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To recap – it’s World Creativity and Innovation Week 2011. Lot’s of changes going on (been to the gas pump lately?) resulting in uncertainties, chaos and confusion.  Amidst it all is that lingering optimistic outlook that you can make a positive difference despite all the channels that are seemingly closing.

This year’s WCIW is a time to refresh, renew, refocus, reinvigorate and reinvent.  For the past two posts, you’ve been led through a beginning process to identify a potential for you to start a new direction.

Step I – You were invited to consider new options through the lenses of 12 different doors, to select one, and to focus on and expand upon opportunities it presents for you.

Step II – You were guided to select one option from your selected door for creating your newer future.

Welcome to Step III

Mindset going in…

At the end of this stage you’ll surface and create goals, wishes and dreams from which to choose the ONE that you’ll commit to taking an action to make real.  Ready?  This is the pre-cursor to commitment. It’s important to stay open to making a change in direction and practice.

Step III

1. Pull out the card that has your selected option from Step II.  Look at it.  Read it.  Breathe it. Imagine success in enlivening it.
2. Use the special Step III beginning phrases to open your mind to wandering wonder to enable thinking happy and inspiring thoughts

• Wouldn’t it be awesome if…. (then write 10 statements to finish the statement)
• Wouldn’t it be helpful if …(10 statements here too… allow your mind to wonder and wander)
• Wouldn’t it feel great if…(yup another 10)
• Six months from now, when you are so pleased with the outcome, you’ll look back at today and say, I’m so glad I asked: Wouldn’t it be just right if… (another 10)

With your 40 questions intact.  Pause. Breathe. Go for a walk or do something else distracting.  It helps if it’s fun, and physical and something that you might not normally do, something different. When was the last time you drew, for example? If you are really stuck best advice is to clean out a drawer or closet. Allow yourself the luxury of time to let these incubate for a while, place them on the back burner for at least an hour, maybe overnight, whichever feels right to you.

Expect a miracle insight to occur.  We’ll craft that later on to help you create a new pathway for your evolution.

Happy World Creativity and Innovation Week – Day 3

Ideas to celebrate World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21.
Every year, everywhere, everyone.

• @Home
• @Work
• @School

Related Articles

• Creativity: One Step In. Personal prep for World Creativity and Innovation Week (marcisegal.wordpress.com)
• Creativity: Next step in (II). Personal prep for World Creativity and Innovation Week (marcisegal.wordpress.com)

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With World Creativity and Innovation Week fast approaching (April 15 start – Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday) aren’t you glad you completed the first step in to tapping your creativity?

Step I focused your awareness on what might be by asking facilitative questions to set your mind free to wonder, imagine, leave the day-to-day momentarily to see a new future potential for you emerge.  You were led to consider many different topic areas (12) from which to use as a springboard to generate many different ideas of what your ideal might be. In Step II you reflect, consider and choose one to move forward with.

Mindset going in…

As a result of completing Step II you will achieve clarity for a new direction to take.  Of all the list of possibilities, wishes, challenges and new awareness’s, you will select one you really like, not one you think you should do, one that stirs your passion, your curiosity, your interest, your wonder, packed together with an openness to see it through to fruition.

“One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.”— E. M. Forster

“Chase your passion, not your pension.”— Denis Waitley

Step II

1. With your list of options in front of you, weed through to select the ones that make your heart sing. Or, if you are more analytically minded, choose the ones that look interesting to pursue.
2. Now, with a shorter list, compare each option against the others.  To make it easy, put each option on a 3×5 card.
3. Hold two cards in front of you, and ask, if you could do one option, and only one, which would it be?  Put your first choice in one pile, and make a another pile for your second choice.
4. Pick up two new cards and do the same thing.  If you could chose one and only one to move forward with, which would it be?  Feel free to pay attention to how you feel and factor that into your decision making.
5. Continue through all your options until each is either in the first choice or second choice pile.
6. Do the same process again using only your first choice pile, creating two piles as you go.
7. Continue to use this process again, and again, until there is only one option remaining.
8. With the final option, look at it, breathe it in.  And then forget about it.  We’ll take it next steps tomorrow.

World Creativity and Innovation Week begins April 15th, tomorrow, Leonardo Da Vinci’s birthday.  Because so many people are celebrating, you cannot not be left out.  You’ll feel more creative tomorrow.  Honest.  You’ve got it in you… so you can use it, and, for this week at least, celebrate it with your family, friends and colleagues.

Yes.

• Ideas to celebrate World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21.
  Every year, everywhere, everyone.
  • @Home
  • @Work
  • @School

Related Articles

• Creativity: One Step In. Personal prep for World Creativity and Innovation Week (marcisegal.wordpress.com)
• Think like Leonardo da Vinci (budtoboss.wordpress.com)

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It continues to surprise me that some people refuse to own their creative abilities.  Last summer I met a remarkable woman who produced a documentary on how swine are ill-farmed. She wants to bring to everyone’s attention to the ways pigs are raised and mistreated, causing ill effects on the environment, the people who live in proximity to these farms and consumers. See Pig Business for video clip.

At a reception following I handed her an I Am Creative button for World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21 and she flatly refused it, saying she could never wear it, that she’s not creative. Clearly our thinking on the subject is different.

She’s not alone.  Many people don’t see themselves as creators, and for good reason.  Society formed in ways to protect people from deviating from the throng and doing harm to others and self.

Social reforms and moral structures from the 5th century are still in place that dissuade people from engaging their curiosity and imaginations to embrace new ideas and make new decisions.  I wonder how these will reconcile, if at all, in the days to come when skills associated with using creativity become commonplace in schools and higher education.

Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues

Pope Gregory (AD 540) put forward the  Seven Deadly Sins as attributes or vices to avoid to live a good life: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, sloth. Seven Heavenly Virtues (humility, kindness, abstinence, chastity, patience, liberality, diligence) became popular in Europe in the Middle Ages as behaviours to protect people from engaging in the vices.

Is it possible that people may feel owning their creativity opens the door of temptation, and leads them astray from practicing the virtues?

• Pride is an excessive belief in one’s own abilities. Humility is modest behaviour, giving respect, thinking of yourself less often than you think of others, and giving credit where credit is due.
• Envy is wanting what others have, be it status, abilities, or possessions. Kindness means giving charity, having positive outlooks, and inspiring consideration in others.
• Gluttony is the wish to eat or consume more than you require. Temperance is mindfulness of one’s surroundings, moderation between self-interest and public-interest and the rights and needs of others.
• Lust is a powerful craving for such as sex, power and money. Chastity is clean living, being honest with oneself, family and friends, and achieving purity of thought through education.
• Anger is the loss of rational self-control and the wish to harm others. Patience is endurance through moderation, forgiveness, creating a sense of peaceful stability and community.
• Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain. Charity is generosity, self-sacrifice, unlimited loving kindness to others.
• Sloth is laziness and the avoidance of work. Diligence is integrity, steadfastness in belief and having a decisive work ethic.

Is it possible that this very talented woman did not want the button because she wanted to keep her virtues of humility, temperance, patience and diligence and not succumb to the temptation of her perception of pride?  Does claiming your creativity make you boastful?

Your thoughts?

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Commentary

Wearing the I am Creative button for World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21 shows people you want to contribute to the future in that you are willing to

• be open to new ideas
• engage your imagination
• use new decisions

that will make the world a better place and make your place in the world better too, without causing harm.

You can get one soon. Stay tuned.

The ask is small because you can do something as a team, a family, or a classroom and you don’t have to ask for permission, you can do it under the radar.  It doesn’t have to cost anything.

The purpose for World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21 is to build capacity for people to be open to new ideas and to make new decisions that make the world a better place and make their place in the world better too, without causing harm.

WCIW comes alive when you lead, host, attend and/or take part in events and activities that honour creativity, because when you do, it’s easier for innovation to occur.

We’re compiling a list of organizations and people world-wide who are committing to inspiring new thinking and new action.  Some examples for WCIW 2011 are:

Crea Conference: Sestri Levante, Italy April 13 – 17

The 9th annual CREA Conference will offer a new mix of people, programmes, and ideas. CREA is dedicated to organisations and people who are looking for innovation and solutions; who believe that ideas are better than words; that doing things is more effective than talking; that learning new methods and techniques is more productive than listening to speeches; that creativity is the only way to produce innovation professionally and personally.

ACE (Atlanta Creativity Exchange): Atlanta, Georgia, US April 14 – 16

ACE has been designed to facilitate the open exchange of ideas about innovation and creative thinking between  expert presenters and individual participants. It is a resource for learning and applying the creative tools behind innovation and problem solving. Our global network of professional speakers from business, education, and the arts share their knowledge freely at a pragmatic level that is easily translatable to immediate application in you life and work.

Orenda Connections – In Good Company (conference on corporate social responsibility): Toronto, Canada April 12

The In Good Company Corporate Social Responsibility conference, 2011 will bring together thought leaders in the corporate, not-for-profit and academic sectors to explore the evolution of Community Investment, and to share strategies and best practices for creating meaningful corporate community partnerships.

If your future depends on what you do today, what might you do during WCIW 2011 April 15 – 21 to make the world a better place and/or make your place in the world better too?

Personally, I’m leading an interactive tour of the contemporary art installation at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) on Wednesday April 13 from 6:30 – 8:30. If you are in town, please feel free to join me. The purpose is to inspire new thinking among participants with regards to their creativity and what small things they can do to celebrate WCIW at work, at school and home. Will write more about that later. BTW the AGO is free Wednesday nights.

Here are the expectations and requirements for celebrating WCIW 2011.

Related Articles

• Is Creativity the Number 1 Skill for the 21st Century? (psychologytoday.com)
• How to Celebrate WCIW

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Creativity 1: It’s Always

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. – Louis L’Amour

“Each one of us is a blend of life and death. In the most literal sense, our bodies always contain old cells that are dying and new cells that are emerging as replacements. From a more metaphorical perspective, our familiar ways of seeing and thinking and feeling are constantly atrophying, even as fresh modes emerge. Both losing and winning are woven into every day; sinking down and rising up; shrinking and expanding. In any given phase of our lives, one or the other polarity is usually more pronounced.”

Creativity 2: Question: Creativity = new ideas + new decisions.  How else do we name it and where is it used?

Introduction

“The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them,” wrote novelist Margaret Atwood. “There ought to be as many for love.”

Here are a few that the ancient Greeks devised, according to Lindsay Swope in her review of Richard Idemon’s book Through the Looking Glass.

Epithemia is the basic need to touch and be touched. Our closest approximation is “horniness,” though epithemia is not so much a sexual feeling as a sensual one.

Philia is friendship. It includes the need to admire and respect your friends as a reflection of yourself—like in high school, where you want to hang out with the cool kids because that means you’re cool too.

Eros isn’t sexual in the way we usually think, but is more about the emotional gratification that comes from merging souls.

Agape is a mature, utterly free expression of love that has no possessiveness. It means wanting the best for another person even if it doesn’t advance your self-interest.”

Quotes from Rob Brezny, author of Freewill Astrology and PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Other names for creativity

• invention, innovation, humour, entrepreneurship, surprise
• unexpected, novelty, originality, new, improved, game changer
• personal expression, new uses, new perspectives
• evolution, revolution, incremental change, disruptive change
• improvisation, negotiation, stabilization, facilitation, strategic plan

Where used

• research, product development
• raising children, teaching, budgeting
• relationship building, health and lifestyle
• caring for others, caring for self
• politics, sport, entertainment, media, business
• science, technology, psychology, urban planning
• travel, sustainability, economics, arts
• networking, questioning, hypothesizing, wondering
• speaking, writing, learning, playing
• at home, at work, at school, in community, when shopping, when selling…

How else is creativity referred to?  Where else is it used?

World Creativity and Innovation Week (WCIW) is April 15 – 21.  It’s a time for you to bring your creativity into the spotlight; to use new ideas and make new decisions that make your world a bit more satisfying – without, of course, causing harm.  What might you do during WCIW in 2011 make the world a better place and to make your place in the world better too?

Related Articles

• Muscles Remember Past Glory (wired.com)
  

  Pumping up is easier for people who have been buff before, and now scientists think they know why — muscles retain a memory of their former fitness even as they wither from lack of use.  hm…Do we have same capacity for our creativity?

• Book Review: Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life by Shelley Carson, Ph.D. (blogcritics.org)
  

  Your Creative Brain shows how to expand the marvelous human brain to move from ordinary problem solving to great creative skill. Author Shelley Carson’s concept of creativity recognizes a creative idea or product needs to be novel or original, and has to be useful or adaptive. We should be able to apply these elements to any aspect of life to increase our productivity and happiness.
• We Need to Rethink How We View Creativity (futurelab.net)
  

  When we think of creativity at an individual level we think of moments of inspiration, big ideas, free-flowing associations, uninhibited thinking.

• After the Show: The Many Faces of the Performer (psychologytoday.com)
  

  Creativity researchers aren’t so confused. They have long-ago accepted the fact that creative people are complex. Almost by definition, creativity is complex. Creative thinking is influenced by many traits, behaviors, and sociocultural factors that come together in one person (see “Could Michael Jackson Have Created Twitter?”). It would be surprising if all of these factors didn’t sometimes, or even most of the time, appear to contradict one another.

Philanthropic Team Building…Give & Get Even More Back in Return
by Andy Kraus

Source: Jonathan Calugi. www.happyloverston.eu

Despite what is going on with our current economic situation, most corporate groups understand the value of taking part in a team building activity. Goals of the team building activity have gone beyond showing appreciation, boosting morale and improving employee relationships. Many teams are utilizing the time dedicated to a team building activity as an opportunity to make a positive impact on their community.

Wheels for the World is a popular team building activity where the participants build bicycles and take part in challenges to earn the bicycle parts. The bikes are then donated to kids from United Way, Big Brothers Big Sisters and Boys & Girls Club, to name a few, and for many of the kids, its their first bike.

There is a new outdoor philanthropic team building activity called Kindness Wins. This is no ordinary treasure hunt. Instead of searching for hidden clues or caches, teams are let loose to make a positive difference. No good deed is too small and no act of kindness goes unnoticed. Teams earn Good Karma points by holding a door open for a stranger, returning something, such as a shopping cart, to its proper place, or by using a Post-it note to make someone’s day.

There are many more acts of kindness that your team will take part in and participants will also have the opportunity to create their own symbol of generosity and giving that will serve as a reminder back at work of what they experienced on this special day.

Combining a team building program with a philanthropic activity is a win-win for everyone, functionally, spiritually and mentally.

Andy Kraus, is the Director of Team Development at Team Builders Plus, in Cherry Hill, NJ.

Other Philanthropic Team Building Ideas and Suppliers

Team Bonding offers a number of philanthropic team building activities that ‘do good’ for the team and the community. A great list to get the gist of this growing approach to building teams.

Team Buzz offers The Rookie. The main objective of this activity is for teams to grow a small investment into a big pile of money. They will do this through a range of tasks they are required to perform such as busking, creating artwork to be sold, shoe shining, and a lot more money making opportunities for the public. In the end, the money earned by teams can be donated to a charity of your own choice.

TeamBuilding Unlimited calls their philanthropic team building activities Charity Challenge. Have Your Cake and Eat it Too capitalizes on team creativity and sweet tooth and community service. Teams are challenged to design and decorate cakes to reflect their team, their company and more that will be donated to local hospitals, schools and children’s centers. TBU provides the sheet cakes, decorations and icing that teams use to create a visual and tasty masterpiece.

World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21

If you could invent a brand new charity challenge or philanthropic team building activity for World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21 what would it be?  Ready to start creating one?  What if you did?

Related Articles

• Health Benefits of Altruism, How Giving Back is Good For You (squidoo.com)
• 5 Ways Giving is Good for Your Health (besthealthmag.com)

Happiness economics speaks to human potential. It emerged in the early 1970s’ when economist Richard Easterlin revisited the importance of happiness in society, thereby influencing economists and those who seek their counsel to use new ideas and make new decisions to create exciting new futures. (World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21 fits in this agenda.  It’s purpose, since  2001, is to encourage and engage people in using their creativity – new ideas and new decisions – to make the world a better place and to make their place in the world better too, without causing harm.)

What is Happiness Economics?

From a paper, The Economics of Happiness by Carol Graham, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution

“The economics of happiness is an approach to assessing welfare which combines the techniques typically used by economists with those more commonly used by psychologists.

While psychologists have long used surveys of reported well-being to study happiness, economists only recently ventured into this arena. Early economists and philosophers, ranging from Aristotle to Bentham, Mill, and Smith, incorporated the pursuit of happiness in their work. Yet, as economics grew more rigorous and quantitative, more parsimonious definitions of welfare took hold. Utility was taken to depend only on income as mediated by individual choices or preferences within a rational individual’s monetary budget constraint.”

PDF of her paper here.  Also check Happiness Economics in Wikipedia.

Seems The Economist is also helping to spread this work.  Notice that cognitive diversity and emotional intelligence are on their program agenda, below.

Human Potential Conference via The Economist

Given the massive changes in global demography—billions of people are being lifted out of poverty—the demand for a well-trained workforce has never been greater. Combine that with the pace of scientific innovation, which is providing new insights into the workings of the human brain and advancing neuroscience and genomics at a staggering pace—and dramatically increasing life expectancies around the world.

Today, humankind is on track to advance mentally, physically and economically more than ever before. But there are still serious strategic challenges. Many governments around the world continue to violate human rights and civil liberties, job growth is stunted in many industries following a massive global economic crisis, the income gap around the world continues to widen, and there’s the problem of how to educate billions of new people in the coming decades—and manage their entry into the job market.

The nature of work is changing dramatically. The Millennial Generation has very different ideas than previous generations about what it means to have a job—demanding greater fluidity, more international travel, virtualization, and the need to perform jobs that improve humankind as much as earn profits. At the same time, companies also see the value in a team and project-oriented approach to management.

The days of corporate loyalty are long over; today people move around, ebb and flow. What does this mean for the future of the job market? What skills are necessary to survive and thrive in the ideas economy? And what are the perils to living in an environment where change is the only constant? The Economist will dig deep into the issue of human potential to uncover the challenges and opportunities ahead. Topics include

• The new global landscape (population growth)

• Key emerging industries

• The role of government in catalyzing job creation

• Environmental challenges in a crowded world

• Expanding the new rules of entrepreneurship

• The changing nature of the job market

• The new (cognitive) diversity

• Leadership in the twenty-first century

• Emotional intelligence

• Immigration and globalization

• The future of the brain and human body

• Financial planning for immortals.

Full program here

Before that, the Greek Chaos (Khaos) was less of a “void” or a mess. It was understood as a gap filled with fertile potential from which everything and anything could come.

Chaos holds a certain fascination. Within its vast, undefined gap exists every potential which could ever be. This is how this creativity professional feels. When a change occurs, sudden or planned, my first reaction is, “What’s that about?” with an eye to recognizing what is ending. The second is, “I wonder what’s next.” Third, “What potentials are presenting themselves as trumpet calls for moving forward?”

My wish is that all people feel confident drawing from C/chaos’ endless, unbounded potential in creating something new, something unknown, something possibly highly useful, delightful, intriguing or otherwise.

This is why World Creativity and Innovation Week, April 15 – 21 exists. To encourage and engage people all over the world to use their creativity (new ideas and new decisions) to make the world a better place and to make their place in the world better too, without causing harm.

And this is why my professional work is in creativity – to help people in organizations unleash the unlimited potential to realize successful and exciting new futures.

Your Creativity

Pay attention to your reactions to the announcement to participate in a global experiment to gain tremendous insights into your response to a creative proposition.  If you say, no, that’s not for me, what does that mean?  If you say yes, you can ask yourself what that’s about too.  Are you more creative if you answer one way and not the other?

If you say no, consider what might happen if you say yes.  There’s no cost involved to imagine alternative futures and to stay open to new ideas.

Life in a Day

Life In A Day is a global experiment to create a user-generated feature film: a documentary, shot in a single day, by you. On 24 July, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera. The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into an experimental documentary film, produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.

If your video is included in the final film, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the film’s world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

How this helps you to gain insight into yours and others’ creativity

1. Scroll through the comments made for these clips on YouTube.  You’ll read negativity, doubt, apprehension, excitement, joy and curiosity, typical responses different people have to new ideas. Viewing them can prepare you for the reactions people might have for your paradigm ‘cracklings’.
2. Notice your own reaction to the invitation to take part. The emotions you feel and the thoughts you think will clue you in to how and why people respond to your ideas they way they do.  Consider it.

There are great insights to be had about the nature of the human spirit in the face of change and opportunity, even when there is nothing to lose and something to gain from participating. Plus, there’s an added bonus of a potential payoff from others.

Get your cameras ready…

We’d love to include your stories, photos, videos, web pages and logos in our upcoming presentations, so let us know what you’ve been up to and what you are planning. Help spread the word. Send your links, other info and questions to marci at creativityland.net.

Start talking up World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 – 21 at your work, school, club, community and get some plans together for something you can do a little differently, using new ideas, new decisions and a sprinkling of imagination to make the world a better place and to make your place in the world better too, without causing harm.