Hey everyone,

I’m still working on the second edition of Organizing Creativity.

It takes longer than expected (it is a spare time project), so, I’m putting the current draft version online.

It contains the content of the wiki I had here, so I have removed it.

Like I said, it’s a rough draft — some parts are (almost) finished, others are missing in part or completely — but to make the best of the longer work process, posting it online gives me the opportunity to ask for feedback. This is your chance to influence the final version. What do you think of the content and/or the layout? Any suggestions for improvement? I’d like to hear them. Drop me a line at danwessel@organizingcreativity.com or write a comment.

All the best

Daniel

“Do you know what these are?” [Vorna] asked him.
“No.”
“They are from the foxglove flower. A tiny amount of them can give a dying heart fresh life. Like a miracle. But just a pinch too much and they become the deadliest poison. Pride is like that. Too little and a man has no sense of self-worth. The world would wear him down to dust. Too much and he becomes arrogant, vain and boastful. But just enough and he is a man to walk the mountains with.”
“Sword in the Storm” by David Gemmell

Every now and then there’s a presentation you did that you want to remember, because it went really well, because it brings to the point what you want to achieve (e.g., research) and who you are (e.g., how you ask the questions, try to answer them, and present the results). For me, it was a presentation on how to organize a scientific work (dissertation, but also applicable to almost any other type of scientific work), the original German version is here and the English translation is here.

But it’s hard to remember such a presentation — unlike a poster you cannot print it out and hang it into your office. Well, you can’t, can you? Actually, it’s quite easy to export the slides as graphics or PDF files and create a poster from the slides (here: made with InDesign, you can import a PDF and if you check the import options, you can say that each page of the PDF should be imported — if you have already drawn the placeholders for the images, it’s just a click per slide, some resizing (with select all done in 3 seconds) and that’s it):

It’s a bit vain, but on the other side, I want to remember it, especially in an environment where the pressure goes in a rather … different direction. And yes, the slides look better with the original graphics (which I had to gray out due to lack of copyright).

“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never never forget!”
“You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of it.
White King and Queen in “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There” (1871) by Lewis Carroll

It’s the end of the year 2011 — time to look back on 2011 and on the creative projects. Personally, I end the year with creating a life-newspaper. I have already described it in a posting here, or in an older one here, but I really think that it is very helpful to create one document each year containing the major events, products and the like.

I mean, who reads a diary anyhow, but looking back at the salient highlights of the year, jotting them down, putting in photos, creating a few pages of condensed “this was my year stuff” — that’s something different.

Hmm, and 2011 was — interesting. I’m looking forward to creating this year’s newspaper. I will be the only person who reads it (it is very personal), but over the years it will remind me of 2011. And given that I used the Momento App quite thoroughly this year, I will have a lot of fairly accurate data/material to reflect upon and to condense on a few pages.

Hmmm, and I think I’ll read some of my old life newspapers first … I wonder what happened in the last few years that I cannot remember today but was important for me.

Update 1 — Life Newspapers of the Previous Years

Merde … okay … skimming through 2006 to 2011 was interesting … you get the highlights and the really, really bad moments in one go … quite the emotional roller-coaster … not bad per se, but intense, very intense … like I said, I can strongly recommend doing so … you learn a lot when you reflect over the years …

Update 2 — Momento App Text and Pictures

And merde again … going through the photos/screenshots saved in the Momento App is another roller-coaster … given that I read most eMails on my iPhone (when I’m not working), I made screenshots as well and saved them in the Momento App … this gives a very … intense (for the lack of a better word) review of 2011 … the kind of “going through the images and suddenly noticing that your chest constrains from the emotions you feel” type of feeling … it was an interesting year …

I have translated the poster I did for the MinD-Akademie 2011 in English. I love it — it shows on one (very large) page the whole concept that I try to convey with “Organizing Creativity”. If you prefer it in German find the German version here.

I will probably do a similar version for the second version of the Organizing Creativity Book (still working on it) and use it as navigation help for the Organizing Creativity Wiki (likewise still working on it). But until both are ready, have fun with this poster (note: due to the size — DIN A0 — it is about 7 MB).

The poster shows the different steps that are necessary in organizing creativity. While the process goes top down (yellow arrow in the horizontal center), each step is also another occupation with the topic (yellow arrows upwards to occupation with the topic), which leads to further ideas. I have left the footer for the moment — in case you are wondering it translates as “MinD-Academy 2011 — Future and Research”.

To put it differently: You are highly qualified people who should not be wasted in the wrong job. You are ambitious, in the sense that you want to accomplish something, be advanced, move forward. Choose the right environment if you can. PhD positions are qualification positions — it is not sufficient that you do your work well, the work must also allow you to move forward and improve/qualify yourself.
Presenter Note from “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”

I’ve finally translated the presentation I did at the MinD-Akademie 2011 regarding “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”. The slides include the presenter notes, which in turn include the script. It’s not my best translation work, so don’t be surprise to see a lot of “broken English” — but at least it’s readable, I think.

Note that due to copyright constraints, I cannot show the pictures I did show in the presentation. I have replaced these images with grayed out placeholders and an image description in square brackets.

Click on the slides to see the presentation as PDF (about 5 MB).

If you have further points that should be included in a presentation like this, I’d appreciate a comment. The recommended literature is also shown here as a separate posting.

English Note: This posting is about a poster I did submit to the MinD-Akademie 2011, showing on one (very large) page how one can organize one’s creativity. It was accepted and well received. The poster is in German, but I will do a translation soon. [Update: Translation is finished and available in this posting here.]

Das Poster zeigt die verschiedenen Punkte die wichtig sind, um Kreativität zu organisieren. Während der Prozess von oben nach unten läuft, ist jeder Punkt auch eine Beschäftigung mit dem Thema (gelbe Pfeile nach oben) und führt entsprechend zu weiteren Ideen (mittige Pfeile nach unten). Auf das Poster oder hier klicken, um das Poster als PDF in DIN-A0 zu sehen (die Bilder selbst sind runterskaliert, so dass die Datei “nur” ca. 7 MB groß ist). Die Datei ist in der Dateigröße reduziert, die Bilder sollten aber trotzdem in druckbarer Qualität sein. Das Poster, das ich ausgestellt hatte, habe ich in Hannover gelassen (vielleicht hat es ja ein nettes Heim gefunden, sonst wurde es halt entsorgt). Ich musste los, habe mein Poster nicht gesehen (oder ich war grad blind) und ich habe mich auch von einigen Leuten nicht (bzw. nicht richtig) verabschieden können (war auch was k.o., auch wenn’s/weil’s riesigen Spaß gemacht hat). Ich hoffe, ich sehe ein paar Personen bald wieder, auch gerne mal zu Besuch in Tübingen, auch wenn ich die Namen grad nicht verfügbar habe (ich denke, ich habe den Networking-Workshop wirklich gebraucht — war gut und eine gute Erinnerung).  Ich wünschte halt, ich hätte mir die Namen notiert, von den Personen, mit denen ich interessante Unterhaltungen geführt hatte (hmm, in der Badewanne eben gab’s eine nette Idee für eine App bzw. die Fortführung einer älteren Idee dazu  … ).

It’s been a few years since I wrote “Organizing Creativity” and in the meantime I have learned a lot. I am also critical of the style of the book — I wanted to write everything I knew, I did and it shows. It contains a lot of information, but it is not exactly easy to read.

So, I am currently working on a new version, more concise and more useful for practical application. For this version I would like to ask you for your input. How do you organize your creativity? What skills and tools did help you? What gave you a boost in working. The questions are very broad and no matter how trivial or supposedly widely known it is, I really like to hear about it.

Thank you in advance

Daniel Wessel

Progress is impossible without change,
and those who cannot change their minds
cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw

I changed the way I keep my ideas from using a DokuWiki to using DEVONthink. After recommending DEVONthink I think it’s time to write a few lines why I did change my tool and how to easily transfer information from a DokuWiki to DEVONthink.

The main reason was that I noticed that while I had a lot of ideas (> 9000, ranging from trivial to very interesting) I didn’t use most of them. I realized this when I was searching for topics to write about in my “Ark of Ideas” Blog and stumbled over ideas where I thought: “Why haven’t I used this idea already?”.

Looking at the way I stored these ideas I thought that perhaps a Wiki, while a brilliant solution for long term storage, is not that good for handling ideas which you want to use. Ideas aren’t for lying around for ages but for doing something with them, even if it’s only setting them free.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a Wiki didn’t provide the quick access I imagined it would provide. I also noticed that I had invested quite an amount of time in ‘beautifying’ my Wiki — which doesn’t make that sense if it’s meant to be continuously used.

Why DEVONthink?

Honestly, I have no idea. I stumbled over DEVONthink ages ago while writing on “Organizing Creativity” but the price and the concept of a database didn’t suit me. However, when trying it out again I just knew that it would work (for a while, probably) for me. You can’t ‘beautify’ it and it has the core functionality I need: takes any file and allows tagging.

Comparison between DokuWiki and DEVONthink

While the DokuWiki is more future proof (it uses text files), DEVONthink also leaves the files in peace. You can access the database via the Finder and get your files even when DEVONthink is no longer working. However, DEVONthink makes working with the files much quicker, as it does not need an edit button. On the other hand, it lacks the structure you can make with a Wiki. It’s a level above using a Wiki in terms of the need to think how you want to use it and places a lot of responsibility on you to use it correctly.

While the look and feel is different, DokuWiki and DEVONthink are somewhat similar and a lot of the experience I made with DokuWiki helps me in using DEVONthink.

Making the Switch

The work with the Wiki wasn’t wasted, as it provided me with a large collection of ideas in separate text files, perfect for importing into DEVONthink.

Before importing them, however, there are a few things you should do:

• First make a copy of the directory you want to import. If anything doesn’t work out, you can go back to your Wiki. You will also notice whether you have reading and writing rights for the files (which might not be the case when DokuWiki handles file creation in its directories but which is important to have — otherwise DEVONthink cannot import the files).
• Then use a text editor that can perform a multiple files search (e.g., TextWrangler, via Search – Multi-File Search) and remove unnecessary information by search and replace. For me this was the “====== eof ======” and idea tag line (unchanged in all documents) which I replaced with nothing.
• I also removed all DokuWiki Headers by first searching for “======= “, then for “===== “, then “==== “, etc., then for their opposing members (” ======”, etc.) and replaced them with nothing.
• After these changes, I dropped it into DEVONthink and went to have a coffee.
• Then I created a group for these ideas and now I am in the process of tagging them. Smart groups (e.g., “plot”, “character”, “setting”) automatically display ideas that are tagged with the respective tags. This allows one idea to appear in multiple places at once, e.g., when I wrote down a character description and also gave her some lines of dialogue.

For my literature, which was stored in multiple subfolders of DokuWiki’s media directory I copied the top-level directory (literature) and did a spotlight search for .pdf. Make sure you wait long enough. Then I dropped all files into DEVONthink. Given that DEVONthink can handle files with the same name, this wasn’t a problem as it could have been when dropping them into the same Finder directory.

Given that I religiously name my files authorNames_YEAR (e.g., field_hole_2003) I created groups for each letter of the alphabet (there’s a template for that in DEVONthink (Data – New From Template – Registers – A-Z) and sorted the literature into these folders). Given that each PDF has a corresponding text file, I also dropped these files into DEVONthink (like the ideas) and sorted them as well.

All in all, the switch was relatively easy.

There’s still an important function for the Wiki

While my Wiki no longer keeps my ideas or my literature, I will still use it as an archive for my finished products, work and private. I like that I can easily annotate the files there by placing the links on a page and writing comments about them. An archive has to be future proof and doesn’t change over time, so it’s ideally suited for the Wiki (see also the posting about the structuring helps for a wiki). It also makes it hard to change the original files, which is also a plus for an archive.

But for all current work (and ideas belong to ‘current work’), I will use DEVONthink.

The written word is all that stands between memory and oblivion. Without books as our anchors, we are cast adrift, neither teaching nor learning. They are windows on the past, mirrors on the present, and prisms reflecting all possible futures. Books are lighthouses erected in the dark sea of time.
Jeffery Robbins in “Gargoyles”

A few years back I created a book for  an — at that time — good friend of mine who was pregnant. It was a book where — on a few hundred pages — the key events of the life of the child could be collected. Unfortunately, the friendship ended before the child was born and before I could give her the already finished book. I kept the book for a while, but given that it was specifically for a child with the name she wanted to give the child and the child had the other sex anyway (surprise), I threw it away eventually.

But the files, the information about the contents, the PDF, all that should be archived, I kept.

And a few months ago, a former colleague got pregnant and I thought that she (and her husband and the child) might like such a book.

And this is where a good archive comes into play. With the archive, I could easily locate the files, have a look at them, use it as the basis for a much improved version and create a new book that is specifically adapted to the child. And this time I waited with printing it until the child was born and sex and name was confirmed.

It is hard to have a project that you have to cancel, a work that you have to destroy — and don’t get me started on the pain of seeing a friendship … wither away and … to end it … because you can neither stand nor change it. But at least good ideas that could not be realized can serve as the basis or strong influence for future projects. Just because a current incarnation of an idea dies, does not mean that the whole idea should die.

In short: Keep a good archive. You find more information about it in the book as page on this site or in the book as PDF.

I have written down my position on creativity (Version 1.1) — heavily guided by the chapters and contents of my book. It reduces the 400 pages to 4 1/2. You can also find the 63 Theses about Creativity as a PDF file here. Note: Some theses are based on Csikszentmihalyi (1997) and Runco (2007).

Creativity

1. Creativity is the realization of new and useful ideas. Ideas without implementation are not creative, neither are new things that are not useful. Usefulness means that it achieves (or helps to achieve) a goal that is set in advance. There are many misconceptions about creativity and many people who claim they are creative, however, creativity is visible in the artifact and thus there is no need for creativity to be claimed, it can be seen and assessed.

2. Creativity happens in the interaction of an individual (e.g., a scientist), a domain (e.g., physics), and the field (e.g., other scientists).

3. Given that creativity is an attribution of the field to the contribution of an individual to a domain, what is regarded as creative can change over time.

4. Individuals, domains, and fields differ – for example, the individual in abilities and acquired knowledge, the domains in size, structure, material and methods, and the field in influence, homogeneity and openness.

5. The domain must be learned before one can be creative and contribute to the domain.

6. The field filters the input of individuals to the domain by deciding which contributions are creative and are added to the domain. It can also control access to resources (e.g., rare equipment) or distribution channels (e.g., galleries). Often, the strength of the field varies over time and place.

7. Creativity is not madness (it is new, but useful for something), it is not defined by accessories or tools (it is the work that counts), it is not destruction (criticism is not creative unless it makes a contribution to something new), it is not fixed (the interplay of individual, domain and field is highly erratic as all three aspects change over time), it is not easy (you have to work extremely hard to learn the domain and skills and to realize your ideas), and it is not yours alone (parallel creativity, i.e., two people creating the same object independently from each other, happens).

8. Creativity is neither inherently positive or negative – it is new and useful to achieve a goal, whether this goal is positive or negative. On the positive side, creativity can be fun to do, bring fame and remembrance, satisfy the inherent need to be creative, advance society be enlarging mankind’s options, improve mankind, and bring fun to others. On the negative side it can lead to open resistance and personal danger, isolation, and to disadvantages for society due to negative effects of science (e.g., DDT) and art (e.g., propaganda/advertising).

9. If you are creative you have to take responsibility for your creative contributions: think about what you do, scrutinize the consequences and be on the lookout for side-effects, educate the public, communicate clearly, and in the worst case destroy your work or blow the whistle and inform the public.

10. Needed to be creative are motivation (e.g., curiosity, goals, interest, fun, frustration tolerance, determination and persistence, focus), education and training (e.g., knowledge, skills), an effective work style (e.g., self reflection, hard work, autonomy, discipline, good habits), attitude towards the subject (e.g., naivety, seeing what else it could be, flexibility, ambiguity tolerance, open mindedness, controlled madness, humor), interaction with others (e.g., remaining yourself, courage, feedback, support, discretion), and structural requirements (e.g., time, money). However, neither age alone, nor genius level intelligence, or sponsorship is usually needed.

Creativity and Organization

11. Creativity must be organized because it is more than just one idea. A creative project consists of multiple ideas (e.g., the idea for a book consists of countless ideas for setting, characters, dialogues, quotations, objects, etc.) that cannot be remembered all or be easily available at once when needed.

12. Ideas must be captured (recorded immediately when they occur) and collected (long-term storage that has an inherent order).

13. Organizing creativity has the advantages of, for example, stimulating new ideas, making things easier or enabling them, providing a clearer structure, fewer mistakes, facilitating the development of ideas, and protection against plagiarism.

14. While there is a myth of accidental discoveries, the situation would not have been occurred unless the person was experimenting on a high level and it would not have been noticed unless the creative person was able to make sense of them. Actual work and extensive knowledge are necessary for creativity.

15. Creativity needs an infrastructure to generate, capture, collect, develop and realize ideas.

16. The danger is having a weak or ineffective infrastructure or over-organizing creativity be placing to much attention on the tools. Tools and technology do not have a value in themselves, they are a means to a specific end: to realizing creative ideas.

17. Work spaces should keep physical, virtual, and mental interruptions to a minimum. This may mean, for example, locking the door and turning off Internet access and the cellphone.

18. Time is needed to be creative and this needs to be organized. You have to keep and defend your time to work frequently and over long time frames on a project.

Generating Ideas

19. To generate ideas you have to occupy yourself with the subject, have time for incubation, recognize insights (ideas), evaluate and elaborate them.

20. Generating ideas needs a lot of hard, tedious and sometimes boring work – and time to do this. To be creative one has to learn, experience, practice, and persist. Learning a domain needs years of hard work, for example, if 10.000 hours are needed to reach expertise this means 27.4 years(!) if one hour each day is used. A normal working day of eight hours will take about three and a half years (about the duration of a dissertation).

21. Time for incubation is needed that is not used in interaction with people, toys, or games. Good situations are walking and bathing, before sleeping and after waking up, boring presentations, and traveling alone.

22. Blocks might occur while generating ideas because the aims are not clearly defined or the necessary knowledge is missing.

23. Techniques and tactics exist to stimulate the generation of ideas, however, a working knowledge of the domain has to be acquired first. While there is no silver bullet, they might help by breaking the routine and providing an excuse to spend time on thinking, but they cannot work without the necessary foundation of knowledge.

24. Structural strategies are, for example, keeping one’s independence, having time for ideas, seeking solitude, being open and prepared, looking at the world with a sense of wonder, doing one’s own thing, following one’s inner voice, breaking routines, and following ideas.

25. Perspective strategies are challenging assumptions, changing the approach, questioning one’s methods, considering the exceptions and fuzzy borders, looking where no one else is looking, turning the situation upside down, considering trivially, asking questions, looking at the big picture, describing the problem differently, laying the problem out, considering the details, looking at the data, looking at an individual case, breaking it down, simplifying the problem, looking the core of things, and going further.

26. Inspiration strategies are looking for inspiration in existing works, e.g., via analogies, associations, previous ideas, forced relationships, unfinished works, or considering the natural world, having supportive and inspiring experiences, looking at ones mistakes, improving the infrastructure, surrounding oneself with different people, and improving ones tools.

27. Getting help strategies include surrounding oneself with smart and creative people, brainstorming, Delphi-method, work in heterogeneous teams, expert opinions, getting a partner, talking to the ones at the basis, talking to people without opinion or knowledge, and arguing.

28. Distance strategies increase the distance by taking a step back or decrease the distance by working harder.

29. Change of options strategies reduce, e.g., by constraining work or field of activity, or enlarge the options, e.g., by deviations from reality, changes in material and methods.

30. Changing yourself strategies include getting in a positive mood, aligning tasks to moods, dreaming, drugs, controlled madness, keeping an untidy mind, and keeping a paracosmos.

31. Just do it strategies include producing a lot, experimenting, deviation amplification, or “simply” trying it.

32. Harder than solving problems is finding problems, although strategies exist like changing the domain, considering the future, looking at the past, continuing where others have failed, looking at the world, finding a need, thinking different, taking part in a contest.

Capturing Ideas

33. There are many reasons why people do not capture ideas, but there are no good reasons. Ideas should be captured so that nothing gets lost, resources are freed, stimulate more and better ideas, allow for conscious and deliberate quality control, and to cartograph the river of thoughts.

34. Ideas should be captured immediately, always, fast, effortlessly, without concern for sorting them, allowing exploration of the idea, with simply, flexible methods and techniques, and understandable at a later time.

35. Factors determining if an idea gets captured are the objective, subjective, social and physical costs of the medium, the specific demands of the environment, the specific value of the idea, the general value of ideas, and the available tools to capture the idea.

36. The capture rate can be increased by keeping something to capture immediately available, getting the right attitude, getting cheap materials, optimizing the infrastructure, and by capturing first and collecting later.

37. Criteria for evaluating idea capturing methods are availability, speed of access, ease of use, flexibility, and ruggedness. There is no ‘best’ tool as its value is dependent on the user, the situation and the content to be captured. High quality of a tool can be a disadvantage if it prevents capturing “stupid” ideas – a tool should never become more important than the cheapest idea.

38. If ideas are missed it is possible to get them back by retracing the steps, reducing anxiety, and trying again later.

39. Ways to capture ideas include pen and paper, stationary ways like blackboards, whiteboards, MagicCharts, FlipFrames, or Smartboards, and digital ways like cellphones, smartphones, PDAs, voice recorders, (video) cameras, scanners, and PCs.

40. Other people can be serious barriers to capturing ideas in public, however, there are strategies to deal with this, e.g., by making them believe they know what one writes, writing for a long time, or using a smartphone.

41. Typical situations for capturing ideas are on the move by foot, by car, as a passenger, in bed, in the shower, in the bathtub, during sports, at the computer, at work and at home. There are ways to improve capturing ideas in each situation.

Collecting Ideas

42. Ideas must be collected to have the ideas available when needed. A huge box with snippets of paper which contain ideas is worthless because it is not useable. There must be one and only one idea collection where all ideas end up.

43. An idea collection must be systematic – its goal is to support the realization of creative ideas/projects. Its core functions are remembering (allowing stumbling over ideas), generating (stimulating new ideas), finding (without or with easy search), enlarging (easily adding new information), and restructuring (easily changing the structure).

44. To transfer the captured ideas to the collection a “collection inbox” can be used. It might be an input file or folder where ideas are collected one after the other from different capturing tools and then transferred into the idea collection.

45. An idea collection must be regularly cultivated to keep it useful.

46. Tags are very useful for idea collections, a taglist might include tags like: related projects, area of creativity, quality, usage, media attachment, idea origin, target group, purpose, time/place, task information, and other specific tags.

47. Idea collections can be ordered alphabetical, thematically, chronologically, via index numbers, or by multiple principles.

48. A common problem is that a person has too many interests and wants to realize too many ideas. Prioritization is helpful by determining one core project (currently realized), a selected handful of central projects (highly interesting proj¬ects with intensive idea gathering), and by default looking at the rest as periphery projects. The idea collection should reduce pressure to realize all ideas at once, because ideas not currently realized are stored and cannot be forgotten.

49. Idea collections can be evaluated according to their usability (including ease of use – speed, backups, look and feel, flexibility, media compatibility, and availability), the ‘big five’ (remembering ideas, generating ideas, finding ideas, expanding ideas, and restructuring ideas), and security (future proof, access control, data security, and data control). Most collections can be adapted to the individual user’s needs.

50. Ways to collect ideas include paper in variable order (e.g., index cards, file folders, loose leaf collections) and fixed order (e.g., notebooks, diaries, calendars), stationary ways in variable order (e.g., post-its, pinboards, magnet boards) and fixed order (e.g., whiteboard, blackboard, MagicChart, posters), and digital ways (e.g., files and folders, text files, mind/concept maps, outliners, digital notebooks, notes management systems, wikis, word processors, databases, spreadsheets, eMail-programs, and blogs. There are ways to improve each collection, in general and regarding issues like finding, expanding, restructuring and removing ideas.

51. To start an idea collection different methods to collect ideas should be tested first, new ideas should be entered first, and during draughts ideas from old collections can be entered.

52. An idea collection must be protected. The dangers vary whether it is analog or digital, but all collections are vulnerable to total loss.

Realizing Ideas

53. When new ideas are entered into the idea collection, the ideas ripe over time until they become ready to be realized. Only one project should be realized at the same time.

54. The project best to realize depends on individual factors (like skills, talents, knowledge available for the project, sufficient resources, motivation, importance of the project for the personal career), the field (e.g., the field expects and values the project, the field has an urgent need for the project), and the domain (e.g., the idea is really new, powerful, and the project in general is complete).

55. Realizing projects needs hard work and time – and determination to continue working on the project even if the work gets boring or tricky.

56. Realizing an idea consists of restructuring the idea in a logical order, reviewing the scope of the project, planning the realization, preparing everything before starting, getting the right tools, steady regular work, and evaluating the project.

57. Feedback is crucial. There is one and only one goal of feedback: the improvement of the work. Good feedback leads to improvement in the current and future work, bad feedback provides only support, is outsourcing, destructive, pure public recognition, or power play. It should be actively searched for when, and only when, the creative needs feedback.

58. To communicate ideas they have to be adapted to the target audience by someone who knows the field. The opinion leaders should be convinced and promoters should be acquired. The idea must be clear, simple, and concise to get the gist across.

59. Worst cases in creativity include parallel creativity, loss of the job, having the field against oneself, failure, non-realizable ideas, too many implementable ideas, being not good enough, and death.

Archiving Ideas

60. Creative projects consisting of many ideas should be archived for remembrance, motivation and inspiration, enabling to revisit past projects, learning from mistakes, and creating a portfolio.

61. A copy of the work itself, meta information (like time, purpose, procedure and materials, evaluation, and inspiration), idea history, feedback and reviews, and personal records should be archived.

62. The idea collection can be used for archiving ideas.

63. The archive must be future proof and the size of the archive possible to handle.

Notes

If you want more information on these theses, read the book (here as PDF). If I have time, I’ll directly link the theses to the sections there.

Literature that was used for a few of these theses:

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity. New York: Harper Collins.
• Runco, M. A. (2007). Creativity. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press.