic
Crucible
Producing Milk
Unlike milking, this stage is largely automatic, but you can help it
Sherlock Holmes
Hubble Telescope
Crucible
Bottling
”Submit your idea to the criticism of the judicious”
”A good idea has, as it were, self-expanding qualities”
”The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas”
Linus Pauling
Crucible
Some Other Techniques
Reverse engineering
Biomimicry
The power of the random word
Crucible
Some Other Techniques
Reverse engineering
Design a working environment, where creativity cannot flourish
Crucible
Some Other Techniques
Biomimicry
From ‘bios’, meaning life, and ‘mimesis’, meaning to imitate. A new science that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems.
www.biomimicry.net/case_studies_materials.html
©Biomimicry Guild 1999
Crucible
Some Other Techniques
Biomimicry
It relates to the application of analogies or properties from the natural world to the problem environment you are placed. This is a hugely exciting and expanding area in science and presents some huge opportunities.
Crucible
Some Other Techniques
BiomimicryNatural Inspiration Practical Use
Spider’s web Human fishing
Design of the honeycomb Aircraft shells
Dolphin and shark skin Submarine hulls
Hedgerows Barbed wire
Large wood boring beetle Chainsaw designs
Sunflowers tracking sun Solar panels that alter angles
Gecko’s foot Adaptable adhesives
The human eye Burglar alarm sensors
Termite mounds More efficient heating for houses
Crucible
Some Other Techniques
Power of the random word
Bomb making with words“Words are like little bombs”
Presentations need to explode
“Words are themselves ideas in a state of suspended animation” (JWY)
Focus on a single word
Crucible
Some Other Techniques
Bomb making with words
Which word sums up your research interests?