lost stories in applied creativity

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Lost Stories inInnovation History

At Humantific we have always had great interest in the unsung milestones, forgotten stories and off the beaten path landmarks of innovation history as they tend to inform present day understanding significantly. Many human-centered innovation challenges tend to repeat themselves, generation after generation. Without historical innovation knowledge, organizations can expend a lot of energy reinventing wheels. With the goal of inspiring others, we share a few gems from our lost stories innovation library.

Lost Stories in Applied Creativity HistoryBy GK VanPatterCo-Founder, Humantific


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Humantific works at the intersection of several knowledge arenas and thus over the years we have become familiar with multiple streams of innovation related histories. Here in this post today we are looking at one, not well recognized milestone in one stream of innovation history, known to some as Applied Creativity and perhaps to others as Creative Problem Solving (CPS) or Creative Intelligence. All are terms that have been around since the 1950s.

Today it would be difficult for anyone to understand what is going on in the innovation leadership business, the rethinking thinking business without cross-disciplinary historical knowledge. With all the ballyhoo going on around Design Thinking, we might point out that it is not possible to simply look at the history of design and understand what leading changemaking consultancies are already doing today and why.

A truth not always made clear in the highly competitive marketplace today is that what is being packaged and sold as Design Thinking often contains forms of knowledge originating from the parallel universe of Applied Creativity. To keep it simple: The composition of design at the scale of organizational change (Design 3) and societal change (Design 4) is already interwoven with the DNA of Applied Creativity. That is one reason why we believe that much of the recent writing on the subject of Design Thinking, interpreted as product and service creation (Design 2) has been narrow and shortsighted or should we say just plain dumb.

What we notice in the marketplace is that many aspects of innovation history are invisible to new generation audiences, in part because much of the original historical materials from the 1940s, 50s, 60s are out of print and therefore difficult to find. Unless you have access to original artifacts, it is unlikely that you would encounter much of that early material as very little of it is found online today. That absence might be fortunate or unfortunate depending on what one’s individual orientations and goals might be.

Certainly we have been noticing a general lack of historical awareness and proper historical crediting in current discussions related to Creative Intelligence and Applied Creativity. It’s no secret that the lofty crediting protocols taught in graduate schools are routinely abandoned in the cut-throat competitive marketplace. Some of that omission is likely just plain ignorance. While such omissions and redepictions can be entertaining to observe, what that leads to most often is unenlightened or deliberate repeating starting point initiatives being directed at unaware audiences. Ho Hum.

What we notice in the marketplace is that many aspects of innovation history are invisible to new generation audiences, in part because much of the original historical materials from the 1940s, 50s, 60s are out of print and therefore difficult to find.


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If we had to choose 10 early Applied Creativity books that Humantific considers to be most significant to innovation enabling history, near the top of the list would be Creative Behavior Guidebook by Sid Parnes.

Unofficially published as an experimental edition in 1966 under the Title: Instructors Manual for Institutes and Courses in Creative-Problem Solving, this volume was officially published as Creative Behavior Guidebook in 1967. It was subsequently improved upon and republished as Creative ActionBook in 1976 and Guide to Creative Action in 1977. In the later 2 volumes Sid collaborated with Ruth B. Noller and Angelo M. Biondi. At Humantific we call this amazing 3 part series of publications the SidTrilogy. Inside in a mixture of elementary and advanced states, are what amounts to the foundations of all future Applied Creativity workshops.

Dr. Sidney J. Parnes (1922-present) was a Professor of Creative Studies at State University New York College at Buffalo in 1967. Sid cofounded and later became President of the Buffalo based Creative Education Foundation. Competitors of Sid tend to point out that he was an “academic”, (he had a Phd in Education) but a little unsung industry secret is that much of what appeared in the SidTrilogy was rapidly transported to the operational realm of consulting practice and remains at the center of numerous innovation consultancies still today. (It is unlikely that you will be reading about this on Wikipedia.) Having already begun to work in the 1950s on how to make the world a better place, it would be fair to Sid Parnes to say that he was before his time in many ways.

Prior to the publication of Creative Behavior Guidebook, Sid worked closely with the most recognized hero in Applied Creativity history, Alex Osborn (1888-1966). In 1955 Sid attended the first Applied Creativity conference organized by Osborn. Attendence at that event changed the course of Sid’s life. In Sid Parnes, Osborn saw a person who could help him operationalize Applied Creativity as it was then conceived. Osborn and Parnes co-founded the Creative Education Foundation in Buffalo. They worked together to cocreate the most influential deliberate creative problem solving process model (it had numerous iterations) in Applied Creativity history, as well as the Institute’s learning program, a version of which still remains in operation today. Within what we now refer to as the Buffalo School of Applied Creativity, Alex and Sid remain highly respected Giants in that Hall of Fame.

Creative Behavior Guidebook, 1967, by Sidney J. Parnes. Humantific Innovation Archives, New York.

Having already begun to work in the 1950s on how to make the world a better place, it would be fair to Sid Parnes to say that he was before his time in many ways.


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Outside that corner of the universe what Sid did, how, when and why is not widely understood today.

The 1967 version of Creative Behavior Guidebook was published a year after Alex Osborn had passed away. It was the same year that JP Guilford (1897-1987) published Structure of the Intellect and The Journal of Creative Behavior (founded by Sid) first appeared. None of this is ancient history, but these are important milestones in the timeline of the modern Applied Creativity movement that is still very much active today.

What else was going on in 1967? Yes, it was the year that Elvis starred in Clambake!, Warhol showed Marilyn and the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper. Can you believe that the average cost of a new house in the US in 1967 was $14,250. Of course Sgt. Pepper eventually landed on the list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and it has been occurring to us recently that Sid’s much more humble Creative Behavior Guidebook was also a legendary album of sorts, from a quite different, less glamorous realm of knowledge.

Breathtakingly under designed (some might say awful), Sid’s Guidebook is a 345 page soft cover volume that looks like it was created on a primitive typewriter by an engineer. With an introduction written by JP Guilford the book contains 99% text, with only a couple of primitive visualizations. Inside however, is a mother-load of what might be called the beginning synthesis of modern Applied Creativity knowledge for which there is frankly no equivalent in Design Thinking history.

“This Creative Guidebook is written for the creative educator in schools or in industry, for the leader who desires to see blossom in others this trait he holds most valuable: the ability to perform effectively by bringing to any task a part of one’s unique self…The teaching manual is the culmination of eighteen years of research and development with creative problem-solving courses and institutes of the State University of New York at Buffalo…It reflects the extensive experiences of scores of instructors in the Creative Education Foundation’s Creative Leadership Council..”

To say this another way: Sid’s Guidebook was a synthesis of experiments in teaching that had been underway in Applied Creativity workshops since 1950. Considering the context of that moment, it was a gathering up and offering up of momentous proportions.

Inside (Sid’s Guidebook) however, is a mother-load of what might be called the beginning synthesis of modern Applied Creativity knowledge for which there is frankly no equivalent in Design Thinking history.


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Having worked with Osborn, Sid saw early on a need to systematize and structure the delivery of teaching others the emerging skills of Applied Creativity in an experiential way. Sidney was already thinking about scale and global delivery of Applied Creativity skill-building in 1967. In Guidebook, Sid generously lays out an experiential logic connected to process orchestration that underlies many Applied Creativity workshops still today. Of course it’s not difficult to see that Parnes did not yet have everything figured out in 67 that is known today but he certainly did place a large chunk of experiential knowledge on the table for public viewing.

In Guidebook Sid wrote: “Within five years, about one-half of what I have told you will either be untrue or not worth a darn. This doesn’t really bother me; but what does irritate me is that I can’t even tell you which half is which.”

Today, forty five years later, the half that was most important can more clearly be put into perspective. In rediscovering the early work of Sid Parnes perhaps most important is to appreciate his basic orientations in the world. His orientation towards sharing knowledge, tools and techniques has many parallels to the interests and pursuits of the OPEN Innovation movement today.

Long before the competitive copyrighting “I own this technique” wave of the 1970s and 80s changed the dynamics of the Buffalo Applied Creativity community there was Sid, sharing with a global perspective. We consider Sidney Parnes to be one of several unsung pioneers in the still evolving OPEN Innovation movement. The truth is that movement has its roots in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, rather than in 2003.

Not only was Parnes already writing in 1967 about everyone everywhere working creatively together, he was advocating the global sharing of the knowledge and tools that he and his collaborators were placing on the table without strings attached. The good news is that much of what Parnes created and shared early on, has long since passed into the public domain. Many have built on Sidney’s work and that of his collaborators.

Probably what transpired in the competitive arena since the SidTrilogy was published was not exactly what Parnes had in mind at the outset, but from a global sharing and impact perspective Sidney rocked! The spirit of Sid Parnes has inspired many movements past and present. We have great respect for his many contributions.

Not only was Parnes already writing in 1967 about everyone everywhere working creatively together, he was advocating the global sharing of the knowledge and tools that he and his collaborators were placing on the table without strings attached.


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Here are ten solid gold themes and ideas that appear in the original 1967 version of Sidney’s Creative Behavior Guidebook:

1. AdaptabilityIn Guidebook a prescient Sid Parnes wrote in 1967 about the importance of adaptability in a continuously changing world. That was six years before Paul Mott published his 1972 study; Characteristics of Effective Organizations and forty years before “Fast Company” was telling its readers in 2012 that the next new thing is for individuals and organizations to forget history and become continuously adaptable as part of “Generation Flux“...:-)

In 1967 Sidney wrote: “Obviously there is an urgency for developing in people the ability to live with constant change in a dynamic society.”

Sidney saw deliberate creative process mastery as the way for humans to realize sustainable adaptability, instead of chasing flavor of the month trends.

In Guidebook he wrote: “Problem solving may be considered the process of human adaptation to cultural life. This means adapting ourselves to our environment, as well as adapting our environment to suit us. Throughout our lives, this process of adapting ourselves and our environment is a continuing challenge. Creating deliberate means of treating perplexing situations is therefore an opportunity, a challenge. The means or workable ways of meeting challenge or opportunity are only temporary measures that change as our needs change. Thus each of these means of treating perplexing situations becomes in itself another challenge.”

Whether you refer to it as Adaptability, Agility, Flexibility, Resilience, Fluency, Fluxability, Adaptive Capacity or something else, adapting to continuous change has been a recognized human challenge spanning numerous generations. It is a theme that has been reframed, renamed and repurposed over the years by thought leaders from numerous fields including Alex Osborn, Paul Mott, Ikujiro Nonaka, Karl Weick and others. As is evidenced by Guidebook, enabling adaptability has been at the center of Applied Creativity skill-building for decades. What’s fundamentally different now is not the theme, not the rerenaming of it as ”Flux” or the need for adaptability capability, but rather the ever evolving combination of tools and skills that are brought to the table to address this enduring challenge for teams, organizations and societies.

1. Adaptability

2. Creativity is Everyone

3. Facilitation as Creative Leadership

4. Creative Behaviors

5. Invitation Stems (“How Mights”)

6. Divergence and Convergence

7. MetaThink

8. Challenges = Opportunities.

9. Brainstretch Exercises

10. Research Questions


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2. Creativity is EveryoneContrary to the once popular notion that creativity was the realm of an elite few, Sid Parnes was among the early Applied Creativity pioneers strongly advocating an opposite perspective. Underlying much of Buffalo School Applied Creativity history is an optimistic, American (United States) can-do orientation that was sprouted during the (1940s) war years when everyone was expected to pitch in. Front and center is the notion that everyone has the capacity to be creative and that there is a place for everyone. It is an orientation not found in Design Thinking history. It’s probably not possible to overstate the importance that Sidney and other Applied Creativity pioneers placed on encouraging and enabling creativity among laypersons of everyday work life. Radically different from traditional Design Thinking orientations in Applied Creativity there is no special group called the “Creatives”. This simple truth has had enormous implications past and present. While the notion of “Participatory Design” is a relatively new phenomenon to the Design Thinking community the goal and orientation of intentionally enabling wide participation in deliberate creative processes has been central to Applied Creativity since the 1940s. In Sid’s Guidebook one can see the early seeds of “Here Comes Everybody”, long before the technology existed to globally enable it. That prolonged focus has resulted in the creation and refinement of many tools for enabling inclusion of everyone that are not found in Design Thinking history. Thanks to Sid, in Guidebook we can see the philosophical roots of the “Creativity is Everyone” movement in practice circa 1967. Today, with many organizational leaders seeking to maximize inside and outside brainpower, its a theme that resonates more than ever. Again, what’s different now is the greatly expanded, hybrid toolkit that is utilized to realize thinking diversity via deliberate inclusion in the context of changing organizations and societies.

Front and center is the notion that everyone has the capacity to be creative and that there is a place for everyone.


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3. Facilitation as Creative LeadershipAmong the radical ideas embedded in Guidebook and throughout the SidTrilogy is the then revolutionary notion that facilitation can be a form of leadership. Sid Parnes is the de-facto godfather of this approach to leadership that was much different from what was being taught in business schools (and design schools) in the 60s. The truth is, this approach to leadership is still not widely appreciated, understood and or taught even today. In hardball subjects where traditionally content knowledge has been king, the notion of facilitation as leadership is a bit of a mind bender for some people not accustomed to this approach. Unlike in traditional Design Thinking mode, in Applied Creativity mode content knowledge is separated from process knowledge. In a practical sense what it means is that the person at the front of the room leading the meeting is in a process, not content role. This separation is found throughout Applied Creativity history and remains central to the movement today. With increasingly complex challenges facing planet earth, the page has turned in favor of this leadership approach. Today there is growing awareness that as the scale of challenges grow, more stakeholders are involved, more diverse forms of knowledge are involved and thus more facilitation of cocreation across many disciplines is needed. Guidebook predates the arrival of this public awareness by many decades. This is the form of leadership that Sidney advocated, modeled and taught throughout his life. In practical terms, facilitation as leadership remains in its infancy, but its relevance today is stronger than ever. The reality is that much of what was taught as facilitation in those days by Parnes and others at Creative Education Foundation looked a lot like Sid’s Guidebook, very engineering oriented, dominated by words. What is different today can be summed up in the word bundled. Rather than trying to address complex issues by operating in only one language mode, utilizing primarily words, today we address complexity with bundled modes that includes much more visualization and involves more than just facilitation. In this approach, leadership by facilitation of cocreation is one of several streams of skill being recognized as extremely useful for change-making leaders. Whether you want to call it bundled, meshed, combined, integrated, fused, or Sid+, the notion is that we recognize this as the era of the hybrid toolbox rather than the engineering toolbox. OMG did I just say Flux meets Fuse! :-)

Today there is growing awareness that as the scale of challenges grow, more stakeholders are involved, more diverse forms of knowledge are involved and thus more facilitation of cocreation across many disciplines is needed.


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4. Creative BehaviorsAs is evidenced by the book title, Sid Parnes and his collaborators had deep interest and expertise in behaviors. One of the most striking differences between Design Thinking history and Applied Creativity history is the appearance of behaviors as a focus in early literature. Always front and center in Applied Creativity historical literature, the behavior consideration is essentially missing in action in Design Thinking history. That presence and that absence have had enormous consequences that reverberate across education and practice still today. Building on the 1950s-60s era work of JP Guilford some might say that the Buffalo based Creative Education Foundation was and still is the de-facto Behavioral School of Applied Creativity. Early key pioneers of that school were Paul Torrance, JP Guilford, Alex Osborn and Sid Parnes. Today it’s easy to take this perspective for granted but at that time it was like they discovered and opened a window unto a new dimension of space that had not previously been considered in the context of creativity. In Guidebook and throughout the SidTrilogy one can see the excitement and the certainty of purpose there. The behaviorists’ position then and now was/is to advocate recognition that much of formal education serves to kill the creative spirit resulting in blocks to creativity in many adults.

In Guidebook Parnes wrote: “The basic techniques of invention and innovation…ought to be taught, but are not, among the fundamentals generally taught in the engineering and business schools. The same can be said of schools in general..Although teachers show increasing awareness of the need and opportunities for encouraging creative behavior, our present educational system to a large extent still overlooks the intentional enhancement of such behavior.”

The difficult truth is, Guidebook and the rest of the SidTrilogy series spanning from 1967 to 1977 are so poorly designed graphically that it is easy to miss the big picture within. Embedded in SidTrilogy is a strong orientation towards the optimistic notion that a better place, a better world can willfully be created. In the workshops described in SidTrilogy participants undergo a journey of-sorts that includes a sense of heightened self awareness, departure, transport and arrival. In essence workshop participants are transported to a new land where old habits are left behind, values are different, new much more inclusive rules apply, and all are appreciated.

The behaviorists’ position then and now was/is to advocate recognition that much of formal education serves to kill the creative spirit resulting in blocks to creativity in many adults.

In the workshops described in SidTrilogy participants undergo a journey of-sorts that includes a sense of heightened self awareness, departure, transport and arrival.


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What Parnes and his collaborators discovered, teaching workshops early on in the 1950s and 60s, was that many adults in the workplace longed for such a place. Due to the state of everyday work-life for many, it is a longing that has endured across the generations as we see in Humantific workshops today.

At a tactical level, one can see in Guidebook, the philosophy of deliberate behavior enhancement played out in the various hands-on exercises designed to raise awareness of blocks, help restore dormant creativity circuits and connect rekindled capability to synchronized action. Many exercises from the Behavioral School seen in Guidebook were designed to make habitual behaviors transparent and visible for the good of all. The resultant learnings by participants remain at the center of many Applied Creativity workshops today. The thinking being that it is difficult to change habits if there is no collective awareness of what the habits are. Today there is additional recognition that many historical Applied Creativity interventions, including numerous exercises seen in Guidebook, were geared towards increasing generative capacity. In the Guidebook era the assumption that there was such a need was often an educated guess based on general awareness of what was not being taught in various business schools, engineering schools, etc. The temperature check instruments that exist today that are capable of mapping the existing thinking styles of a team to an organization’s innovation strategy did not exist in the era of Guidebook. As a result what is different today is that such blind assumptions regarding what the nature of the intervention might be, should be, need no longer be made. Today we do not automatically assume that there is a default lack of generative thinking capability. Today cross-disciplinary innovation skill building can be geared to the thinking style “fingerprints”, to the mapped “innovation DNA” of the team or organization and to deliberate strategy. Now we customize the fit. Depending on what that “fingerprint” turns out to be we may gear intervention towards increasing generative ability or a number of other objectives. Thinkerprints talk…We listen…:-)

Many exercises from the Behavioral School seen in Guidebook were designed to make habitual behaviors transparent and visible for the good of all. The resultant learnings by participants remain at the center of many Applied Creativity workshops today.


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5. Invitation Stems (“How Mights”)The introduction of what are known as invitation stems, sometimes referred to as How Mights are among the important tactical instruments included by Parnes in Guidebook. Invitation stems became important fundamental building blocks in the still evolving logic of what is known today as challenge framing or challenge mapping. In Guidebook Parnes introduces numerous key invitation stems that have sometimes been creatively attributed to later arriving others, included are: How Might I (page131) How Might We (page 125), How Might You (page 161), and In What Ways Might We (page 127). Since that 1967 publication many additional invitation stems have been added by others, including: How Might They? How Might Our Team? How Might Our Organization? etc. Thanks to Sidney’s early work, “How Mights” have been in the public domain for decades and have become integral to numerous creative thinking systems. Framed as questions in search of answers, “How Mights” can be seen in practical everyday use within many innovation consultancies today including Humantific, IDEO and many others. What’s different now is what we do with them.

6. Divergence and ConvergenceDeeply embedded in SidTrilogy as well as in the field Applied Creativity itself are three important dance steps. Do you know them? Extrapolating from JP Guilford‘s Structure of Intellect Theory (1967), and The Analysis of Intelligence (1971) Parnes and others in the Buffalo school embraced Guilford’s spirit and much of his science. Sidney once generously described Guilford as “a true astronaut of human intellect.” A giant figure in the early days of the Buffalo school, Guilford is among the celebrated Applied Creativity Hall of Famers. While his Structure of Intellect model contained 6 “Operational” dimensions, 3 “Content” dimensions and 6 “Product” dimensions, it was two of the “Operational” dimensions that proved to be most useful in the context of Applied Creativity. Guilford called those 2 dimensions divergent and convergent production. Parnes and others embraced divergence and convergence as brain functions, thinking types and as visible behaviors interconnected to creativity. Divergence is generally understood to be the ability to generate multiple options. Convergence is generally understood to be the ability to narrow options. What the polarities of right and left are to a direction system, light and dark are to a color system, full and empty are to a philosophy system, diverge

Invitation stems became important fundamental building blocks in the still evolving logic of what is known today as challenge framing or challenge mapping.


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and converge are to Applied Creativity thinking systems. Looking across histories what is fascinating is that while divergence and convergence played important roles in the thinking synchronization focused Applied Creativity history those two dimensions are not found front and center in the much less synchronization focused Design Thinking history. That presence and that absence continue to have far reaching ramifications (We will write more about this another day). While in later years Guilford’s Structure of Intellect model and the research behind it was criticized by John Bissel Carol (He created another intellect model) and various other detractors, the notions of divergence and convergence survived intact as a useful construct, worthy of further research. Both dimensions remain central building blocks in much of Applied Creativity logic still today. Both are embedded in many current Applied Creativity methods and thinking systems including most creative problem solving models. A close reading of the SidTrilogy suggests that by the 1970s Parnes and his collaborators had already figured out that divergent and convergent thinking (separated by deferral of judgement) occur in every step of creative problem solving and not just in idea finding (brainstorming). Again this is very different from the logic of Design Thinking. Without getting too complicated, one might describe the process that Applied Creativity advocates have in mind as a particular 3-Step-Dance centering around ability to differentiate between 1. content and process, 2. divergent and convergent thinking and 3. between one step in creative problem solving and another. In SidTrilogy that 3-Step-Dance can be seen repeating throughout. It is that dance that Sid has focused on advocating and teaching throughout his life. In Applied Creativity circles the mastery of that dance represents the keys to the (collectively created) promise land. Underneath is the belief that without collective understanding of that basic dance, synchronization of thinking and action across multiple disciplines is unlikely. In the era of SidTrilogy there were no instruments capable of determining human preference for divergence or convergence. Now there certainly are. This continues to change the enabling innovation equation dramatically. Today this awareness seems to be absent from numerous articles written on the subset subject of “brainstorming”, its rise, demise and revisions often from rather unenlightened perspectives. There is alot going on outside those narrow pictures.

3-Step-Dance: the ability to differentiate between:

1. Content and process,

2. Divergent and convergent thinking and

3. One step in creative problem solving and another.


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7. MetaThink ChallengeScapesDon’t look for any insightful visual models in Guidebook. There aren’t any, but underneath the incredibly poor book design Sid lays out a set of ideas that indicate that he and his collaborators had in 1967 already moved beyond the idea generation (brainstorming) focused era of Alex Osborn. Synthesizing 18 years of experimentation, Guidebook presents a much more diversified Applied Creativity operationscape and toolbox. Among the most important strategic ideas visible in Guidebook are the beginning realizations regarding how to get to “Meta”. Found early in Applied Creativity literature is the realization that challenges exist, not as isolated one-off entities but rather in interconnected constellations. The challenge constellation idea alone changed the nature of 20th century problem finding forever. Significantly different from the “brief” (framed problem) focused Design Thinking community, the parallel community of Applied Creativity has been focused on exploring and developing tools for creating pictures of upstream challenges, Meta challenges for decades. In SidTrilogy it is clear that the early focus was on questioning challenge possibilities to ensure that one was working on the right challenge. How to construct pictures of challenge (not solution) constellations inclusive of Meta has undergone a long history of development within the Applied Creativity community and is still a work in progress today. Although Sidney did not in 1967, have every nuance of what is being done in mapping today figured out we still consider him to be among the pioneers of challenge constellation logic. Did Henry Ford know about automatic transmissions and GPS? No, but he was certainly important in a timeline. In the context of challenge constellation logic so is Sidney Parnes. Today how to make sense of fuzzy challenges or opportunities on the fuzzy front end of innovation has become an important dimension of sensemaking. Today, every major design innovation consultancy has, or would like to have, deep skills in upstream framing. Numerous variations now exist and the mechanics are forever being reinvented. One can view the budding seeds of that historical timeline in Sid’s Guidebook and throughout the SidTrilogy.

Found early in Applied Creativity literature is the realization that challenges exist, not as isolated one-off entities but rather in interconnected constellations.


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8. Challenges = Opportunities.We won’t mention it to our friends over at Appreciative Inquiry but Sid Parnes was, as leader of the Buffalo School of Applied Creativity, already making the case for considering problems as opportunities in 1967, long before such ideas became popular elsewhere.

“Sometimes our long established attitudes prevent us from seeing an opportunity or challenge in a situation. Sometimes it’s hard to realize all challenges we face because we are used to thinking of challenges as conflicts and we tend to blind ourselves to some of our problems in order to feel more comfortable. If we were to reverse the procedure, and think of problems as challenges or opportunities we might be less inclined to ignore so many of them.”

Adopting even a little “Sidness” can help anyone avoid getting hung up on often political terminology semantics and instead focus on constructive outcomes. Thanks to Sidney and others, today students of Applied Creativity advancing beyond basic skills Level 1, understand there is no real difference between a problem and an opportunity.

9. Brainstretch ExercisesPerhaps most evident in Guidebook is Sidney sharing the Buffalo School version of what we call the BrainStretch ExerciseToolkit. There on the table in convenient sequential order Parnes places numerous Applied Creativity exercises that were later injected into zillions of behavioral based innovation learning programs around the world. Among them the behavior revealing classics such as Arms Crossed and Hands Folded as well as others such as Brick and Mousetrap. While hundreds of technology cycles have come and gone in forty years, the truth is each generation of adults struggles with numerous fundamental cognitive challenges; breaking habits, framing fuzzy situations, creating new patterns, etc. that have existed for decades. These are the human-centered dimensions of innovation that Sid and his collaborators were interested in and focused on. It is the fact that many of these challenges reappear with each new generation of organizational leaders that is among the reasons why the work of Sid Parnes has remained so relevant to so many. While some of those exercises have fallen away, others have been updated and many from other schools of thought have been added: yes more bundling.

While hundreds of technology cycles have come and gone in forty years, the truth is each generation of adults struggles with numerous fundamental cognitive challenges that have existed for decades.


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Today most leading consultancies working in the realm of human behavior synchronization use a continuously changing hybrid collection of brainstretch tools and exercises. In workshops today we can talk honestly and openly about why some challenges among us endure across multiple generations.

10. Research QuestionsIn the final pages of Guidebook, Sidney included a super bonus in the form of four Appendixes. (See Sid’s Super Bonus below.) Perhaps most important for those looking for dissertation suggestions was a list of Sidney’s 52 recommendations for further Applied Creativity research including these 10 topics below:

1. “What is the effect of various types of creative problem-solving training on an individual’s performance on Mednick’s Remote Associates Test?”

2. “When does the “best” idea occur – early or late in the idea-production process?”

3. “What are optimum lengths of sessions and optimum allocations of time for group effort in problem-solving? For individual effort?”

4. “What type of individual is most favorably affected by creativity-development programs? What are the reactions of different personality-types to these programs?”

5. “At what ages do children naturally use the principle of deferred judgment without being taught to use it?”

6. “What effect does participation in group creative sessions have upon personalities of individuals? Upon creative abilities of individuals?”

7. “What are the member roles in a group creative problem-solving session? How do these compare with those in typical group dynamics studies?”

8. “How can the creative process be analyzed in action?”

9. “What is originality? Is it an ability or attitude?”

10. “What is the proper place of critical thinking in relation to creative thinking? What is the proper balance of the two in education?”


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Part of the underlying message of SidTrilogy is that once workshop participants have seen and experienced, that promise land, that better world, it is up to them to self generate it everyday. Nobody knew more about how difficult that job was going to be than Sidney J. Parnes.

Wooooo Hooooo Sidney! Thanks for so many contributions!

For inquiries:[email protected]


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AppendixIn the spirit of Sidney J. Parnes we are including in full text here the four Appendices from his 1967 Creative Behavior Guidebook:Appendix 1 – Creativity: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: This article written by JP Guildford appeared in the inaugural issue of Journal of Creative Behavior in 1967.

Appendix 2 – Applied Creativity Annotated Bibliography: A rare very detailed 30 page bibliography that provides a window into the state of Applied Creativity literature in 1967.

Appendix 3 – Survey of Applied Creativity Courses: A rare snap-shot of Applied Creativity Courses that existed in 1967.

Appendix 4 – Questions and Topics for Applied Creativity Research: A rare view into 1967 suggestions by Sid Parnes for needed Applied Creativity research.

Note: Sid Parnes authored 17 books from 1960 to 1997 including: Toward Supersanity: Channeled Freedom (1972), The Magic of Your Mind (1981), A Facilitating Style of Leadership (1985) and Source Book for Creative Problem Solving: A Fifty Year Digest of Proven Innovation Processes (1992). That list can be found on Wikipedia.

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www.humantific.com © 2011 Humantific. All Rights Reserved.

Appendix 1Creativity: Yesterday, Today and TomorrowThis article written by JP Guildford appeared in the inaugural issue of Journal of Creative Behavior in 1967.

Significance: Generally recognized as a seminal moment in the Applied Creativity movement.

Source: Creative Behavior Guidebook, 1967, by Sidney J. Parnes.

Humantific Innovation Archives NEW YORK

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Appendix 2Applied Creativity Annotated BibliographySignificance: A rare 30 page annotated bibliography that provides a window into the state of Applied Creativity literature in 1967. Notes indicate Authors were Sidney Parnes, Angelo Biondi, Eugene Brunelle, and Virginia Flint.



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Appendix 3Survey of Applied Creativity CoursesSignificance: A rare snap-shot of Applied Creativity Courses that existed in 1967.



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Appendix 4Questions and Topics for Applied Creativity ResearchSignificance: A rare view into 1967 suggestions by Sidney Parnes for needed Applied Creativity research.



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