Sunday, July 12, 2009

If you are into it.

From Explaining Creativity (2006), by Keith Sawyer:

Many of these [creativity] studies found that the most important characteristic of creative people is an almost aesthetic ability to recognize a good problem in their domain. They know how to ask the right questions. That’s why highly creative people tend to be creative in one specific domain: it takes a lot of experience, knowledge, and training to be able to identify good problems. p. 47.

That's why I strongly emphasize search for high-value problems in all my courses and invention workshops. The Reverse Brainstorm, the Three Magicians, the 9-screen view, the 10X Diagram, the 5-element analysis - all these tools are necessary for accomplishing what creative people have to do: recognize a good problem. Furthermore, these tools allow you to go beyond the basic creative ability and recognize a good problem outside of your domain of expertise.

Of course, only if you are into it.

No comments: