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

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”.

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  … ).

Leonardo da Vinci [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (cut)

I’m currently listening to a presentation by Prof. Martin Eppler about “Sketching at Work” — showing the power of sketches in business contexts. Sketching is a very powerful tool in creativity and as far as I can see, his book (look into it) or here (order) offers a lot of ideas how you can use sketching to solve and discuss your problems.

Very interesting book and I agree, now that we have tools like the iPad that allow sketching (esp. if you use pens like the Pogo sketch pen) sketching is back.

Very interesting

P.S.: If you like to look at presentations which work heavily with sketches, look at the presentations at Khan Academy or (more professionally) the RSA Animate videos.

Image/Boardgame by *PinkAxolotl / Elisabeth Redel

I just stumbled upon this Monopoly-boardgame in the style of Fallout by Elisabeth Redel. It looks incredibly well done and, according to Spiegel.de (German) and the page at deviantART, it was a gift from her (she’s a designer) to her boyfriend.

I mean, I’ve created books as gifts, for example songbooks and books of quotations, but this is an entirely different league. I’m breathless, it’s very cool and very inspirational.

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

Great video about the importance of sharing ideas (talk by Steven Johnson) … or hunches … to develop great ideas. Love the references to coffee houses and salons and yes, surrounding yourself with smart/creative people is a great strategy to develop ideas, and the Internet made it possible to find these people anywhere on the planet..

A brilliant animation that illustrates a talk by Dan Pink at RSA with the topic: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. It turns out that in work that needs even rudimentary cognitive skills the relationship “higher payment = higher performance” does not work. Beyond a basic level of payment that “take the issues of money off the table” it is autonomy (being self-directed), mastery (becoming better at what you do), and purpose (beyond the actual work itself) that drives people to higher performance and creative solutions.

Something to think about — in this as in many other cases simply throwing money at an issue will not work, it may actually be detrimental to high performance and innovative work.

There are a lot of good apps for the iPhone. Yesterday I stumbled upon an excellent replacement for my default camera app, called Camera+. It allows you to shot photos really quickly by saving the image as a background process and not locking up the application like the Apple default camera app does. And it has a good suite of editing functions with filters like Lomographic and Borders like Instant that can give an ordinary photo a special look (see above).

Or can’t it?

I’m actually torn regarding the functions that Camera+ and other apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic offer. Can they really make a photo special? Is the photo above on the right side better than on the left side? Can you just click on an effect and get that special Ansel Adams style? Or is a crappy photo still a crappy photo, no matter how well the effect looks?

How much is in the camera, in the App that affects the photo, and how much must be in the eye (and mind) of the photographer? Photographers like Ken Rockwell would probably argue that learning to see, learning to decide what makes a good photo cannot be delegated to a computer program. But I wonder when the first Apps appear that will analyze a photo on the fly and offer recommendations for a second or third photo from a different perspective. Or when you simply move your camera around and the camera decides when you have found a good angle to capture the scene. But who will be the artist in this case? And is it still art if you simply click on a button to “enhance” your image?

What do you think?