You may have been introduced to RSA Animate videos during the past couple years. They are extraordinary video drawings--known by some as graphic facilitation--of provocative talks hosted by the RSA, a 250-year-old British think-tank-of-sorts (see more below).
Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving with these animated videos for two of my favorite speakers on creativity:
1. Sir Ken Robinson speaking on education. No one captures the need for teaching creativity and changing our worldwide education system like Robinson. (If you are reading this on Facebook or from an email, click here to go directly to my blog to see the videos or here for YouTube.)
2. Dan Pink speaking on motivation, based on his most recent book, Drive. Intrinsic motivation is key for our own creativity, and the principles for increased motivation and increased creativity are quite similar. (If you are reading this on Facebook or from an email, click here to go directly to my blog for the videos or here for YouTube.)
From the RSA website: "For over 250 years the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action."
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Making Time for Think Time and Passion Time, even at Work
"There is never a day we come in and there are only a few things we need to do," explains an Obama staffer in Newsweek's current cover story about how overwhelming presidential responsibilities have become. The story makes clear that, for the President and people working with him, there is not enough "bandwidth," not enough "time to catch your breath" during the day. "Lincoln had time to think," explains one history professor. "That kind of downtime just doesn't exist any more."
But for creativity to thrive in our lives--and for innovation to reign in any organization--we need that think time and downtime, that free time and play time, even at work. More than ever at work.
"We need to reinvent free time," writes Nancy Gibbs, in her excellent essay about invention for Time Magazine this week. Read it here. In the same issue, Time features the Best Inventions of 2010, celebrating the latest innovations of the year, ranging from jetpacks to spray-on hair, highlighting the very technological breakthroughs that require the time, experimentation and play that are too often in short supply. "One thing technology can't give us," writes Gibbs, "is time for serendipitous discovery." Here's more from Gibbs:
Many of us are too busy keeping up to pause for tinkering, conceiving, concocting or devising. Technology, that bullying child of progress and prosperity, gives us ever finer tools of invention even as it denies us the time to use them. We are so wired, so networked and so well equipped that one person now does the job five people used to, thus hoisting productivity while precluding creativity.
It seems we're on the verge of getting our jet packs--but no one has yet managed the time machine. Or better yet, the time expander. So we've got to play tricks on ourselves: schedule free time, however counterintuitive that may seem. Deep immersion in a task--no distractions, no interruptions--can give the illusion that time itself is receding. We feel lighter, braver, our brains more nimble; we free ourselves to try and fail and try again. I've always envied the Google engineers their "20% time": the one day a week they are told to allocate to a kind of intellectual R&D, working on projects that aren't part of their normal job description. This speaks to one of the ironies of innovation: too much freedom makes it harder, too little makes it impossible. But if we were ordered by our bosses to spend even one hour a week brainstorming, blue-skying, free-associating, I imagine the rest of the week would become more creative as well.
Dan Pink, the ever-insightful author who just spoke at the Creativity World Forum in Oklahoma last week, tackles the issue of play in this wide-ranging Blogtalkradio segment. Having time to play, to do things for their own sake on your own time, he says (start interview at 10:58), is essential both to human motivation and to creativity itself. "People are creative in situations where they have freedom and autonomy to explore," he explains, referring to Google's "20% Time," where unofficial projects became highly profitable innovations such as GoogleNews and Gmail. This is what I call "Passion Time," where employees are empowered to pursue passions during the workday along side their other work. Pink refers to this as a "form of recess from work," like a "Spring break," which is how he describes Twitter's recent "Hack Week," which allowed employees to work on whatever they wanted. He tells the story of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics invention of graphene, which came outside of regular work time research during "Friday night experiments," which was more of a play time.
As Pink explains, this idea of more autonomy, having the "passion time" to pursue creative ideas at work, is an "idea that is really spreading." Think Time, Free Time, Play time or Recess--whatever you want to call it--is becoming more common in the most innovative organizations, where leaders know their most creative resource comes from the unique brains and passions of their employees.
In these days of overload, we now need to be proactive about how we spend our time, actually scheduling it into our days. So give yourself--and/or your employees and collaborators--the gift of time set aside just to think, scheme, tinker and play. Give it a name, put it on your to-do list and see what happens.
Sound familiar? We are all our own president today--each of us the President of what every 21st century career counselor will refer to as the Brand called You--more than ever stretching our personal bandwidth to meet unceasing demands to get it all done. Time to think or downtime at work have become luxuries for most, and even much of what many of us consider free time is spent just trying to keep current: Checking our email, catching up with Facebook, gulping down some news, reading a blog like this (p.s. Thanks).
But for creativity to thrive in our lives--and for innovation to reign in any organization--we need that think time and downtime, that free time and play time, even at work. More than ever at work."We need to reinvent free time," writes Nancy Gibbs, in her excellent essay about invention for Time Magazine this week. Read it here. In the same issue, Time features the Best Inventions of 2010, celebrating the latest innovations of the year, ranging from jetpacks to spray-on hair, highlighting the very technological breakthroughs that require the time, experimentation and play that are too often in short supply. "One thing technology can't give us," writes Gibbs, "is time for serendipitous discovery." Here's more from Gibbs:
Many of us are too busy keeping up to pause for tinkering, conceiving, concocting or devising. Technology, that bullying child of progress and prosperity, gives us ever finer tools of invention even as it denies us the time to use them. We are so wired, so networked and so well equipped that one person now does the job five people used to, thus hoisting productivity while precluding creativity.
It seems we're on the verge of getting our jet packs--but no one has yet managed the time machine. Or better yet, the time expander. So we've got to play tricks on ourselves: schedule free time, however counterintuitive that may seem. Deep immersion in a task--no distractions, no interruptions--can give the illusion that time itself is receding. We feel lighter, braver, our brains more nimble; we free ourselves to try and fail and try again. I've always envied the Google engineers their "20% time": the one day a week they are told to allocate to a kind of intellectual R&D, working on projects that aren't part of their normal job description. This speaks to one of the ironies of innovation: too much freedom makes it harder, too little makes it impossible. But if we were ordered by our bosses to spend even one hour a week brainstorming, blue-skying, free-associating, I imagine the rest of the week would become more creative as well.
Dan Pink, the ever-insightful author who just spoke at the Creativity World Forum in Oklahoma last week, tackles the issue of play in this wide-ranging Blogtalkradio segment. Having time to play, to do things for their own sake on your own time, he says (start interview at 10:58), is essential both to human motivation and to creativity itself. "People are creative in situations where they have freedom and autonomy to explore," he explains, referring to Google's "20% Time," where unofficial projects became highly profitable innovations such as GoogleNews and Gmail. This is what I call "Passion Time," where employees are empowered to pursue passions during the workday along side their other work. Pink refers to this as a "form of recess from work," like a "Spring break," which is how he describes Twitter's recent "Hack Week," which allowed employees to work on whatever they wanted. He tells the story of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics invention of graphene, which came outside of regular work time research during "Friday night experiments," which was more of a play time.As Pink explains, this idea of more autonomy, having the "passion time" to pursue creative ideas at work, is an "idea that is really spreading." Think Time, Free Time, Play time or Recess--whatever you want to call it--is becoming more common in the most innovative organizations, where leaders know their most creative resource comes from the unique brains and passions of their employees.
In these days of overload, we now need to be proactive about how we spend our time, actually scheduling it into our days. So give yourself--and/or your employees and collaborators--the gift of time set aside just to think, scheme, tinker and play. Give it a name, put it on your to-do list and see what happens.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Digging through the Innovation Awards Goodie Bag
Last week the Chicago Innovation Awards and a crowd of nearly 1000 at the Goodman Theater celebrated the innovative spirit that is indeed alive and well in the midwest. Keynoter J.B. Pritzker reminded us that many great ideas and companies like G.E., Microsoft and MTV began during recessions, and now is time for "the next generation of innovators" to step up. The evening, which included an appearance from "Visionary Award" winner and Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, honored the latest eye-opening products and services from local companies--for winner videos and more on the event, click here. There was also an overflowing goodie bag, which I'm happy to rifle through for your enjoyment.
In various ways, the award-winners reflected true innovation, which is taking the practical step of bringing creativity into the world, so let me dig in the bag to share a few with you. I'm reaching past the discount cards, freebies, magazines, promo pens and brainteaser game (thanks, John Kennedy). Now I'm briefly massaging the strawberry shortcake-flavored gum from Wrigley, the thumb-sized flashlight from Tripp-Lite, the natural sweetener from Pure Via and the noise-isolation ear buds from Molex. Not bad. Here are a couple more:
>>The Master Lock Speed Dial--Here's a sturdy lock for people who have difficulty remembering combinations (most of us?). Instead of numbers that you can easily forget, you open the lock using directional movements (like a video game joystick), so you can open the lock one-handed, without looking, based on remembering the movements you've chosen.
>>Probably the most unusual goodie-bag item I've ever gotten, here's a "Water Saving Fill Valve" from MJSI, whose HydroRight won this year's award. You actually install this one in your toilet to save water.
In various ways, the award-winners reflected true innovation, which is taking the practical step of bringing creativity into the world, so let me dig in the bag to share a few with you. I'm reaching past the discount cards, freebies, magazines, promo pens and brainteaser game (thanks, John Kennedy). Now I'm briefly massaging the strawberry shortcake-flavored gum from Wrigley, the thumb-sized flashlight from Tripp-Lite, the natural sweetener from Pure Via and the noise-isolation ear buds from Molex. Not bad. Here are a couple more:
>>The Master Lock Speed Dial--Here's a sturdy lock for people who have difficulty remembering combinations (most of us?). Instead of numbers that you can easily forget, you open the lock using directional movements (like a video game joystick), so you can open the lock one-handed, without looking, based on remembering the movements you've chosen.
>>Probably the most unusual goodie-bag item I've ever gotten, here's a "Water Saving Fill Valve" from MJSI, whose HydroRight won this year's award. You actually install this one in your toilet to save water.Innovation can be best defined as actualizing creativity in a way that provides real value or, as designer/innovator Dan Buchner recently asserted in this video (click here), "the implementation of an idea that improves someone’s life and brings meaning to their life.” Just as MJSI's innovation can make a meaningful difference, so can these other award winners whose actual products did not quite make it in the goodie bag. They include:
>Abbott Labs' recently FDA-approved HIV test, with much earlier detection ability.
>SoCore Energy's portable solar panels that can be rented and installed more easily.
>Smart Medical Technology Liftaem Patient Transfer System, which uses a cushion of air to reduce time and injury from lifting patients.
>CrowdSPRING, now the world's largest online marketplace for creative services.
>Chicago Transit Authority's Bus Tracker, an online tool to tell you exactly when your bus will arrive.
You can decide how meaningful these innovations are to you or others--and learn more about them here. But clearly the creative spirit is infusing some companies here in the midwest. If Rocky Wirtz can turn around the very recently woeful Blackhawks, miracles can indeed happen, especially if we make time for, promote and honor innovation, as these awards have aptly done again this year.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Scary to be an American? Part 2
My previous blog made the point that pessimism and fear--currently irrationally amplified by our divisive politics and media--is incompatible with creativity and change. Our midterm election may be over, but the belief that it's scary to be an American right now persists. And the truth is, wherever you might plug into the American conversation, even if you tap the more reasonable, harder-to-hear-amidst-the-shouting sources of information, it's hard not to be scared, which closes down our individual and collective creative solution-making ability.
For some hope, I had turned to Time magazine's cover story last week--the positive-sounding "How to Restore the American Dream"--but found myself again shaken by the dark "realities" it outlined. Fareed Zakaria, one of the more intelligent and solution-focused media voices today, primarily made the case that our mood is bad for good reason, with many accompanying graphs "charting the decline" of what was once the land of opportunity. The rational media may not scream fear but they do supply a torrent of facts about the economy and American decline that are just as scary.
Zakaria captures this troubling reality well in this video (below)--while at the same time making clear that we need to think differently in order to restore the American Dream. This is the great challenge for us as individuals and for American organizations of all stripes: To find a new reality, a different mindset--a more optimistic belief in being, as Zakaria says, masters of our own destiny. While we may not be able to escape the current cultural narrative (though unplugging from media would help), we have to realize it's not as true as it seems. Yes, unemployment is higher and it's harder to sell my condo, but most people I know have kept their jobs and are only "sour" when they tune into our public conversation.
When it comes to offering ideas and different thinking, one could argue, especially of late, that Republicans are the main political obstacle. This from this month's Esquire: Republicans "haven't had a new idea this century. Unless you count teabags and fear, which we don't." But it definitely takes creativity to cut the budget, and, amazingly, both Democrats and Republicans find common ground on innovation. Yes, perhaps more than any other policy point, both political sides join leading commentators like Zakaria in support of "Innovation" again and again. So the great news is that we as a nation have a real opportunity to come together to support creative ideas and investment in innovation right now.
But to have some room to do that, we can't let fear and extremism rule our airwaves and infect us individually. Last weekend's Rally to Restore Sanity made an attempt to change the conversation, and Jon Stewart's "Moment of Sincerity" is well worth viewing (below). Stewart makes the point that "we live in hard times, not end times," and rightly highlights the media distortion: "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing...the press is our immune system--if it overacts to everything we actually get sicker." "The 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictonator," he explains, is not reality: "The image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It's us through a funhouse mirror."
The truth, Stewart says, is that we work together to get things done every day. We do. But real innovation--taking the time and effort to create something new and then actually implement it--is not easy. As Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado says, "It's easier to stop bad things than to pass good things." Our challenge is to shift our mindset from fear-mongering noise to another even-more-valid reality of possibility. Most often real creativity and change come after crisis, or as new California Governor Jerry Brown just said in his acceptance speech, "Breakdown paves the way for a breakthrough." How might we help each other break through?
For some hope, I had turned to Time magazine's cover story last week--the positive-sounding "How to Restore the American Dream"--but found myself again shaken by the dark "realities" it outlined. Fareed Zakaria, one of the more intelligent and solution-focused media voices today, primarily made the case that our mood is bad for good reason, with many accompanying graphs "charting the decline" of what was once the land of opportunity. The rational media may not scream fear but they do supply a torrent of facts about the economy and American decline that are just as scary.
Zakaria captures this troubling reality well in this video (below)--while at the same time making clear that we need to think differently in order to restore the American Dream. This is the great challenge for us as individuals and for American organizations of all stripes: To find a new reality, a different mindset--a more optimistic belief in being, as Zakaria says, masters of our own destiny. While we may not be able to escape the current cultural narrative (though unplugging from media would help), we have to realize it's not as true as it seems. Yes, unemployment is higher and it's harder to sell my condo, but most people I know have kept their jobs and are only "sour" when they tune into our public conversation.
When it comes to offering ideas and different thinking, one could argue, especially of late, that Republicans are the main political obstacle. This from this month's Esquire: Republicans "haven't had a new idea this century. Unless you count teabags and fear, which we don't." But it definitely takes creativity to cut the budget, and, amazingly, both Democrats and Republicans find common ground on innovation. Yes, perhaps more than any other policy point, both political sides join leading commentators like Zakaria in support of "Innovation" again and again. So the great news is that we as a nation have a real opportunity to come together to support creative ideas and investment in innovation right now.
But to have some room to do that, we can't let fear and extremism rule our airwaves and infect us individually. Last weekend's Rally to Restore Sanity made an attempt to change the conversation, and Jon Stewart's "Moment of Sincerity" is well worth viewing (below). Stewart makes the point that "we live in hard times, not end times," and rightly highlights the media distortion: "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing...the press is our immune system--if it overacts to everything we actually get sicker." "The 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictonator," he explains, is not reality: "The image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It's us through a funhouse mirror."
The truth, Stewart says, is that we work together to get things done every day. We do. But real innovation--taking the time and effort to create something new and then actually implement it--is not easy. As Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado says, "It's easier to stop bad things than to pass good things." Our challenge is to shift our mindset from fear-mongering noise to another even-more-valid reality of possibility. Most often real creativity and change come after crisis, or as new California Governor Jerry Brown just said in his acceptance speech, "Breakdown paves the way for a breakthrough." How might we help each other break through?
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