I never did anything worth doing by accident; nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
Thomas Alva Edison

I got an interesting comment today:

pls provide tips for unleashing creativity

It has always been my position in this blog that ideas ‘just come’ when you spend time working on a topic, and that the main problem is not getting ideas but getting good ideas that you realize. Organizing Creativity is all about that and as succinctly put in this poster, I believe it is not only possible but needed to achieve great works.

But what if you do not get ideas automatically? A colleague of mine once told me that he thinks that great artists recognize when something either is interesting from an artistic point of view or has the potential to be interesting. A musician who is inspired by some sounds in his environment for a great tune or a photographer who suddenly stops because he sees a great motif would be perfect examples. These people can benefit hugely by organizing their finds. But if you do not belong to these people — what do you do then?

Frankly, good question, I have no idea. I have included creativity techniques. You find them in the HTML version of the first book, or in its PDF, and they are also in the draft version of the second book. But whereas I think that these ‘techniques’ can give you ‘an excuse’ to spend time ‘just thinking’ about a problem, I also think that they are totally useless unless you really, really know the subject.

Heinlein coined the acronym TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch). This is also true for creativity. You can’t imagine it as a wild dog that you simply ‘unleash’ and that will do the work for you. You have to work yourself first, to get the materials to work with, and afterwards, to implement the ideas you had.

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

Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Edmund Burke

I stumbled upon a short text by Paul N. Edwards (School of Information University of Michigan): How to Read a Book (v4.0). It’s a quick and interesting read, although (as the author stresses) the implementation of theses recommendations will take a while. It is also very interesting for people who want to design a good reader, for iPads, Kindle or — I don’t know, for a reference manager (like Papers that could really need a good reader, Sente that has some interesting features but could improve, etc.). Seriously, it gives you the requirements on a silver platter.

BTW, read past the table, the detailed (but still pleasantly short) explanations are more comprehensible.

Highly Recommended — Edwards, P. N. (2008?). How to Read a Book.

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.

Kurz gesagt: Ihr seid hochqualifizierte Leute, die man nicht auf der falschen Stelle verschwenden sollte. Ihr seid ehrgeizig, im Sinne von ihr wollt etwas erreichen, gefördert werden, weiter kommen. Sucht euch das passende Umfeld genau aus wenn ihr könnt. Promotionsstellen sind Qualifikationsstellen — es reicht nicht, dass ihr die Arbeit für die Stelle gut macht, die Arbeit auf der Stelle muss euch weiterbringen und euch selbst weiter qualifizieren.
Vortragsnotiz aus “Die Zukunft deiner Forschung — Wie organisiert man eine wissenschaftliche Arbeit?”

Note: The following presentation (PDF with Notes, which contains the script) is about ways to organize a scientific work. I did this presentation at the MinD-Akademie 2011 in Hannover and thus it is in German. It was my best presentation ever. Loved the audience . Regarding an English version, I’ll be doing a translation soon. [Update: Translation is online in this posting.]

Auf das Bild klicken um die PDF angezeigt zu bekommen (ca. 5 MB). Ein Teil der Bilder in der Präsentation sind ausgegraut, weil ich leider nicht das Copyright für diese Bilder besitze. Das mindert die Qualität der Präsentation, auch wenn sie nur zur Illustration eingesetzt wurden. Auf der anderen Seite sind alle wichtigen Informationen in den Notizen vorhanden. Das Design der Folien beruht zum einen auf ein Template von Apple’s Keynote (Cover), wobei die Seiten von den Aperture/iPhoto Photobüchern inspiriert sind. Die Angaben zur empfohlenen Literatur ist hier als eigener Eintrag verfügbar.

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  … ).

Today’s xkcd comic is brilliant (again) — no idea whether it would work or what the effect would be, but it sure sounds … eye-opening

(c) Randall Munroe, visit his website at xkcd.com

Some time ago (shame on me) someone at GroupZap send me an eMail about their product: A website where you can collaboratively work on the same shared whiteboard. You can write Post-Its, easily move and scale them, draw lines, etc. If you ever had a quick phone conversation where you wanted to develop something together you see the value of this immediately.

As I usually work either alone or with colleagues in the same building, I had no opportunity to really try it out, but working with two computers at the same time worked as well. And it’s a really good tool. There are some issues regarding usability and the need to give an eMail-address, but besides this it is easy to share information this way. You change something and a second or two later the people sharing the whiteboard see the changed version.

Two really great features of GroupZap are an edit list, showing you not only who did what but also letting you replay the whole development, so you can replay the development of the ideas, and an quick and easy PDF export.

In short, GroupZap is a quick to use tool for collaborative work. Still in its early stages, but already very usable.

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