Environmental Influences on Creativity

Does where you work make a difference to how creative you are? I started thinking about this a while ago when I contemplated the differences between different corporate workspaces. Way back in 1999, IDEO touted it's flexible and playful environment as being necessary to encourage the type of creativity that is needed to be innovative, in the famous Nightline "the Deep Dive" episode. The Stanford dSchool has adopted this practice and has a very flexible environment consisting of red IKEA couches, whiteboards and tables all on casters. There are so many examples of really creative places of work. What do they have in common? Does it really matter?


A peek at some places:

• Lego
• Google (Canada)
• Redbull (London)
• Pixar

Getting beyond the obvious

Try the following experiment. For each of these words, write down the first word that comes to mind.

Table
Cat
Shoe
Left
Black

Now take a look at your list. Let me use my powers of intuition and guess that your list will look something like this:

Chair
Dog
Sock
Right
White

That is because the patterns you have become accustomed to have build strong associations with those words. The associations are obvious. Obvious patterns come to us quickly, and most people come to the same answers.

Let me share a different set of word associations to that original list:

Frog
Sweater
Pin
Veil
Death Star

Were any of these words on your list? Why not?

Here was my thinking process that created this list... I went beyond the obvious to hunt for a unique association. In each case, this required looking at the original word and thinking about different aspects of that word.

From table to frog: Things with legs

From cat to sweater: Things related to yarn

From shoe to pin: Things related to bowling

From left to veil: Things related to weddings

From black to Death Star: Things related to Darth Vader

As you can see, unique associations usually aren’t the first things that come to mind. They generally become clear only after you have the additional information about the lens to think about the word. Even then, I'd imagine that you wouldn't have arrived at the same unique associations that I did.

Why is this important? Well, when we are trying to come up with new ideas, we should keep this distinction in mind. When we go with our initial ideas, we are usually going with the obvious. Innovation is unlikely when coming from that point because it is likely where everyone else goes too. When we spend some time looking at the problem or solutions from different angles, we're more likely to arrive someplace unique.

Take the time to brainstorm. It will get you beyond the obvious.

WSU Design Conference Notes

Design and Cultures:WSU Interdisciplinary Design Institute – 5^th annual design conference January 14-16, 2009

About the conference

The design conference was an intimate conference with about 200 attendees, 2/3rds of which are students, bringing together different design perspectives from multiple disciplines and industries from around the world. Attendees were from all over the US, Canada, Germany, Portugal, Australia and India.The conference is held each year in Spokane on the Washington State University campus. In addition to the conference, they hold a student design competition each year that the conference speakers judge.
The general tone is upbeat. People are accepting, welcoming, curious and challenging.

Key Questions

I went into the conference trying to absorb as many ideas as possible, and as much of an understanding of the similarities and differences in design that I could. I had three primary questions. Here they are with some of the answers I collected during the conference:

What is design?

• Creatively bringing things together

• Brainstorming and Prototyping

• Ideas for solving problems (functional, short-term)

• Madness

• Intuitive problem-solving

• Conceptual blending

• A stochastic, dynamic thinking process

• A really complex vision integrating different elements

• Reframing

• Combine concepts

• Lots of interaction with experts and target users

• Trial and error

• Brainstorming

• Chance (implicit connections)

How do you know when you have designed well?

• Feedback from users

• Feedback from peers

Conference Highlights

Perhaps the richest conversations happened outside of the conference sessions, where conversation flowed freely over all kinds of topics relating to design, research, teaching and experiences.

Opening Plenary

The opening plenary speaker was the mayor of Spokane. One might think this an odd choice for a design conference, but Spokane is in the midst of a massive urban renewal project, so her discussion was about the process of designing the modifications to the city, including a good deal of background around what the problem was they were solving for. She had the head of her planning commission also talk to add details about the progress on the project thus far. It was clear that they had enormous pride in the city and in the design program at the university. Apparently, there are actually 3 universities in Spokane and one of their goals is to increase cross-pollination of the campuses through access corridors and shared spaces. The talk solidified my original impression of the conference being a very different kind of design than we do, yet somehow familiar in process.

My Talk

I gave a talk on how various corporate cultures can inhibit design-thinking and creativity. I proposed an idealized cultural environment: one that embraces diverse perspectives, expects experimentation and iterative prototyping, values customer involvement throughout the process, and is fun to work in. Then, I spelled out 5 cultures that violate at least one of these elements, and how to address them. I left them with the point that no-one designs in a vacuum, and asked them what they could do to make their culture a better place to design in. I wasn’t too sure that this would be a relevant topic, since the audience included primarily people from academic departments. But, the room was packed. People were standing and sitting on the floors. They were really engaged and asked tons of questions. It was clear that they recognized their own experiences in the cultures I discussed. The students related to it from a working in groups perspective, and more than one person said that I’d crystallized something they’d been trying to get their heads around. The feedback I received was all positive, and people said that they now felt empowered to address their cultural barriers. They added another “culture”… the culture of “Advancement”, where you need to take credit for the work you accomplish. The barrier comes with turning away from the diverse perspectives and FUN, because everyone becomes pretty ego-involved and possessive. I suggested that they go ahead and take joint credit for any project they are involved in, regardless of whether they were the one with the great idea “I was part of the team…”. I suggested that they might want to focus on building relationships to progress, rather than rely soley on the output of their creativity. Someone backed me up when they mentioned that IDEO’s bonus structure is based on humility, how much help you asked for. One question asked whether I thought these cultures and tactics would be true in other cultures. I admitted that I didn’t know, and then did a running thought experiment about Japanese culture: the juxtaposition of the culture that looks down on self-promotion (told the story of the Facebook equivalent in Japan that is very popular, but that people all put up cute pictures of their pets, rather than touting themselves) with embracing brainstorming (TPS). It was great, we filled up the hour, even though my talk was only 25 minutes.

Introducing design thinking to engineering students

This was a talk from Micah Lande, a PhD candidate at Stanford. He went through the evolution of a capstone project-based course from the mechanical engineering program at Stanford. He points out that traditionally, engineers and designers think differently because they ask different questions. Told the joke about “how many ____ to screw in a lightbulb”.

• How many Engineers? The engineer says, “it depends… how many feet off the ground is the fixture?, what’s the wattage of the bulb?”

• How many Designers? The designer asks, “does it need to be a lightbulb?”

He started by proposing a “Ways of thinking framework”.

Projects in the class used to be in the bottom two quadrants, but now more and more are in the upper two. Activity in the projects spans Future, Design and Engineering thinking... with more design and future thinking upfront, but going back and forth between engineering and design thinking activities.

The Culture of Design

This was a very controversial talk by John DeMao, jr. He presented a very academic treatise, analyzing the culture of design practice, weaving in perspectives from psychologists and artists. He says that the design process isn’t one that can be dictated, because it is, by its nature, contextually changing. He points out that there are inherent contradictions in design thinking, particularly between the clarity of thought versus the freedom of thought. He points out that a good deal of design creativity comes from intuition, which he says is not independent of prior experience or knowledge, but is below the conscious level. He defined design as conceptual blending – a partial match between two inputs resulting in new mental constructs, and suggested that conceptual blending itself cannot be taught. This led to a great debate in the room… He ended with the idea that we can only describe what the design process is after the design effort, not before. He said this is because you can’t describe where you are going because any point you can learn something that changes your trajectory. So, he points out, design isn’t really iterative because the cognitive acts modify at each step.

Informal Conversation

One of the best things was the informal conversations that we all had during meals and breaks. One of the themes that came up had to do with teaching creative design . After John De Mao’s talk (above), there was a desperation that came from faculty about what could be taught if conceptual blending (i.e., design) is subconscious. As the resident cognitive psychologist at the event, I pointed out that you have lots of skills that were taught that are currently primarily subconscious, like the skill of driving a car. At first, it was all explicit, so it was overwhelming. Now it is mostly automatic because it is implicit, so it is very difficult to describe or teach to someone else. What got you from the first state to the second state was experience. So, giving students practice and new experiences can help them be more effective designers. So then, someone asked what types of experiences to provide people with. John described design as conceptual blending; so the more exposure you have to different concepts, the greater chance you’ll be able to design. I mentioned a talk that Philip Shaw gave about awareness quotient, and suggested that a good experience to have would be slightly uncomfortable, something you wouldn’t normally seek out. We talked about the differences of having the “critic” mindset when going into an experience versus the “designer” mindset. The critic will find problems and complain about things, where the designer will strive to understand why. All of this was particularly interesting for me because I’ve had this pet theory that the human mind is basically a pattern recognition machine. We find patterns where none exist… so, if design is the blending of disparate concepts, then design should come naturally to us. The more experiences we have, the more connections we can make.

All in all, it was an interesting conference to be a part of. I’m glad I went.

WSU Conference on Design and Cultures

I'm attending a conference at Washington State University Spokane on Design and Cultures. The conference is interdisciplinary, and it is wonderful expanding my thinking about design. I gave a talk today on corporate cultures that inhibit designing creative solutions. Here are the slides.

5 Corporate cultures that inhibit designing creative solutions

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design creativity)

12 activities to get "thinking"

Here we are at the end of 2008. I am reflecting back on this year, what I've been up to and how things have evolved in my life. One of the key characteristics of this year is a focus on thinking "differently". I've been nurturing my creative thinking side this year, and have compiled the following list of 12 activities that can help me think differently (or even just to get thinking). Maybe they'll be helpful to you too...

1. Draw a storyboard. So often, I focus on problem and solution. But, by trying to convey the problem and solution in a story format, I have to think about context, mindset and impact. It's a different frame to look at, and sometimes I realize that I wasn't really thinking about the whole picture.

2. Write a letter. This works particularly well when I am obsessing or frustrated. I seem to think more clearly when writing. I have to chose my words and thoughts and put them into semi-coherent form. It needs to flow and be logical. This forces rigor into my thoughts, which often opens up new ideas for dealing with the issues that I am obsessed or frustrated about.

3. Find an image (or images) that represent what I think or feel about something. Sometimes, the right image can help me uncover a new lens to look through at the problem, which can help suggest different paths or solutions I hadn't thought of.

4. Sticky-Note thoughts. When there is lots of stuff roaming around my head, I write down one thought per note and shuffle them around, then organize them into dimensions, groups or flowcharts. This can really help me lasso my thoughts and ideas and put them into some usable form.

5. Take a camera out and try to capture things related to the issue I'm thinking about. Looking through the small window at the world helps me focus on small details that I might otherwise miss.

6. Draw with crayons and blank paper... it's like reconnecting with my inner kindergartner. Somehow, having chunky wax of many colors and a white canvas that I can scribble on gets my creative juices flowing. Let me make one thing clear... this isn't about the output of the drawing, it's about the ACTION of scribbling that is freeing. How often do you allow yourself to just play, with no particular goal in mind? I don't do it often, but kids do all the time. Harnessing that freedom can get my creative juices flowing. No one ever has to see what you've done... just toss the results in the recycling bin, then turn your thoughts back to the issue at hand.

7. Put it all together, then throw stuff out. I do this with presentations all the time. It's somehow always easy to add a new slide. But then, there are too many... so, I try to take out half and see if the story still holds together. I keep eliminating until I reach the core point or message that I need to focus on. It's hard to let things go, but it almost always makes it better.

8. Mind map. There is some great software out there for mind mapping, which works wonderfully, but somehow there is something even more powerful about drawing it out by hand. A mind map starts with a central concept or idea. Then, you just free associate... (people much smarter than me have summarized the concept pretty well here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map)

9. Collage. We do it with customers, but you can just do it with yourself. Use images from the internet, magazines or anywhere else. Build a collage to capture the problem or idea. Very abstract and creative. Works for getting me "un-stuck". http://www.vizthink.com/blog/2008/12/17/fun-with-photos/

10. Photo Diary. This is something I use for research, but I've also used just for myself. It kind of relates to #3, #5, and #9 above. But, it is a little more structured. Start by making yourself a "shot list" of both concrete and abstract things relating to what you are interested in thinking about. Then, actually complete the photo diary by taking or finding pictures for each. Here's an example that you can see where I did a photo diary for myself (it's in reverse chronological order). This particular example was just where I was exploring the experience of doing a photo diary...

11. Write a newspaper article. I got this idea first from a company activity a while ago... but the idea is pretty sound. The idea is that you write the story of your future success in the past tense from someone else's perspective. This requires that you come up with a vision and think about the implications and insights. And, it's kinda fun. Again, no one ever has to see it.

12. List X things. I do this all the time and it gets me moving. For example, I wanted to write a blog post today (I haven't done one in quite a long time). So, to get myself motivated, I put in the title the number 12. This was arbitrary, and I could change it at any time. But, the challenge was then to come up with 12 things. And I did! Try it. It is amazing... it nearly always works. (I like to use 3, 5, 7 and 10 too.)

Metaphors...

Metaphors are in the air…

Yesterday, I was listening to Terry Gross on Fresh Air talking with Bill Moyers about the election. At one point, Bill Moyers quoted Joseph Campbell, “If you want to change a culture, you need to change the metaphor.” This crystallized something I’ve been wrangling with and helped me think about being more conscious of metaphors.

Metaphors are wonderful ways for us to convey concepts and help people understand what to do next. They are, of course, critical to the design profession and the history of computing. But, how often do we consciously consider our metaphors?

Nancy Duarte, from Duarte Design, wrote a blog entry today about using visual metaphors. She leverages political cartoons to convey her message… and has some excellent advice about being more purposeful in our metaphors and helping our “audience” experience the joy of discovery as they unravel the metaphor.

What are some metaphors that have informed your work?

Outside-In

A famous biochemist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, once said, "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."

• What do lightbulbs and old-time kerosene bottles have in common? One of Edison's employees was trying to solve the problem of having lightbulbs stay in the socket, and he noticed how kerosene bottles kept their lids on... and "viola!" we have the screw-in lightbulb socket that still exists today.
  

• What do Botan Rice Candy and Mouthwash have in common? The makers of Listerine were looking for a way to innovate mouthwash, and the melting rice wrapper of Botan Rice Candy came to their attention... and Listerine ThinStrips were born.
  

• What does a walking a dog in the woods have to do with a method for adhering two objects? George de Mestral went out for a walk with his dog in the woods and when he returned he noticed a lot of little burrs clinging to his pants. He recognized the potential of little micro-hooks and invented "Velcro".
  

Each of these were combined to come up with new innovations. In each case, someone looked at a current solution for something and saw the potential of applying that solution to solve a completely different problem.

All too often, when we are trying to find problems and solutions, we stick to looking at our customers, the particular problems they point out and the particular solutions they use.

But the opportunity for disruptive innovation is greatly increased by looking outside of the problem. I want to inspire my colleagues and peers to spend more time looking outside to solve their problems. For this, I'd like more stories...

I'm looking for other examples of inventions that were inspired by solutions to other problems. Do you have any that I can use?