What a Wonderful Word (Part 1 - "Mu")

Bafflement might be our western response if I answered your questions with "mu", instead of the more traditional "yes" or "no".  But in the far east this kind of thing is still well-understood, and fairly common practice.

Despite working for a Japanese company, I first came across "mu" in the modern classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig (a bizarre book, but full of inspiration).

Loosely speaking, "mu" means "nothing", or "neither yes nor no", and I think of it as a way of suspending judgement.  It's great to have a word for this, because it legitimises the pause-for-thought and helps us resist pressure to judge prematurely.

"Mu" has another use in creativity too:  It encourages the search for alternatives, by tossing back closed questions.   If we're 10 minutes into an idea-generation exercise when someone asks "Shall we go for idea A rather than idea B?" then the correct answer should be "mu".   The time for that decision comes later when options C to Z have revealed themselves, and when the pros and cons have become clearer.

What a wonderful word then to complement the creative phases of innovation, where it's necessary to suspend judgement and also seek out new approaches, in order to fuel our ambitions.

If only it were easier to throw new words into conversations casually.  Unfortunately people tend to be wedded to their own adopted jargons, so unless you're in a creative industry you might struggle to garner support for "mu".  Better perhaps to hold the concept dear, and remember that "I don't know (yet)" is often the most helpful answer.

Creative Marketplaces

I'd like to use this week's blog post to hypothesise about the potential for "Marketplaces" in creativity.


Let me explain:  There's a huge buzz around the world about Open Innovation at the moment.  This is the rather loosely-defined practice of exposing parts of your organisation's innovation process to external influences which can (fingers crossed!) bring fresh ideas.  Everyone's experimenting with inviting selected partner organisations to contribute ideas, usually under a carefully constructed non-disclosure agreement.


I'm sure this sometimes works, but perhaps there are better models ...


Why not cast our nets wider, by adopting some of the practices from crowd-sourcing?


Why not define the necessary tasks more clearly?


If it's ideas were after, why not advertise the need for specialists to fulfill certain thinking tasks en route to innovation, notably:


1. Problem or opportunity definition and scoping
2. Idea generation
3. Translating business goals into idea assessment criteria
4. Performing assessments and iterating ideas
5. Modelling benefits and proposition development


Freelancers could apply, but so could organisations with complementary skills or capabilities.


Payment, where appropriate, might take the form of an exchange or job swap, instead of cash.


There are already "out-tasking" outfits operating in the internet, such as "Payperhour.com" or https://www.minutebox.com/, albeit for freelancers only.  Could that kind of model work for tasks in organisational creativity too?


So here's my public commitment:  Should my company bonus actually materialise next month, I'll out-task this blog for a week, and see what happens.  Watch this space.


As usual, I'd be delighted to enter into a debate, in the hope of improving my insight.

Cracks in the Crystal Ball

I’ve been musing on strategy this week, inspired by a couple of articles on IT strategy which I think have wider applicability, but which also have quite worrying implications for creativity:

David Chan wrote in the Spring 2011 edition of “CIO Connect” about the weakening position of strategic planning, as external influences continually shorten our effective planning horizons.

And this reminded me of a book I read a few months ago on the recommendation of a customer:  In “FruITion”, Chris Potts questions the need for IT strategy.  His point is that IT’s only destiny is to become an investment portfolio which returns to the business, so if anyone writes an “IT Strategy” then that’s the journey it should prescribe.  Having tripped around in the darkness for a few months beforehand wondering how traditional IT strategies could possibly deliver value, I became an instant convert to that point of view, and now consider any other subject matter masquerading as “IT Strategy” to be deeply sinister!

So why shouldn’t I tolerate strategists, if that’s the kind of work which makes them happy?  (After all, I used to do a bit of it myself.)

Usually I do, but there comes a limit.  Some organisations have yet to recognise their shortened planning horizons, and continue to strategise in a top-down fashion in support of inflexible long-term plans. For the majority of the time, exponents of this kind of rigid behaviour consider creativity to be some kind of intemperate animalistic force which pops up at all the wrong times armed with unpleasant and peculiarly-shaped weapons.  For as long as we to plan in five-to-ten year cycles, we’ll continue to mistrust creativity, fail to lure it from its hiding place when we do want it, try to hire it from outside organisations, and run out of money just before we see its results.

So should we abandon strategy activities in general?

Or should we abandon strategy only when we perceive that it restricts us?

Here’s my suggestion, to which I’d welcome robust comments …

Let’s continue strategising for a sense of common direction, but demote strategy so that it’s always subservient to the emerging reality.  (Indeed this may be the only way for strategy to maintain a modicum of self-respect.)

Let’s consider strategy to be a “living exercise”, so that it can always be influenced.   Let’s abandon our fixation on strategy baselines (we can always create a snapshot called “five year view” if someone wants yesterday’s agenda).

And most importantly … let’s be receptive to new ideas at any time.  No improving organisation can afford to lock itself into a plan which is suboptimal upon reflection.

Us, Ws, Ms and Overscores

In recent days I met up over coffee with Roland Hardwood, co-founder of 100% Open.  Amongst a hundred or so other interest thoughts we shared, one in particular stood out as blog-worthy:

We talked about the U-shaped curve of individual reward (Y-axis) against time (X-axis), as an innovation progresses from concept through to implementation.

For many so-called creative types this is certainly a good representation, with the real enjoyment occurring firstly in the initial formation of the embryonic idea, and then later in the form of pride when the idea has gone public in a usable form.  (A strong bias in the right-hand side of the “U” might reveal a tendency for celebrity!)   For “U-shaped” people, the period between these two peaks is dull or unrewarding by comparison.

I’d also like to cover three more profiles which have occurred to me since that conversation:

Firstly there’s the “W”—someone who gets most reward the same way as the “U”, but who can also contribute energetically to ensuring that the idea passes one or more hurdles en route to implementation.  A “W”-shaped sponsor can provide invaluable, and it’s sometimes easier than you might imagine to find and cultivate one.

Then there’s the “M”—someone who is visibly blasé about an supposedly exciting concept or about its ultimate adoption by its consumers, but is passionate about the main body of process in between.  Often the “M” is a project manager who takes immense pride in efficient implementation, almost irrespective of the content being delivered.

I’ve met several “Ws”, and it might surprise readers of this blog that I’ve also met many “Ms”.   Perhaps the “Ms” are a quirk peculiar to my native industry.

I’ve heard the legends of “Overscores”, but I don’t think I’ve met one in the flesh.  If you’re luckily enough to find any “Overscores” on your payroll, I’d suggest doing whatever you can to keep them entertained.   If they’re discerning in selecting the right ideas at the concept stage, they could well prove to be important engines of improvement for your organisation.

School Belle

A few weeks ago I saw signs that formal (and potentially creative) thinking methods seemed to be gaining a foothold in our schools.  At the time I promised a follow-up if I found out more ...

Having blogged, I then blagged a free copy of "Creative Teaching and Learning" magazine (thanks Sandie!) and started reading.  The most interesting article I found was about a framework called "TASC", which was introduced by Belle Wallace some years ago.   I'd recommend glancing at the 8 stages of the TASC framework at http://www.tascwheel.com/.

I was immediately struck by the partial similarity of TASC to another framework--"TO-LO-PO-SO-GO", by Edward de Bono.   His method is described best in the "Thinking Course” book, but here's the gist:

• TO - What's our goal?
• LO - What do we know, and what can we find out?
• PO - Can we provoke ourselves to think more unusual thoughts?
• SO - Which of our options is the best?
• GO - What are the next steps?

I've revealed my hand on this subject before, most notably by contributing a variant of "TO-LO-PO-SO-GO" as a customisation script for the "Southbeach Modeler" tool.

The similarities with TASC are comforting, and should further encourage both authors that they're on to something.

But I spotted two differences:

1. Whilst de Bono tries to identify the problem before gathering information about it, Belle Wallace seems to tackle these steps the other way around.
2. The three reflective steps and the end of the TASC wheel have no parallel in "TO-LO-PO-SO-GO".

So I got in touch with Belle, who was very helpful ...

She explained that the order of the first two phases can indeed be reversed, but she also gave me a great reason for their given order:  "If the pupils are likely to know something about the general topic then they gather and organise what they already know first - then the identify [phase] becomes 'What would we like to find out?' " 

Having a hand in exploring what they don't know, and what they'd like to find out, encourages children to do far more than just copy and paste answers from the internet.

As I suspected, the last three phases are most applicable in a learning environment, to help us conclude effectively and do everything better next time.   They're "major stages in becoming an expert, reflective thinker."

Belle also told me that TASC is now widely used across the UK and some Local Education Authorities are encouraging all their schools to engage with the Framework.   Apparently the TASC website has an evaluation of its use across 10,000 classrooms, and OfSTED have praised it for developing pupils' thinking.

Perhaps Generation Z will be able to teach de Bono and Wallace a thing or two about thinking?  Ever the optimist, I'm certainly hoping so!

Individual Creativity Equation

Ooops.   There's something fundamental I should have shared in a much earlier post. It's a terribly basic pseudo-scientific equation for individual creativity, as follows:

C = VIMTO     or     C = VIMT(B/D)

Where:
   C is creative product
   V is the variety of stimulus
   I is the native propensity for ideation
   M is the motivating influence from the surrounding culture
   T is the gestation time
   O is the "oblong factor" (B/D), with
        B as the breadth of knowledge of the problem space, and
        D as the depth of knowledge of the problem space

If we overlook the pseudo-science then the assertion is simply that individual creative product is maximised when the following conditions apply.  And of course there's the more sinister contrapositive interpretation that it can easily come to nothing if any are missing ...

• There are plenty of outside influences from a variety of sources
• You're not entirely without imagination
• Your organisation actively encourages new ideas, or can at least tolerate them
• You have both free time and elapsed time to think
• You have broad knowledge of a particular business problem or opportunity, but critically not too much depth of knowledge, which can be narrowing

It's a fun concept for an ex-mathematician like me, but not without merit.  I've experimented with these levers in the past, and am convinced they each have a part to play.   And I'm not the only one, in fact my biography page is full of VIMTO enthusiasts, whether they know it or not!  To name a few:  
- Webb Young and the Sticky Wisdom team have addressed the importance of V
- de Bono believes that M is a make-or-break factor
- MacKenzie writes eloquently about the value of T
- Patterson identifies T and M as being important factors 

I make no attempt to address the more sophisticated equation that would be needed to model "organisational creativity" with the inevitable interference from social dynamics.  Nor will I consider a broader "innovation equation", which others have surely addressed, and which would demand consideration of a wider set of variables en route to the implementation of a successful idea.

In the interests of fairness I should point-out that others have attempted to model this kind of thing, notably Ruth Noller (see http://russellawheeler.com/resources/learning_zone/creativity_formula/).

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject or any other, and will be happy to refine the equation if I've missed anything obvious.  Thanks in advance to the constructive critics.

Grey Balls of Fur

I've just started reading a fantastic book.  It's really, really inventive - most especially in its presentation.


Its central message is uncannily similar to my very first posting back in August:  Be yourself; free your creative spirit from its shackles; don't let them grind you down (attempt to ignore them instead!)


However the book differs from this blog in two rather devastating respects:  It's incredibly visually stimulating, and uses plenty of wonderfully elaborate turns-of-phrase.


The author likens traditional work to a "Gordian knot of corporate normalcy" which begins with a single hair (or rule).  The hairs accumulate as the organisation learns, and ultimately acquires it's own gravitational pull.  More and more hairs arrive, and none escape, as workers seek to preserve and reuse the experiences of their past successes at the expense of anything new.


The escape (and the only route to real creativity) is to break-away from the hairball into an orbit which still allows you to draw on its resources where you choose.  This, he claims, requires the courage to be genuine, work out which of your organisation's goals really resonate with you, then find better ways to get the associated jobs done.  The alternative is the "pallid path of corporate appropriateness".


There are some fantastic analogies in the first few chapters:
1. Don't be like the mesmerised chickens, frozen to the establishment (full story omitted here!)
2. Be like the cow instead - do what you're good at, don't over-work or over-commit, look relaxed on the surface 90% of the time, but still produce, recognising that good ideas need research and thinking time which doesn't always bear tangible output early


The book is called "Orbiting the Giant Hairball".  (No really ... it is.)  The author is Gordon MacKenzie, a former greetings card artist at Hallmark.  I concur with all the 4 and 5 start ratings at Amazon.  I've read nothing else so far which goes so far to justify why we must all live our dreams at work, not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of our employers too!

Is Creativity Necessary?

Often I find myself having to justify the necessity of creative working in the non-creative industries.  Attacks on my stance are rarely fierce; more often apathetic.  But I'm not sure which is the more dangerous.

It's all quite simple really: 

1.  Over the years computers and other inexpensive forms of automation have diminished the relative number of manual labour and clerical jobs.  And it hasn't stopped there:  Increasingly we're automating management decisions, statistical analysis, sales support and other knowledge work which can be handled analytically.

2.  Where it's been too hard to automate tasks, the march of globalisation has meant outsourcing of jobs from developed to lower cost economies.  What remains in the developed economy is that which depends heavily on local context, and cannot easily go offshore.

3.  Analytical thinking gives us a range of predictable answers to a given problem.  And it gives us some basis for selecting a preferred answer from the set.  Creative thinking can complement that set by yielding a range of new and unusual answers, which our competitors might not easily have tumbled to.  If we can adopt one of those, we could advance into a gap which is non-competitive - at least in the short-term.

I also tend to make the point that creative thinking is a great deal of fun, and I'm still old-fashioned enough to think that work should be fun. ( I try to make this appear an afterthought, because it's far too easily criticised.)

One day when I'm not having a "bad brain day" I might just tackle the sister question:  "Is Creativity Sufficient?"   In the meantime I'd welcome your comments on both questions.

The Drone's Blog Post

There comes a time in the lives of all great (and not so great ) men where they're just juggling too many other balls to commit serious thought to that 17th concurrent activity.

So it is with this week's blog.  My intention is to give you higher-than-average content, but with lower-than-average work on my part!

So without further ado, I present my top five URLs/tools on the subject of creativity at work.  I hope you find them enlightening ...

1.  http://www.southbeachinc.com/index.html is still top of my list.  It's absolutely content-free, but its potential is massive, at least in my estimation.  The assets are the simple but powerful notation and the free modelling tool which uses it.  (Such is my commitment to the cause that I've taken the trouble to meet the author, and become a beta tester of new releases!)

2.  Springwise is a site dedicated to product innovations.  Its army of "spotters" report what they've seen, and that's compiled into a weekly newsletter available at http://www.springwise.com/newsletter/.

3.  http://www.innovationmanagement.se/  is a website full of interesting material.  In particular there's a weekly newsletter which always has at least one article I feel compelled to read.

4.  http://www.jpb.com/report103/index.php is well worth a read too.  Plenty of content extending way beyond creativity through the whole innovation lifecycle.

5.  And last but certainly not least, http://mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_CT.htm is the page at Mindtools dedicated to creativity.  There's plenty of advice here on using the well-known creativity techniques, some of which I've blogged about in previous posts.

Have fun with those, and I'll write properly next week (if I can be bothered!)

Space to be Creative

I had a fascinating extra-curricular discussion this week with a Californian architect.  She works for a global Oil and Gas company, and her brief is to “optimise workspaces”.

It turns out that a large part of the job concerns making people more productive at work.  We’re not just talking about faster coffee machines and shorter walks to the desk, but also about building the propensity for creativity at work (hurray!)

This, it transpires, is a seriously interesting challenge.  The publically-available research seems to be lacking in many respects, but there are some documented findings.  She kindly sent me a few articles she’s collected, so I’ll condense a few of the main messages in this post …

Pharmaceutical GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) seems to be a much-lauded paragon of creative innovation—at least by UK standards.   Working with an agency, it has created “Focus Booths” (for concentrated sole-working) and “Buzz Space” (for collaboration).

GSK’s thinking is that Buzz Space supports ad hoc collaboration as a routine part of work, and that against such a backdrop Focus Booths will be needed to allow people some peace and quiet to concentrate.  (As I’ve written before, I consider both modes of working to be very valuable in creativity.  It’s not all about collaboration.)

Both types of space at GSK are adorned with evocative imagery—both literal and abstract—something which we discussed at length by phone as I evangelised about the power of the random object (see earlier posts).  The partitions between spaces are mostly transparent, so GSK avoids the sense of segregation which can dominate other office environments.

Elsewhere in the world, architects have experimented with:

·         The blending of indoor and outdoor spaces (fine in California; less fine in Aberdeen)

·         Games rooms, slides and waterfalls

·         Programmable lights which can transform the look and feel of a room

·         Buildings heavily modelled on other objects such as a tent, town centre or a farm

·         Very high ceilings, which apparently encourage us to think more freely and abstractly, with less attention to detail

What I found most interesting though was the likely impact of colour:  A 2009 study in Science magazine found that we remember details best when surrounded by red, but are more imaginative in the presence of blue.

It’s a good thing I opted for that eggshell blue in my study at home.  Now if only I could do something about the ceiling …