Cracking Creativity

Advertising legend Carl Ally made the comment that "The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things; ancient history, nineteenth century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea." Creativity is an attitude of the mind that can be exercised. Following are some of the most effective practices as outlined in the Fall 2009 issue of Systems Engineering:

1. "Be inquisitive and curious about natural objects, products, processes, ideas, and concepts. Continually explore, and communicate.
2. Ask higher level questions about the purpose of each of the above.
3. A continual reassessment of the situation, of the questions, and of solutions - the iterative process of exploration yields understanding at various cognitive levels which mix with one another.
4. Constantly change focus from narrow angle to wide angle views of any situation.
5. Through lateral thinking develop analogies for the phenomena that you observe.
6. Draw sketches, perspectives, diagrams, etc. to pass your thought through your eyes back to your mind.
7. Do visual thinking in 2D, 3D, etc. and have fascination in the process.
8. Make commitments to deliver exceptional systems (pressure of meeting commitments motivates creativity).
9. Purse your ideas tirelessly and without fear of failure - the least you will get is the experience of living inside your problem.
10. Always purse multiple projects (going from one project to the next breaks the possibly degenerative thought patterns and motivates lateral thinking)."