KEYS AND WAYS FORINNOVATION & CREATIVITY

Mustafa ERDOGAN

Innovation & Creativity in Youth Works | International Training Course11-18 June 2010 Gaziantep, Turkey

There is no problem you can not solve,No goal you can not achieve,

If you know how to apply the creative powers of your mind like a laser beam, to

cut through every difficulty in your life and in your work!

Well.How can we apply the creative powers of

our mind like a laser beam?

CONCENTRATE ON YOUR SKILLS

• For example, if one person is good at music and terrible at math, and another is the other way around, should each one spend most of their time struggling to attain near-average ability at their worse subject?

• They could reason, "I'm already good at music, so I don't have to spend much time at that."

CONCENTRATE ON YOUR SKILLS

• It's better to have an excellent musician who can barely count his/her money and an excellent mathematician who can sing out-of-tune at holiday parties once a year, than two people who are reasonably good at both subjects.

WHAT ABOUT THE SKILLS ONCREATIVITY?

HOW TO DEVELOP CREATIVITY SKILLS

• Unfortunately there is no magic stick.• But there are some key techniques that is

useful for creative thinking.• Creative thinking helps us solving problems

and producing new ideas!

WE HAVE A PROBLEM

CREATIVITY TECHNIQUES

• Be aware of the way which is not taking you the solution: Not always but usually the first idea is wrong.

• Sometimes we learn how to do the things.• But sometime we learn how not to do the

things.• If we can be aware of the wrong way and wrong

method we can easily try different ways which can take us to the solution.

WE HAVE ANOTHER PROBLEM

• In our company building some employees are impatient waiting for slow elevators in a building.

CREATIVITY TECHNIQUES

• Attention to different parts of the problem: Selecting an aspect of a problem and bringing that aspect into the foreground of one's thoughts for a while allows a perspective to develop which can lead to a solution.

MAY BE THE SOLUTION IS…

• The solution was to install mirrors. The employees became busy looking at themselves in the mirrors and were no longer impatient. This solution came from switching attention from the problem of the slowness of the elevators to the problem of the impatience of the employees.

CREATIVITY TECHNIQUES

• Reversal: Thinking of the opposite of something in some way: opposite in size, time, direction, meaning, etc; switching the roles of two people or things. In the elevator example above, one might think, "What if we purposely try to make the elevators even slower?" This question might lead, in a roundabout way, to the solution of installing mirrors, via the thought of the employees wanting to spend more time standing in the hall. Or it might lead to some other solution which one might not have thought of if one hadn't asked the question.

CREATIVITY TECHNIQUES

• Brainstorming is a technique for creatively solving problems. One of the main elements of brainstorming is the lowering of the limit for acceptance of ideas.

• A brainstorming session with several people also uses cross-fertilization of ideas. It is usually suggested that a time limit be set for a brainstorming session.

• During that time, ideas are stated out loud and written down, including silly ideas as well as serious ones.

• No criticism of ideas is allowed. Criticism and evaluation is put off until the next phase, immediately after the brainstorming.

CREATIVITY TECHNIQUES

• Mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea.

• Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

MIND MAP

• The elements of a mind map are arranged according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information.

• Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.

MIND MAP

AN EXERCISE:Let’s find a solution!

LAMPS

ROOM A

ROOM B

There are three lamps in the “ROOM B”.Each lamp is connected to one of three swithes which are in the “ROOM A”.

You are in the “ROOM A” and have only one right to go to the “ROOM B”.You have to find out which switch turns on wich lamp?

ANOTHER EXERCISE:How to combine ideas for creative

thinking?

Combine Ideas

• Choose at random two words.• When you've selected two words, think about

the words.• Get clear in your mind what each represents.• In a notebook, do a rough mind map of each

word and fugure out what each means and represents to you.

Combine Ideas

• For example, the word stone and the word camera.

• First, I look at stone. And I figure its: hard, mineral, roundish, smooth, textured, solid, cold, that it can be used as a weapon, or decoration, or to build with, or to play with, as a weight.

Combine Ideas

• Next, I look at camera. A camera can be a pin-hole camera, film camera, digital camera, video camera. It captures photos, pictures, images, or movies. It has a shutter to let light in. It has buttons to adjust settings or initiate taking a picture or filming. There's usually a lens that can be adjusted to focus near or far, and a lens cap. The camera shutter opens briefly to allow light in to register on a sensitive film. I don't know how it works in a digital camera so I will take a trip to Wikipedia to find out. You could further think about all the ways that cameras are used: to capture and record events, to entertain, for art, to create dramatic images to sell things, for security and so on.

Once you have gotten clear on what each word means to you... then you can start combining ideas. Think about how the one thing relates or could relate to the other.

• Could you make a camera that looks like a stone? For a novelty item or for spy purposes.

• Could you make a stone look like a camera? Carving a stone sculpture of a camera.

• Could you defend yourself by throwing a camera or use it in some kind of catapult?

• Could you hunt and kill an animal with a camera?• Could you design some kind of stone-like camera that you could throw near

wildlife in order to film it? I think I've seen remote control movie cameras camoflaged as stones or rocks that can drive slowly over rough terrain to get close to animals.

• Stones are used to build walls. Could you build a wall of cameras, or a whole house of cameras where every 'brick' had the capacity to film or record information or events in the house? Hmm sounds a bit like the reality TV BIg Brother house!

Once you have gotten clear on what each word means to you... then you can start combining ideas. Think about how the one thing relates or could relate to the other.• Or could you build houses out of old cameras or disposable cameras that aren't

wanted anymore?• Could cameras incorporate more natural mineral elements than manufactured

chemical-based parts?• Could stones be painted with some kind of film to measure and show

environmental changes?• Cameras shutters let in a certain amount of light via the focal lens to leave an

impression on the film. Is there some kind of application where sunlight could be focused through a lens onto stones? The stones would absorb the heat energy and perhaps that could be released somehow at a later time when it is dark.

• Stones can be heated in fires, is there anyway of stone-cladding cameras so that could be used in fires. A remote controlled camera that can explore a building on fire showing fire fighters what's going on.

• Stone is hard as rock! Lol! Can we make super tough cameras that can be thrown about, that can be hit and abused without getting damaged.

• Stones are used as weights. Can cameras be used to weigh something down? Provide balast and function as recording device. Could you workout with a camera?

• Light makes an impression on camera film and forms a picture. Could stones be used to make impression on soft substances to create pictures?

• Stones that absorb light and release it when it's dark?

LET’S TRY!

cherry, car, mobile phone, internet, gun, pen, lion, track, petrol, fire, candy, machine, ocean, airplane, bread, legs, brick, drug, bicycle, camel, juice, shoe,

compact disk, wheel, hair, light, leaves, gravel, judge, scissors, steam, lips, mouse, wood, money,

crystal ball, guitar, hypnosis, cloud, zip, handle, book, software, King, sex, flame, raison, mirror, gas, space ship, diver, drill, axe, heart, saint, teeth, child,

swan, sing, ball, zoo, cloth, yeast, death, desire, damp, window, engine, ear, umbrella, tent, toenail, fur, fart, friend, tie, scales, grandmother, grease,

jam, kite, language, marriage, noise, onion, pizza, pirate, question, radar, smell, tennis, underwear,

value, wax, fox, screen

Creative thinking takes you to the innovation!

But there is more…

Innovation starts with your vision!

INNOVATION & VISION

The Present

The Desired Future

The Default Future

Vision defines the desiredfuture and the vector oftransformation, which is the bridgefrom today to the desired future.

Innovation is the engine that drives transformation. Creativity is the fuel for innovation

The Unknown

Values Foresight

Vision

Innovation starts inside you!

INNOVATION & INSIDE

• If you want to spark innovation, forget about formulas for a minute and pay attention to what's happening on the inside.

• Because that's where it starts.• With the innovator -- the inspired individual

who sees a better way and goes for it.

QUALITIES OF AN INNOVATOR

• So ... if you are one of the self-chosen few willing to start taking personal responsibility for innovating, here's a list of qualities that describe innovators:

Qualities of an Innovator

• Challenges status quo -- dissatisfied with current reality, questions authority and routine.

• Curious -- actively explores the environment, investigates new possibilities, and honors the sense of awe and wonder.

• Self-motivated -- responds to deep inner needs, proactively initiates new projects.

Qualities of an Innovator

• Visionary -- highly imaginative, maintains a future orientation, thinks in mental pictures.

• Entertains the fantastic -- conjures outrageous scenarios, sees possibilities within the seemingly impossible, honors dreams and daydreams.

• Takes risks -- goes beyond the comfort zone, experimental and non- conforming, courageously willing to "fail."

Qualities of an Innovator

• Peripatetic -- changes work environments as needed; wanders, walks or travels to inspire fresh thinking; given to movement and interaction.

• Playful/humorous -- appreciates surprise, able to appear foolish and child-like, laughs easily and often.

Qualities of an Innovator

• Flexible/adaptive -- open to surprises and change, able to adjust "game plan" as needed, entertains multiple ideas and solutions.

• Makes new connections -- sees relationships between seemingly disconnected elements.

Qualities of an Innovator

• Recognizes (and re-cognizes) patterns -- perceptive and discriminating, notices organizing principles and trends, sees (and challenges) the "Big Picture."

• Tolerates ambiguity -- comfortable with chaos, able to entertain paradox, doesn't settle for the first "right idea."

• Committed to learning -- continually seeks knowledge, synthesizes new input quickly, balances information gathering and action.

Some of these traits may be easy for you while others are more difficult.That's normal ... even if you weren't "born" with some of these traits, you can develop them. Perhaps even more important, you can help

create an environment where these traits can flourish.

TO REMEMBER

• Innovation is a process of taking new ideas to satisfied end-user. It is the conversion of new knowledge into new products and new services.

• Innovation is about creating value and increasing efficiency.

FOR PROVISION

• Is your idea new?• Is it increasing the efficiency?• Is it creating a value?• Is it easy for your product to meet with your

target group?• Do you have enough tools to apply and

promote it?

If Yes;

Questions?

Go Ahead!