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Poster: How to Organize Your Creativity?

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).

oc-poster-englishThe 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”.

Poster: Wie organisiert man seine Kreativität? [German]

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.]

MinD-Akademie 2011 Poster

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  … ;-) ).

Computer Games — Inspiration vs Shifting Bits and Bytes

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?

How not to commit suicide

“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.

So you want to get a PhD in …

“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.

Leadership in Academia

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.

Questionnaire for Organizing Creativity 2

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.

Which skills help you to be creative?

Which tools help you to be creative?

Is there anything else you think is important for creativity or its organization? If so, what is it?

In which areas are you creative?

If you want to, you can also give your name and eMail, but you don't need to. I promise not to abuse this information.

Your Name

Your eMail

Thank you in advance :-)

Daniel Wessel

What are you doing?


Cut from “The West Wing”

The cut above reminds me of something we often lose: Take a breath for a second, step back and ask yourself: What are you doing? Are you really doing what you want to do? What is important for your? What makes your heart beat faster? What motivates you to get out of bed with a smile?

Don’t get me wrong, no job, no matter which, will always be fun, always be great, nor will you always succeed in it. But there are two things that should characterize any worthwhile job, and I include creative work in the past time to this:

  • Over a medium time-frame (let’s say up to six months), the balance of the job in terms of enjoyment vs. dissatisfaction should be positive.
  • The job should have consequences that go beyond the work itself — be it people inspired, making the world a little less hostile or complicated, etc. pp.

If you are doing something that is not worthwhile, creating something each and every day that does not move your heart, then perhaps it’s time to stop and think — and find an alternative solution.

Getting that brilliant sentence back when Word crashes

“Mr. Jones, are we ready to release our new software?”
“Yes, sir. As requested, it’s full of bugs, which means people will be forced to upgrade for years.”
“Outstanding!”
Elliot Carver and Jones in “James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997)

Microsoft Word is pretty much the only program I (have to) use that still crashes randomly — or rather it’s pretty much the only program I use that crashes at all. And this despite owning a legal copy of the 2011 version for Mac with the current update.

As a consequence, the cmd + s move is more or less automatic every few seconds like in this great PhD Comic here (it’s a three part series, use the next-button next to the comic panel). I also use incremental saving every now and then (save the file under a new name, e.g., project_x_1.docx, project_x_2.docx, project_x_3.docx), to ensure that I still have a working file if the crash takes the Word document with it. It can happen occasionally, meaning that you cannot reopen your crashed document, so it’s useful to have one you can go back to.

But this only ensures that you have your text until the last save. What about that brilliant sentence you wrote between the last save and Word crashing?

You’re in luck if it’s still visible, because the Application only hangs and takes some time until it quits by itself (if ever) — then you can take a screenshot. On Mac, use Grab (press cmd + space to get Spotlight, then type “Grab”). Grab is a Mac application that allows you to take screenshots. Go to Capture => Screen or press cmd + z and then click on the screen outside of the information window. If you use Windows, simply press “Print” on the keyboard, open your graphic application and insert from Clipboard. This screenshot might not contain everything, but at least you have saved some parts, perhaps even the crucial ones. Next either type it again or use OCR to copy&paste the text in the image (usually difficult, because the resolution is quite low). This way you get parts of your unsaved work back.

Sure, it should be possible to remember what you have written, but often the tiny difference between what you had written and what you have re-written now makes a huge difference in the effect the sentence has, and personally, the frustration of Word crashing usually deletes whatever I had in mind. In the case that the whole system is frozen (never had it so far), you can use your cellphone camera to take a snapshot of the screen.

Of course, this is one reason why I love Scrivener, given that it saves the work every 2 seconds without you even noticing it.

Happy weekend writing :-)