Lateral thinkin, Instinct, Outside the box, Critical aptitude
The first part of the course defines creativity as a key competence for lifelong learning that can be trained and developed according to the common 'EntreComp' Competence Framework. The second part of the course describes the creative process and promotes simple practical exercises to increase creativity, initiative and lateral thinking to provide entrepreneurial solutions to current economic and social challenges.
1.2.A Creativity in EntreComp Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterised by the ability to perceive the world around us in new and different ways in order to make connections among apparently unrelated phenomena and to generate innovative solutions. Creativity is the ability to produce new solutions without using a logical process, but establishing distant relationships among facts. Therefore, it is not a logical process. According to ‘The art of thought’ written by the phycologist G.Wallas, the creative process includes four stages: 1. PREPARATION: data collection and problem definition; 2. INCUBATION: Unconscious Processing; 3. ILLUMINATION: Intuition, creative idea; 4. VERIFICATION: Analysis of the innovative idea 1.2.B. Develop creativity through practical exercises We find different types of actions that can be used to become more creative and develop lateral thinking. Used in combination, they turn effective by giving you the right tools to face a problem or task. Paraphrasing questions The simple example we talk about in the presentation (result of 5+5=10) allows us to reflect on how the way you ask a question determines the type of answers you get. If you don't ask a question in a different way, you don't usually get really interesting answers Connecting and combining seemingly opposite ideas The greatest innovations or inventions of all time have always come about by putting together and mixing things that apparently, according to our schemes and canons, cannot stay together. An effective and visual method to stimulate new combinations is undoubtedly the Japanese conceptual art of Chindogu, also known as "Chindogu: The Humorous Art of Stupidity". Basically it is a provocative art, but it opens our minds. It associates things that belong to different worlds that can be practical or simply interesting Synaptic exercises "Synaectic" is a term coined by psychologist William J.J. Gordon. In facts, it means being able to find connections and relationships between concepts, objects and ideas that apparently have no connection. This exercise requires a high level of mental activity, and we can perform it every day by choosing concepts ourselves. KISS – Keep it short and simple The "keep it simple and simple (or stupid)" (KISS) principle is a design rule that states that systems work better when they have simple rather than complex designs. The KISS is not intended to imply stupidity. Quite the opposite: it is usually associated with intelligent systems that can be misinterpreted as stupid because of their simplicity. Don't fall in love with ideas Sometimes the perfect idea is just an illusion that hinder the process of our creative thinking. It is important to have a huge amount of ideas but having the right idea is not a matter of luck or enlightenment. It is a question of commitment and constancy, a question of quality that comes from quantity. It takes a lot in terms of time-consuming and efforts to transform a mediocre ideas into a great idea. Do something different everyday Whether we like it or not we are habitual creatures: every day our tendency is to choose what we already know. And even if it may not seem so apparently and you think you are a nonconformism, if you stop to observe your life you will discover that, when there are no prefigured habits, there are some unconscious gestures that we tend to repeat. Use a card game to unlock your creativity A card game for creativity born in the Polytechnic University of Milan is called Intùiti. It is a synthesis of design, tarot and Gestalt psychology. Intùiti is composed of 78 cards and 78 tales (one per card) collected in a booklet, available in English. Each card represents a powerful incentive, is designed using Gestalt principles and offers an evocative fairy tale which doesn’t have a written ending. The player decide it. There are no main rules. It's a tool for creative thinking based on visual and imaginary associations, so you just have to shuffle the deck, pick a card, and read the fairy tale…and suggest the end of the story. Intùiti is not an algorithmic function that can ‘make people creative’, or a scientific method able to produce thousands of brilliant ideas. It's an inspirational tool: it's not an answer, but a continuos question.
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