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Eric
It was Stewart's erection that was the telling point to him. What's your
physical reaction?
:)
You've created a straw man also. Geniuses are not allowed in brainstorming
sessions. Why waste the time. Just go to work.
Martin
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Eric Siegel <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
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> institutions.
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>
> He's created a straw man. brainstorming as in "every idea is allowed,
> criticism is not" is a slice of the ideation process. I don't think anyone
> would claim that it is the most productive slice. It always feels more
> like limbering up, helping to encourage those who are not comfortable
> expressing themselves in front of others (particularly in front of others
> of higher stature in the formal or informal hierarchies we live and work
> in). In the kick off meeting for a project, if there are 15 people in the
> room, 1.5 hours are given for people to share their background and work
> maybe the same amount for the project team to present the project as it is
> currently conceived, and the same amount for "blue sky" thinking.
> Typically, that group never meets again, but rather sub groups meet.
> Powerful ideas expressed during the kickoff might carry over, but for the
> most part, that 1.5 hours devoted to blue sky unconstrained thinking is a
> tiny fraction of the work that goes into the project.
>
> I've never heard anyone who is involved with creative work suggest that
> brainstorming without critical back and forth is the basis for their
> development process, no matter the product.
>
> I have become kind of allergic to the gurus of creativity and innovation.
> I don't think that they are actual characteristics of people and I don't
> think that there is a systematic way to cultivate them. I don't even think
> there is a useful way to define creativity or innovation, and I am pretty
> sure we don't know how to encourage those characteristics in school kids
> (not that it isn't worth trying). Things like citation networks or patents
> in no way describe individual creativity. Hell, artists and musicians
> don't even figure into those metrics. Artists with lots of shows and
> musicians with lots of hits do not correlate in any useful way with
> innovation or creativity as I can understand it. Some are sure that
> creativity is heightened by constraints (basho haiku anyone?) or only can
> be achieved in unfettered freedom (william blake amazing ravings)
>
> I mean, what shared characteristics or circumstances can you assemble of
> richard feynman, steven jobs, miles davis, and mark morris (OK 3/4 spent
> the most creative parts of their lives in NYC and 3/4 lived for a good
> chunk of time in CA, but you get the point, pick any 4 people you consider
> to be most creative)
>
> I guess creativity is like Justice Stewart's famous definition of
> pornography "I know it when I see it."
>
> Eric
>
> >
>
>
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