Creative Problem Solving, a technique developed by Sidney Parnes and Alex Osborne and others, can be applied to both pure and applied creativity.

A set of 6 steps that can take anyone anywhere, can be used to either fix a faced problem or improve a situation, whether it needs fixing or not.

the steps are:

1. State your goal or wish: what are we looking at? what do we wish we had or our main goal? 2. Gather data: on the issue and things that affects it, to better understand it 3: Clarify the issue: talk about details, be specific and focus on one thing at a time 4: Generate ideas: to overcome or enhance the situation 5: Enhance solution: think and re-think the proposed solution until it best fits 6: Plan for action: choose your asistors and resistors and make a detailed plan of what you will do, who else will do it, by when, and who to report it to.

try it. it works.

Randah

Hi Randah:

Thanks for that suggestion.

One of the things I think Prof. Arapurakal was getting at was the possibility that we don't already know our "goal or wish", that we may think we do, but that creativity can among other things open us to possible goals and wishes we might otherwise not see. So how do we tap what may be unconscious goals and wishes?

I am delighted to see your work at http://www.myarabicstory.org and think that one of the most powerful tools we have for creativity is, in fact, storytelling, as exemplified for example by Idries Shah's teaching stories in such books as Tales of the Dervishes, or Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.

Like zen tales, sufi teaching stories often seem to exemplify lateral or associative thinking, a faculty that the "rationalist" west tends to overlook in its headlong rush for results, results, results. What do you think?

Great questions! I think that this can almost become a self-defeating mission, in that trying to define a methodology for being creative is equivalent to trying to teach someone how to dream. The process tends to void the result.

If we did have to put criteria in place, I would say that a major piece is "unlearning" the assumptions we tend to make about a given problem or circumstance. Recognizing that we unconsciously constrain our thinking, and backtracking to avoid those constraints.

We can try analyzing the problem from a macro perspective - what are the circumstances and events that contribute to the problem, and is it more productive to focus on a different point in that chain of events? If we've been focusing on a material or physical solution, could the goal be realized through a cultural or attitudinal change instead? Or vice-versa?

Unfortunately the daily stream of tasks and communication tends to interfere with the creative process, which is why I strongly advocate scheduling regular free or "brainstorming" time specifically for developing new ideas. I've also found that inspiration is often borne from other people's creativity - I've personally come up with some of my best ideas while reading, listening to music, or learning about a historical leader or innovator.

Nice one, Jon:

QUOTE: trying to define a methodology for being creative is equivalent to trying to teach someone how to dream :UNQUOTE

And I completely agree with you that Unlearning is a key part of the process, and that "reverie" time is important.

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I personally think there are two major aspects of creativity.

The first or more obvious has to do with focusing on an issue, researching it and its context, pushing one's inquiry as far as it will go, letting go (relaxing, "forgetting" and or "sleeping on it"), and taking an aha! and working to test it and bring it into reality.

Lots of people teach skills that amount to refinements on these points, but I believe there's a whole other approach. What this first approach omits is any description of how the "unconscious" mind that comes up with the aha! works

and we can in fact find out a great deal about that from reading Coleridge, Jung and others.

So I guess we could divide our discussions of creativity up into three parts:

tricks and tecghniques for creativity the "effort relaxation aha effort" paradigm care and feeding of the unconscious

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If anyone is up for a tough scholarly read or two, Arthur Koestler's The Act of Creation, John Livingstone Lowes' The Road to Xanadu and Ioan Couliano's Eros and Magic in the Renaissance are, in their very different ways, powerful introductions to the subject of creativity and the workings of the creative imagination.

I'm sorry. I didn't intend some of the formatting in that last post. The "bolded" text isn't meant to be bolded, and the list of three aspects of creativity should read:

tricks and techniques for creativity

the "effort relaxation aha effort" paradigm

care and feeding of the unconscious

Albert Einstein once said " the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant, we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift". The creative process is complex but it can't stand alone without the rational mind, so pure and applied need to work together to achieve results in my opinion. As ideas often grow out of the unconscious, intuition and imagination are essential techniques to connect us to our creativity. I agree with Jonathon, " unlearning" needs to happen. When hitting a block " sleeping on it" makes sense because dreaming is a naturally creative state. Many creative ideas are generated when somebody discards preconceived assumptions and decides on a new approach that might seem unthinkable to others.

I'm interested to know what people do when they have a problem switching off or relaxing...?? Are any of the books you suggest particularly good for this problem?

Lila:

QUOTE: I'm interested to know what people do when they have a problem switching off or relaxing...?? Are any of the books you suggest particularly good for this problem? : UNQUOTE

No, I don't think any of the books I've mentioned are necessarily good at answering that question. One technique is simply to become absorbed in some other task, another is to (literally) sleep on it, a third is to stare at a fire or sunset, something with enough variation to be mesmerizing but unthreatening.

Behind that advice is the need to allow the "other" mind to make it's knowledge known to you, which can't be forced, can't be demanded

it can pop up in the most unexpected places, and anything which feels like compulsion is alien to its workings.

If that answer is unsatisfying, try some relaxation techniques. I wrote several "guided meditations" out in a book called Control your High Blood Pressure without Drugs which I co-authored with Cleaves Bennett MD. Don't bother with the title, don't bother with the bulk of the book (which you can pick up on abebooks.com for a dollar plus postage), just use the progressive muscular relaxation exercise, and best of all maybe, make yourself a tape.

Or follow your breath, bringing yourself gently back to it when you find your mind has wandered, without reproof that you "failed" to keep your attention in one place, and see if some of the wanderings have hints to offer about the issue you are wanting to understand.

That's about the best I can do or say in the space (and time) available to me here...

That's a lovely E8instein quote. And I so totally agree with what you say here, I can't think of anything to add, except perhaps that "sleeping on it" needn't necessarily mean sleep, it can equally be "reverie" or just turning one's attention away from the issue at hand to some other task...

Lovely thread. Love the distinction between applied and pure creativity. Glad you're running with Prof. Ravi's ideas. He's great! And Einstein's a great example. His biography is on my reading stack.

1) I think creating an environment of play is key! Google does it. I do it by taking breaks from "work" oil painting. Oil dries slow - so when my brain fries - I just go back to my canvas and add a layer or a few touches. The steady motion of brushes swaying on the canvas is very meditative. Charles, we spoke of Asian calligraphy last time - similar idea.

2) Absolutely believe we have to tap into the unconscious. Sleep and dreams are good. I keep a journal next to my bed so I can jot notes in the middle of the night and go back to sleep.

One other thought I'd introduce is the notion of co-creation with something bigger than ourselves, if not divine than a higher truth or value. Prayer is good. And so is paying attention to synchronicities of grace. I make sure and spend time ministering one-on-one with the people I try to serve. No matter how "high" a level I get, spending time at the ground level not only keeps me humble but I actually get terrific breakthrough ideas talking to them. It's as if God speaks through them to give me ideas at critical junctures. So the last discipline I'd add is..

Pay attention!

CklaraJo, you said:

QUOTE: One other thought I'd introduce is the notion of co-creation with something bigger than ourselves, if not divine than a higher truth or value. ... So the last discipline I'd add is.. Pay attention! :ENDQUOTE

I think that's what Einstein is getting at in that lovely quote: "the intuitive mind is a sacred gift". When we speak of gifts, we are really speaking of something beyond our own capacity to produce. I mean, you can't will yourself to be a gifted poet like Eliot, or to produce equations to match Heisenberg's. You can put effort in those directions, but you can't pull it off by sheer force of will, something has to come to you like a, well, like a gift, for such things to happen. It may be from "within" you, but it is still wiser than, and not under the control of, the conscious "egoic" self.

Thanks Charles and ClaraJo:

I recently checked out the workaholics anonymous site and was surprised when I saw some of the questions which make you a workaholic (of course some of the questions make perfect sense like when long hours hurt your family and relationships): However,

Do you turn your hobbies into money-making ventures?

Do you think about your work while driving, falling asleep or when others are talking?

Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most?

Do you believe that it is okay to work long hours if you love what you are doing?

Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else?

.. my question to you all is: how do these questions relate to social entrepreneurs? Turning your hobby into money-making ventures seems quite acceptable for a social entrepreneur. The issue of doing what we love, something that we think will have a positive impact on humanity and the world, is what is so exciting about social entrepreneurship.

One more thing to share. When I do have "aha moments" (rare as they are:-), they seem to be when I'm doing menial things (thinking while driving, doing dishes, etc.)... many times I have to stop what I'm doing to jot things down... I always keep a pen and pad in the car now... (for red lights:-).

Lila:

QUOTE: Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else? :UNQUOTE

That's the real clear sign that something's amiss, I think, for me at least. And even then it may be only a minor thing, or it may be the signal of "life out of balance" to a degree that requires serious change. I don't think the other items you list matter so much if, as ClaraJo suggests, "an environment of play is key" for you. You need to be able to disengage the drive of purposefulness if you are to allow creativity and refreshment to seep into your life.

I agree with all your comments Charles. I don't think we will ever know how the unconscious comes up with the aha moments, that's part of the magic and mystery of life, right. Jung talked about a collective unconscious which we all share, so I think all of us have the ability to tap into knowledge larger than our own ego's understanding of life, especially if it benefits others, so to the question of care for it, I think we are wise not to shut it off when it whispers to us.

Very briefly, I do think there are things we can do in terms of the care and feeding of the unconscious, besides listening keenly for its whispers. The archetypal realm is replete with symbolic images of certain characteristic kinds, and in my view we can "feed" it by paying attention to those images. We can do this by reading about, studying and meditating upon mandalas, alchemical symbols, and even zen koans. What we will be doing here, in effect, is "priming the pump" with the kinds of "marriage of opposites" imagery that pro[pels us out of our normal one-sided view and into a more polyphonic appreciation of the complex and multi-faceted "whole" within which all our problems arise, and without which those problems can only be seen "in isolation" from their context.

Jung's work on the conjunction of opposites has much tio say about this, and Couliano's Eros and Magic in the Renaissance traces some aspects of this kind of thinking through the Renaissance, observing how it then vanishes during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, only to reappear in carefully calculated and unspontaneous form in thew wizardry of modern advertising.

Charles - you are a wise man. Love the way you take my thoughts and move them one step forward.

What have you found to be techniques for care and feeding the "group or collective" unconscious? Say at board meetings or team weeklies ... and of course, the next question then would be how can Social Edge tap into the collective unconscious of an even larger community?

Advertising often plugs into the collective unconscious to sell their products, but so do a number of other avenues such as the sufi teaching stories, the tarrot, and the list goes on. It is up to us to pay attention and by mindful to consciously feed our unconscious. Man and his symbols by Carl Jung is a good book.

QUOTE: Advertising often plugs into the collective unconscious to sell their products, but so do a number of other avenues such as the sufi teaching stories [...] :UNQUOTE

Yes, although the sufi stories spring from the urgency of their archetypal sources, whereas advertising is crafted to mimic those sources, and I wouldn't recommend advertising as "care and feeding" for that reason. Similarly, I don't think that a "paint by numbers" adaptation of Campbell's Hero is quite the same as the Homeric tales...

Ahem. My kids, who love Star Wars, would hate this line of thinking.

Star wars is a good example of plugging into group consciousness. In the symbols of the unconscious, the hero myth represents the whole psyche or wholeness and since the hero myths have been with us from the cradle of civilisation, the archetypal figure of the hero represents superhuman power as a transformer, a trait I'm sure all social entrepreneurs share.

Hi everyone:

I've been enjoying reading Social Edge discussions for a while now and this is the first time I've been inspired to leap in

this is right up my alley! The work that I do is all about cooking the imagination -- if we can't imagine past where we are right now, we'll never move beyond it.

I'll try to be disciplined enough not to babble, but just to share a few thoughts that are coursing:

I teach, periodically, a course on the Muses and their role in imagination and creativity. Mythically, the mother of this crew was Mnemosyne

Memory. Using that as a metaphor for how the imagination/creativity can work, I think that there are three modes of imagination (a slightly different take than applied/free creativity):

1. Remembering into imagining: We go backwards, whether literally or metaphorically, collectively or individually, and imagine our histories, or ‘the way it was once.’ Which can be the final place, I think, of this kind of imagining, or a place to start to imagine forward. 2. Forgetting into imagining: We create something new out of what we cannot remember – or we create some kind of imaginal memory. We can either just recreate what we’ve forgotten (as I’m getting older, I’m finding that I do this more and more about my childhood, for example); or can also use it as a place to spring forward from. 3. Creating/imagining forwards – what has not yet been thought of, or experienced.

I think that these can be used as conscious tools to play with creativity

and these these dynamics are working unconsciously in us all the time. I so agree with Jonathan about not trying to too tightly regulate/understand the creative or imaginal process. Dissect it and the magic quickly seeps out through the holes.

The glory, to my mind, of imagination is that it is unregulated

it can take us far past what we are conditioned (by ourselves and by the collective) to think is possible or reasonable -- which is why I have a little bit of a tic about "applied creativity" -- if creativity is only problem solving, it limits its possibilities. Mathematician/philosopher Gaston Bachelard wrote "imagination is the voyage into the land of the infinite" -- a quote I refer to a lot. At its best, creativity allows us to imagine beyond the problem we've identified. It is intuitive, frequently nonlinear, and leaps between the pragmatic and metaphoric and back again.

That said, I also think that learning to think creatively a skill that can be strengthened

like learning to flex a certain type of muscles. But the reps here are about finding ways to open to the images/senses/archetypes/momentums around us that spark that energy, rather than a prescripted set of "to do's" that will through sheer dint of repetition beat our way towards creative thought.

When I work with clients around this, I often suggest that they "turn left"

step away from the particulars of the issues/challenges they're trying to solve, and glance at the world obliquely. Maybe this is, as Jonathan does, listening to music. Maybe it's stepping out into your neighborhood and really paying attention to the sights, sounds, and smells around you. Maybe it's reading (or writing) a bit of poetry, or the writings of a quantum physicist -- something that tugs at you, that may not be completely familiar.

This sideways move seems, often, counter productive because it isn't linear. (And we have a love affair with linear productivity in the US!) But sometimes whole worlds can open

the very idea of social entrepreneurship is such a move, I think -- and enormous energy and direction emerges.

Okay

I'll force myself to stop now!

All the best, Leigh

What a lovely post!

I was particularly pleased to see the quote from Bachelard, whom I think of every time the word "reverie" comes up. I went to your website and saw neat things about a gathering of fools.

Now there's another avenue of exploration: folly. Enid Welsford's book, The Fool: His Social and Literary History sits next to Robert Goldsmith's Wise Fools in Shakespeare and a handful of others in a treasured place in my library. What was it Blake said? "A fool who persists in his folly will become wise", or something of the sort!

Welcome, Leigh, and pray tell us more...

Oh, Charles, now you've done it! :-)

I wrote my dissertation on frivolity as a force for subversive creativity. In its most simple definition, I've defined frivolity as a "turning left when the world expects you to go forward."

I think this is often at the heart of creativity, at least at its earliest moments, as it allows us to step out of that linear drive towards solution and open ourselves up to a whole array of other ways of thinking. It is, to my mind, a combination of allowing the subconscious time to play and burble up to the surface, allowing ourselves time and space to "pay attention," and, as Marriah suggests, not anticipating reality to provide us with new answers (oh, I love that!).

I also love the image of the ladder, but must admit that in my imagination, it becomes something of a surrealist's ladder, going up and down and in circles, or maybe a Rube Goldberg ladder...

As to the wisdom of fools - oh, yes! A few quotes that entertain me:

"Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious" - Paul Valery

"My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool. It gives me the world and exiles me from it." Ursula Leguin

"When in doubt, make a fool of yourself.There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap." Cynthia Heimel

In an effort to key this back towards social entrepreneurship, it seems to me that being willing to dance with Folly is an extraordinary strength of a social entrepreneur, indeed, anyone who is trying to shake loose the system and create new models for it. Our ideas might be brilliant, or they might be absurd

or they might be brilliant because they're absurd. Being willing to risk a huge pratfall is key to trying to bring those ideas to life, even as many around us (and often ourselves) are muttering in our ears, "are you crazy or just foolish? this will never work!"

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend/colleague the other day. She, like me, is in fairly early stages of developing her business. She has a vision of what she's dubbed "servant capitalism," looking for ways to re-imagine the intersections between resources, philanthropy, and venture capital. We had a lovely moment in the conversation when she said, after I'd been expounding about what I'm doing and planning on doing with my biz, "oh, your project sounds ever so much more brilliant and do-able than mine." I guffawed, because I'd been just thinking the same thing about hers.

Perhaps simply two fools recognizing each other!

Charles, I'm sure you know Erasmus' In Praise of Folly, but do you also know Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde and Fools are Everywhere by Beatrice Otto? If you like Welsford, you may like these other two books as well.

On another topic, I just visited your Hipbones website and would love to know more. It sounds like you've been playing with a playful way into imagination for a while now. In the immortal words of Bernard Mickey Wrangle, "yum!"

All the best, Leigh

Hi Leigh:

Very nice seeing you in different arenas recently... and my apologies for the delay in resp0onding to you here.

I've defined frivolity as a "turning left when the world expects you to go forward." I think this is often at the heart of creativity, at least at its earliest moments, as it allows us to step out of that linear drive towards solution and open ourselves up to a whole array of other ways of thinking.

Yes. Disengagement from "that linear drive" seems to be a central feature of the process.

I also love the image of the ladder, but must admit that in my imagination, it becomes something of a surrealist's ladder, going up and down and in circles, or maybe a Rube Goldberg ladder...

Or one of Maurits Escher's staircases? I always think of Wittgenstein's ladder, which can be thrown away after use. But you're leading us into frivolity...

do you also know Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde?

No, but I loved his book The Gift, and consider it the best (in the sense most evocative) discussion of talents and "gists" and of gift economies in general that one could hope for. I must look out for Trickster.

I just visited your Hipbones website and would love to know more. It sounds like you've been playing with a playful way into imagination for a while now.

I'm hoping one of these days to be able to introduce the HipBone Games to the Social Edge community, perhaps when there's software for playing them online (at the moment they can be played in conference software such as we have here, but not on a "regular" web page). They are designed for joy as well as fun, and beauty as well as creativity, but they certainly have creativity at their heart…

And for conflict resolution purposes, I wrote up the series of 10 numbered files listed at the top of http://www.beadgaming.com/hipdocs/hipdocs_index.html , which may be of interest.

Warm regards to all, C

I had inserted QUOTE / UNQUOTE around each of your quotes in my post, Leigh, but the SE software omitted them.

Let's try again, using BOLD for your quotes, and indenting my responses. I hope this will work, I don't have a "guide" to the macros that work here.

I meant to write:

Hi Leigh:

Very nice seeing you in different arenas recently... and my apologies for the delay in resp0onding to you here.

I've defined frivolity as a "turning left when the world expects you to go forward." I think this is often at the heart of creativity, at least at its earliest moments, as it allows us to step out of that linear drive towards solution and open ourselves up to a whole array of other ways of thinking.--Yes. Disengagement from "that linear drive" seems to be a central feature of the process.

I also love the image of the ladder, but must admit that in my imagination, it becomes something of a surrealist's ladder, going up and down and in circles, or maybe a Rube Goldberg ladder...--Or one of Maurits Escher's staircases? I always think of Wittgenstein's ladder, which can be thrown away after use. But you're leading us into frivolity...

do you also know Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde?--No, but I loved his book The Gift, and consider it the best (in the sense most evocative) discussion of talents and "gists" and of gift economies in general that one could hope for. I must look out for Trickster.

I just visited your Hipbones website and would love to know more. It sounds like you've been playing with a playful way into imagination for a while now.--I'm hoping one of these days to be able to introduce the HipBone Games to the Social Edge community, perhaps when there's software for playing them online (at the moment they can be played in conference software such as we have here, but not on a "regular" web page). They are designed for joy as well as fun, and beauty as well as creativity, but they certainly have creativity at their heart... And for conflict resolution purposes, I wrote up the series of 10 numbered files listed at the top of http://www.beadgaming.com/hipdocs/hipdocs_index.html , which may be of interest.

Warm regards to all, C

As a political science graduate student and independent philosopher, I have a different understanding on how to develop creativity. In the field of international relations, Waltz advised scholars that they could not rely on reality to come up with theories. Instead, they should invent theories that defied reality because any reality-devised theory would be description, not predictive or prescriptive. In the field of comparative politics, Sartori articulated the "ladder of abstraction". One starts at the bottom of the ladder with facts, and then uses questions about those facts to organize them into concepts. The concepts become containers of facts. Finally, the concepts are put together in a causal relationship to form a theory.

For me, the journey up this ladder of abstraction is the most important tool for being creative. I operate on the belief that no single theory will ever encompass all known facts, and so there must be a constant and continuous effort to assess the same facts over and over again with different questions. My comparative politics professor said questions are a way of organizing information such that some facts are included while others are left out. Good questions will organize facts well so that the answer is obvious, thus producing that "aha!" moment. Bad questions will organize facts poorly so that the answer is difficult to produce.

So, my creative method is to take a given set of observations and constantly re-label them and reorganize them so that I can come up with more creative concepts. The concepts them add up to unique theories that guide my research, analysis and behavior. Given a set of 100 or 1000 different facts, I ask myself questions that allow me to go through all the permutations of organization, even if the questions seem absurd or based on imaginary conditions. It’s this ability to consistently ask weird questions that I think is the essence of creativity. Once I ask myself a given set of questions, I debate with myself to select the most plausible question. This process of internal debate and resolution helps me to be creative.

Hi Marriah!

As you say, you have a novel approach to creatiity, and one that adds to the variety and (eventual) cohesion of what's on display here.

I'm interested that you mention the Ladder of Abstraction. As far as I know, it belongs in the general realm of General Semantics, i.e. of Korzybski's contribution, but I saw it articulated first in SI Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action, and I think he may be the first one to use the term:

http://www.rijnlandmodel.nl/english/general_semantics/abstraction_ladder.htm

Hayakawa talks about a cow called Bessie, and his steps of abstraction lead from the cow as atoms via the cow we perceive, to Bessie the named cow, the notion of "cow", "livestock", "farm assets", "assets" and "wealth". he doesn't use the rigid four-fold division that I see elsewhere in writings on the Ladder.

Which brings me to the question of Sartori. I'd be very interested to learn more about Sartori, and what his application of the ladder is, and how you have then fine tuned his interpretation to create your own creative process...

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