Month: February 2017

Walk a Mile in My Shoes (But Not Too Fast), While Thinking of Different Ways to Use Them

You’re at your desk, trying to make progress on a project when that familiar urge to get up and walk to the vending machines – or anywhere other than your workstation – nags at you. What do you do? Should you give in? Will walking help or hurt your performance? Two competing research studies say “it depends.” It depends on the intensity of the activity and whether or not your project requires creativity. Continue reading Walk a Mile in My Shoes (But Not Too Fast), While Thinking of Different Ways to Use Them

The Value of What’s Old About New Ideas

Will Tumonis of Swaycraft, Ltd. recently blogged about how using abstract representations of problems can boost creative thinking. But he also rightly noted that abstraction is not enough; without concrete ideas to link your efforts to the pragmatic realities of a task, serious innovation isn’t possible.

I think he’s right, and his observations go to the core of how we define creativity. The two ingredients most students of creativity agree on as a minimum are Continue reading The Value of What’s Old About New Ideas