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

“Son, where did you go to school? If I were you, I’d write them and get my fucking money back.”
Dimitri “Jimmie” Viner, in discussions with his flight test engineers

A while ago I had an interesting conversation with a young woman who works as musician for the US military. We found some interesting connections between science and music, but what really struck me was how she got a music teacher fired for not helping her to become better.

Yup — and she was right.

When she found out that the high-credentials teacher who was giving the course for aspiring professional musicians could or would not give her more help than just some standard stuff you could say to every interpretation of the music piece, she first tired to find better teachers outside of the music school. When this failed, because the school did not want to cover the expenses, she switched to a course that was done by a young teacher. This teacher was not as experienced, did not have all those credentials the other teacher had, and she usually taught the students who did not want to become professionals, but her feedback was much more valuable than that of the high-credentials teacher.

Now, when a really good musician changes courses to an apparently inferior teacher this starts a lot of talk, and by the start of the next semester, all the students of the high-credentials teacher wanted to switch to the young teacher. The school was forced to draw lots who might actually make the switch. After that semester, the high credentials teacher took a sabbatical.

While it may sound harsh and brutal to get a teacher fired this way, it was the best choice. Like she said: “This is not a game for me” — it was about preparing her for the future, allowing her to be successful as a musician. A teacher who gives only the same standard advice for all students, who does not allow her to become better, should not be tolerated.

It was the right decision and I wish more people would act the same.

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”.

Without Words … from Dilbert.com

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  … ).

Not only did I wipe Lemmings from my hard disc,
I overwrote it so’s I couldn’t get it back.
Terry Pratchett

Time is a scarce resource, especially keeping others from using up your time. But it’s also very easy to waste time by yourself. In my childhood/adolescence, I played a lot of computer games. It did have some beneficial effects — my English improved, especially “special” vocabulary, it was easy to maintain my mood (the games were always there), and it gave me an interesting perspective: I sailed with a pirate ship in the Caribbean or made the Lave-Riedquat run in space and became elite, I was dropped as an Army Ranger to complete impossible missions or executed a Libyan army, build a syndicate or a human colony on an alien world, and of course, I shot Nazis and demons.

But one day I stopped playing computer games. I think the main reason is that I am only interested in the settings and the characters as inspiration (for which I use Game Walkthroughs now), but no longer interested in beating the game. Because in almost any games the computer could easily beat you — you just need more processing power. What you are essentially doing is shifting bits and bytes in an environment that the computer could make impossible for you to win. And many games aim at making it just difficult enough. My favorite example is Neverwinter Nights, where the computer tries to match up the strength of your enemies with your own (which doesn’t work if you create a rare character like a Cleric-Thief, but they are trying). And why would I want to waste my time on something like that? A computer who “plays with you” to make matters challenging, but not too challenging?

It’s only bits and bytes in the end, it’s only a savegame that stores what you have done or what you have achieved. And in the end, you haven’t achieved much, or would you tell someone that you had a really nice weekend because you cleaned up that house of Zombies? When so many people could have had the same experience because the setting is fixed?

Or isn’t it more worthwhile to do something real, create something you can actually use?

“If you want to end your life, then end it. But you do not have to die to do so.”
Unknown

Searching for material on doing a PhD thesis (yes, I finished mine, but I’m doing a presentation about it and I was looking for other perspectives — and boy, did I find information ), I stumbled upon the text “How not to commit suicide” by Art Kleiner (and I didn’t take a detour, it’s a related problem), describing what happens to the person when a suicide attempt fails.

As usual with this topic, not a nice read, but — well, it gives an interesting perspectives. The suicide notes are especially heartbreaking.

In short, instead of ‘ending it all’ you break through the rock bottom and start walking around (if you have brain function left) in an even deeper circle of hell. Indirectly a good argument for therapy and dealing with ones mood and problems.

“Don’t make fun of grad students. They just made bad life choices.”
Marge Simpson to Bart after he made fun of a “30 year old grad student who made $600 last year.” [quote found at birdie77's profile at http://www.phinished.org]

A comment lead to me a series of videos on YouTube with the title “So you want to get a PhD in [psychology | humanities | etc]“. The sound — well, it’s computer voices, and the dialogue is somewhat redundant, but the content is … sometimes surprisingly to the point.

I stumbled over two great articles regarding leadership — or the lack thereof — in academia. Unfortunately, both are in German, but they key points were (translating and paraphrasing the authors):

• Using the classification of leadership in laissez-faire, autocratic and cooperating leadership behavior works. It must not be seen as either-or, but as present to varying degrees.
• Leadership behavior is not a matter of personal preference, but has consequences on multiple measures, e.g., affective commitment, achievement motivation, fluctuation, quality of the work relationship, and total work performance of the department. Leadership behavior that is high in cooperative, low in autocratic and low in laissez-faire style leads to the best results.
• There are many good examples of great leadership, of professors who support their staff and help them to become good or even great scientists by opening doors, giving advice and encouragement.
• However, many academics do not see themselves as leaders and do not think that they should show leadership behavior. Often the reason is the (false) argument that academic freedom and training independent scientists precludes leadership, thus resulting in no (i.e., laissez-faire) leadership behavior. However, mentorship — giving advice and feedback — allows the advancement of skills and work and keeps the independence and self-directed work of the young academics.
• Bad leadership behavior is usually not the tyrant who plays god in his department, but the lack of systematic (i.e., targeted, deliberate, reflective) leadership behavior. For example,
  • giving critic without constructive recommendations for change and encouragement,
  • making optimistic estimations regarding whether something can be implemented without giving the necessary support and impulses of how to transform an optimistic estimation to a measurable success,
  • pressing for the implementation of their own visions without gaining commitment by their staff first, and
  • academic thesis advisers who are usually not available.
• Bad leadership wastes potential, because it is a main reason that doctoral students quit their dissertation and leave academia.
• Great leadership combines support/advice with promoting values which are consistent and lived in the everyday work and can be experiences by the staff, e.g., promoting ethical values like respect, transparency, fairness and setting a good example.
• Training of leadership behavior in academia was neglected but — apparently — this is going to change.

I think the articles are highly relevant for anyone working or planning to work in academia, as post-doc or professor. The climate of a department can make or break great science and leaders strongly contribute to it. And as Kurt Lewin, who started research in leadership behaviors, said: “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” and the texts are great to make sense of leadership behavior in academia.

Highly recommended.

Sources

Schmidt, B., & Richter, A. (2008). Unterstützender Mentor oder abwesender Aufgabenverteiler? – Eine qualitative Interviewstudie zum Führungshandeln von Professorinnen und Professoren aus der Sicht von Promovierenden. Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung, 30(4), 34-58.

Schmidt, B., & Richter, A. (2009). Zwischen Laissez-Faire, Autokratie und Kooperation: Führungsstile von Professorinnen und Professoren. Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung, 31(4), 8-35.