General Tips – Page 74 – ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

What Science Should be About (but Academia Often Isn’t): The Joy of Discovery

2014-03-20

A beautiful example of what can happen when you are right as a scientist -- that's what science should be about.
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“When all around is chaos, when everyone is driven to the brink of insanity … relax.”

2014-03-04

In a course we learned about internal hurriers and how to deal with them. More in the post, but it seems I use quotations to keep them in check.
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“Teaching” at the university, or: I am neither a, nor your, private teacher

2014-02-28

Clearing up a misconception in university teaching. At least in Germany, the ones in front of the class are not teachers, nor are they rewarded for teaching. Making this and a few other issues clear is really helpful. I think it led to students still knowing they could ask me, but stop wasting time on irrelevancies.
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BuzzFeedYellow Video Recommendation: Artists and Unemployed

2014-02-03

Two beautiful videos from Buzzfeed many creative people should identify with.
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Sometimes a brick is only a brick (Creativity ‘Test’)

2013-12-07

Why creativity tests like "Name things you can do with a brick" are not really useful to determine whether you are creative or not. And what is much more important.
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Leaving your Comfort Zone

2013-12-02

Some comments about the need to change perspectives to come up with creative solutions, and how this is missing when it comes to feminists -- and why.
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Chosing the right battles

2013-12-01

When it comes to discussions, don't try to convince the extremists on the other side. There are better, more relevant and actually attainable people to convince: the juicy middle.
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Neil Gaiman’s Commencement Speech

2013-11-25

One of the best storytellers giving a commencement speech. Yeah.
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Where does your creativity break down?

2013-11-25

Looking at the bottlenecks where your creativity breaks down and dealing with them is the best thing you can do to improve your creativity. Some suggestions.
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Scientific Community #4 — Concluding Remarks

2013-11-23

Summary and three crucial issues when it comes to (correctly) seeing science as social endeavor.
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This is a private blog showing my opinions. If you have an issue with what I write here, either don’t read it or talk to me directly. Don’t waste your time — or mine — dragging my employer into matters where they hold no authority.

The institution I work for, or rather the people officially representing it, have already distanced themselves from this blog. I find this unnecessary, as I’ve clearly stated in the «About this Blog» section that this is a personal blog.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for those who lack the backbone to address their concerns directly and instead resort to passive-aggressive tattling to others. Such behavior strikes me as not only cowardly, but also spineless, gutless, and wholly unprincipled. Moreover, these efforts are as pathetic as they are futile.

That said, I might listen if you present compelling arguments and evidence, as constructive feedback is always welcome. Who knows? We might even both gain something valuable from the interaction.

A comment for those seeking to use this site for personal gain: Given the increase in requests, let me be clear. I write on this blog because I want to. It’s my hobby, my playground. Sometimes people point me to interesting products/services and I write about them. But any request regarding ads or sponsored placements ends up the trash without a reply. And if you think something would be of interest, differentiate yourself from the spammers by referring to a posting — in an intelligent way. (I get enough auto-generated mails to identify them immediately.)

BTW, posts can get updated after I published them if I spot spelling errors (not a native speaker) or think a different wording might improve precision and clarity.

This blog is not focused on a single topic, or method. As long as it is relevant to improving creativity (or allowing it in the first place), it's fair game.
Some postings on this blog deal with freedom, as I think that we need freedom of thought, of speech, of association, etc. pp. to solve mankind's problems. Thus, some postings may seem a bit remote when it comes to organizing creativity. Freedom is, however, the bedrock of creativity.
The heterogeneity of the postings can make reading this blog a bit cumbersome, at least if you are only interested in one topic. You can either use the search function (above), or use the categories or the tags to narrow down the postings you see.