WEBVTT 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:06.672 In this video, we're going to talk about different kinds of creativity 00:00:06.672 --> 00:00:09.488 and some of the blocks for creativity as well. 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:20.240 There's a number of issues, creativity,  innovation, which are obviously intimately linked; 00:00:20.240 --> 00:00:24.478 so, you could think these videos are as much  about innovation as creativity. 00:00:24.478 --> 00:00:28.409 Also, if you've ever done any programming, debugging, 00:00:28.409 --> 00:00:32.821 which are seen as being these almost magical things. You're just assumed you can either 00:00:32.821 --> 00:00:36.000 do these things or you can't. 00:00:36.300 --> 00:00:40.084 However, if you can understand how these processes work, 00:00:40.084 --> 00:00:43.040 then we're in a position to have various aids and tools. 00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:46.249 And by 'tools' I don't mean particularly software tools, 00:00:46.249 --> 00:00:49.917 more techniques that you can apply that can help you 00:00:49.917 --> 00:00:52.212 to actually be more creative and more innovative. 00:00:52.212 --> 00:00:56.298 The other side of this is if there are tools and techniques that help, we can actually 00:00:56.298 --> 00:00:59.280 analyze them, pull them apart a bit 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:04.880 and perhaps have a better understanding of the processes, which then can lead to better techniques. 00:01:04.880 --> 00:01:09.548 There are many kinds of creativity; we're  going to think about two kinds of creativity here 00:01:09.548 --> 00:01:15.131 very briefly. One is this sort of *artistic creativity*; that's when you're writing a poem or 00:01:15.131 --> 00:01:19.262 designing perhaps a new logo for a website that you're going to have. 00:01:19.262 --> 00:01:25.645 And that's more about aesthetics and things like that. The other kind is *technical creativity*. 00:01:25.645 --> 00:01:32.212 And so, for instance, perhaps you're designing your logo for a new e-learning website. 00:01:32.493 --> 00:01:37.005 But then you want notifications to send to people, but you don't want to send too many 00:01:37.005 --> 00:01:41.402 because that'll annoy them; you don't want to send things that they're not interested in. 00:01:41.402 --> 00:01:45.960 So, how do you design this so that you can notify and keep people engaged 00:01:45.960 --> 00:01:51.641 and yet not annoy them in the process? So, that requires a different kind of creativity 00:01:51.641 --> 00:01:57.793 – a *technical creativity*, one that's more about sort of solving that problem rather than necessarily 00:01:57.793 --> 00:02:01.991 making something beautiful. And it's that technical creativity we're going to focus on. 00:02:01.991 --> 00:02:06.088 The two are different, but they are interlinked. 00:02:06.088 --> 00:02:11.459 And so, some of the techniques we'll talk about will also help if you are looking at more artistic creativity. 00:02:11.459 --> 00:02:16.600 And I'm sure there are lots of artistic techniques that can help you with your technical creativity as well. 00:02:16.600 --> 00:02:20.682 Another breakdown – and this is due to Margaret Boden, who's one of the sort of theorists 00:02:20.682 --> 00:02:25.311 on creativity – is between what's called *H-Creativity* and *P-Creativity*. 00:02:25.311 --> 00:02:31.673 So, H-Creativity is *historic creativity* and P-Creativity is *personal creativity*. 00:02:31.673 --> 00:02:36.888 So, P-Creativity is about something that's new for you. So, if you think about a child when it 00:02:36.888 --> 00:02:41.714 first learns to put two words together, that's a creative step for the child, 00:02:41.714 --> 00:02:47.344 but probably a gazillion other children have made the same step, so it's not for humanity as a whole. 00:02:47.344 --> 00:02:53.953 Whereas, H-Creativity is new for the world; it's your Nobel Prize, or at least the thing that you say 'Wow!' 00:02:53.953 --> 00:02:57.440 – you know – whether it's Wordsworth or  whoever it is is doing. 00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:03.172 Again, we're going to focus on P-Creativity; we're not necessarily going to make ourselves out 00:03:03.172 --> 00:03:07.637 as Einsteins and Nobel Prize-winners here. But when you've got a particular problem, 00:03:07.637 --> 00:03:12.520 you need a creative solution for that. Now, it might be thousands of other people 00:03:12.520 --> 00:03:17.915 have found the same solution to the same problem, but what matters for you is that in that situation 00:03:17.915 --> 00:03:20.944 you find the solution. 00:03:20.944 --> 00:03:25.740 Now, again, the two are not un-interlinked. You know – if you understand a field well 00:03:25.740 --> 00:03:30.148 and then you make something that's creative for you, it's quite likely creative for the field 00:03:30.148 --> 00:03:35.750 – whether it's Nobel Prize-winning or just innovative and people say, 'Wow, that's great!' 00:03:35.750 --> 00:03:39.403 So, I said the two aren't interlinked, but our focus is going to be on 00:03:39.403 --> 00:03:42.987 having that step which for you is something brand-new. 00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:49.239 Okay – creative ideas themselves: what do we mean by 'being creative'? 00:03:49.239 --> 00:03:55.642 Usually people have two things that both need to hold for something to be a truly creative idea. 00:03:55.642 --> 00:04:00.312 It's got to be *novel*. It's got to be something that, whether it's novel for you in terms of this 00:04:00.312 --> 00:04:04.962 P-Creativity or novel for the world, but it has a level of novelty; it's not something you already know, 00:04:04.962 --> 00:04:08.959 that you're just pulling out of your kitbag and using. 00:04:08.959 --> 00:04:12.350 But it's also got to be *useful* – it's got to do its job. 00:04:12.350 --> 00:04:16.916 So, if you think about the examples we had earlier for the logo, 00:04:16.916 --> 00:04:21.240 if you're doing a logo and it's a logo for a new company, 00:04:21.271 --> 00:04:25.795 it's got to be different from everybody else's logo. You can't just say, 'Oh, I've got a logo I've used 00:04:25.795 --> 00:04:29.806 before – you can have it.' I mean, you might *modify* one you used before, but you can't just 00:04:29.806 --> 00:04:33.211 use the one you've used for.  It's got to be new for them. 00:04:33.211 --> 00:04:37.560 But it's also got to do its job; it's got to appeal to people; it's got to give the right kinds of messages. 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:42.555 Similarly with notifications, you might need a new – well, again, actually with that you might 00:04:42.555 --> 00:04:46.896 be able to pull something out of your kitbag, but if it's a problem, if you're stuck, 00:04:46.896 --> 00:04:50.220 then you need something new to deal with that. 00:04:50.220 --> 00:04:54.109 But it's also got to solve the problem; it's also got to not annoy people. 00:04:54.109 --> 00:04:57.588 It's also got to engage people and make sure they don't forget about you. 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:02.030 So, you've got to *both solve a problem and be novel*. 00:05:02.555 --> 00:05:06.751 And it's hard. Sometimes it's easy to be one; sometimes it's easier to do the other. 00:05:06.751 --> 00:05:12.433 So, let's look at two sorts of ways of being creative and possibly two sorts of people. 00:05:12.433 --> 00:05:15.929 But you might recognize a bit of both of these in yourself. 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:22.226 So, the first sort of creativity you might be  is *ant creativity*, 00:05:22.226 --> 00:05:27.019 taking creative steps, but small creative steps, lots of them, 00:05:27.019 --> 00:05:30.867 and if you add them together, if you remember the lemon squeezer, 00:05:30.867 --> 00:05:35.526 the way that the person had  had – Philippe Starck had had lots of small, 00:05:35.526 --> 00:05:41.664 very rapidly, but lots of small ideas that all  eventually came to that thing that seemed like 00:05:41.664 --> 00:05:45.633 'Wow! How on Earth did you get there?' but actually lots of steps on the way. 00:05:45.633 --> 00:05:50.780 So, sometimes actually what appear to be fantastic ideas and are fantastic ideas 00:05:50.780 --> 00:05:53.510 have come through mechanisms like this. 00:05:53.510 --> 00:05:56.664 It tends to be *incremental* and *evolutionary*. 00:05:56.664 --> 00:06:00.400 An *ant-type creativity is often more convergent*, 00:06:00.400 --> 00:06:05.488 looking towards a solution, trying to take  things – perhaps a more engineering approach: 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:11.631 *slow and safe, but might not get you that radically new idea*. 00:06:11.631 --> 00:06:18.256 Another kind of creativity is *flea-like creativity* – great leaps in the dark 00:06:18.256 --> 00:06:23.250 – you know – are often almost unguided, just lots of 'Wow!' 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:30.560 Yeah – some strange thought: *revolutionary, divergent, but often wrong*. 00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:36.591 And that's a crucial thing. Not everything you do, not every idea is a good idea. 00:06:36.591 --> 00:06:41.222 If you think about that flea, the flea is sitting on the carpet, 00:06:41.222 --> 00:06:45.114 a cat comes along – vague warmth – the flea jumps. 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:51.360 But does it land on the cat or does it miss the cat? Well, there are lots of fleas; it doesn't matter 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:54.050 if a few die along the way. 00:06:54.050 --> 00:06:57.689 Years ago when I was a child, we had a cat. 00:06:57.689 --> 00:07:02.249 And occasionally it had fleas, and I had cups of tea and I'd sometimes put them on the carpet. 00:07:02.249 --> 00:07:05.684 And I would be sitting there, and then I'd look in my cup of tea and... 00:07:05.684 --> 00:07:10.113 dead fleas – a bit of warmth, jump... dead flea. 00:07:10.640 --> 00:07:14.302 Hopefully, you like to be a bit more successful in this... 00:07:14.302 --> 00:07:18.758 to make those big jumps, to make them in a more guided way. 00:07:18.758 --> 00:07:21.986 So, that's different kinds of creativity. 00:07:22.173 --> 00:07:25.603 But this can be hard – you know. So, creativity... 00:07:25.603 --> 00:07:29.200 we want to try and do something good, but sometimes we make a mess of it. 00:07:29.200 --> 00:07:34.275 Hopefully, we *realize* we're doing  that before we actually deliver it. 00:07:36.476 --> 00:07:40.159 So, as a formula for creativity, how can you be creative? 00:07:40.159 --> 00:07:45.858 You need *diversity*. You need to have those bright sparks of insight. 00:07:45.858 --> 00:07:49.468 You also need *structure*. You need to understand them so that 00:07:49.468 --> 00:07:55.172 when you create your new ideas, they are actually ones that are not just *novel* 00:07:55.172 --> 00:07:57.976 but also *useful* – and you need *both*. 00:07:57.976 --> 00:08:02.000 And if you put those two together, that's when you get innovation.