Creativity Questions this page may take a moment to load
Dr. I. L. Create, The Viz Whiz, Mr. Crayon, Wandering Alan
________________________________________________________________________________
What questions about Creativity, Creative Thinking, Creative Problem Solving do you want to ask? If I do not have the answers I will gladly reach out and ask creativity colleagues from around the globe your questions.
This is a new page begun May 21st to begin to share answers to many creativity questions. If you do not find your question on this page please write to me directly at alan@cre8ng.com. I will answer you directly. Then I will add it and the answer to this page. If I can not answer it I will either reach out to a source of mine around the world or direct you to who you would gain the best answer from.
________________________________________________________________________________
What is creativity?
Unfortunately this question is equal to asking what is love. Nearly every person has their own definition of creativity. Among the several hundred creativity consultants and researchers I have met since 1976 there are even many definitions. A Russian-American friend, Andrei Aleinikov, edited a book titled 101 Definitions of Creativity for the Alden B. Dow Creativity Center a few years. 2 of them are mine.
I prefer to use the term "creative thinking".
Creative thinking is thinking in unique, novel, unusual ways for you.
Some people prefer to have levels of creative thinking from BIG "C" to little "c". BIG "C" is for creative thinking that produces brand new breakthroughs for all of mankind. Little "c" is creative thinking for an individual.
Also many writers and consultants prefer to state that creative thinking (ideas) need to be useful.
I do not see that as necessary. I prefer to save usefulness for "creative solutions" rather than creative ideas.
________________________________________________________________________________
What stops creativity?
Many things block, stop, hinder, minimize creative thinking. They can be personal, physical, social, emotional, psychological, work-related. James Adams has written an excellent piece on Creative Blocks in his excellent book CREATIVE BLOCKBUSTING.
I have a few articles on my website devoted to various forms of "creative blocks"...creativity articles.
________________________________________________________________________________
Is everyone creative?
I accepted this premise many years ago and have grown to support it more every year as I work with more and more people and travel around the world to work with people in many countries.
We are born with many traits that are maximized by "highly creative" people. Paul Torrance began in his research to study four traits: fluency (ability to generate many ideas), flexibility (ability to generate many types of ideas or ideas from many perspectives), elaboration (tendency to see and add detail), originality (tendency to strive for and create novel, unique, new ideas) in the 1950s. Over the next 53 years he expanded his list to 20 that he measured with his TTCT - Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. I have been using a list of 32 human traits that experts over a 30 year period (1950 to 1980) studied and wrote about as traits of highly creative people with people around the world and have discovered that all people feel that they have at least 5 of them. Upon exploration I generally find that they possess several others or can easily develop the other 27 and many more.
________________________________________________________________________________
What is the Creative G.A.P.?
The Creative G.A.P. represents 3 primary myths I began attempting to dispel in the late1970s as a creative thinking consultant and speaker.
G. Only a few people are born creative.....it is a unique gift....wrong
A. Attitude does not effect creative thinking....for most people a positive attitude will open their creativity.
P. Creative thinking is not the result of a process...you either have it or you don't.
There are thousands of processes, tools, techniques, methods, approaches, systems that can help recharge, spark, heighten, expand, enrich creative thinking. Brainstorming was an early one. Meditation, guided imagery, metaphors, are just 3 of hundreds to thousands.
________________________________________________________________________________