Cracking the Creativity Code: Discovering Ideas

This is the first part of two courses. The first part is “discovering” ideas and the second part delivering the ideas.

• Coursera: Cracking the Creativity Code: Discovering Ideas

• Matryoshka dolls - small to big
• Cracking the Creativity Code: Zoom Out/Zoom In/Zoom Out Framework for More Creativity.
• Creativity is widening the range of choice.
• Ideas are “discovered”, not “created”.

For most of us, the problem isn't that we aim too high and fail.
 It's just the opposite. We aim too low and we succeed.
  -- Ken Robinson

Human individuals live far within their limits.
  -- William James

• Motivation is the key.

  The surprising fact is that all the variables which discriminate
   between creative and non-creative people are motivational.
  -- John Hayes (1990)
  

Da Vinci’s 8 Power Questions

What is your deepest passion?

1. When am I most ‘myself’?
2. What is the ONE THING I could do, or stop doing, that would most improve the quality of my life?
3. What is my greatest talent?
4. How can I get paid for doing what I love best?
5. Who are my most inspiring role models?
6. How can I change the world?
7. What is my deepest passion?
8. What will be my life’s legacy?

Simon Sinek: Start with Why!

Start with why – how great leaders inspire action

The golden circle: what, how, and why Communicate inside out, not outside

Apple example

How other companies communicate

1. We make great computers.
2. They are beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly.
3. Wanna buy one?

How Apple communicates

1. Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently.
2. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly.
3. We just happen to make great computers.

People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.

• What you do simply proves what you believe.
• People will do the things that prove what they believe.
• When you communicate from inside out, we’re talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior, and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do.
• The goal is not to sell to people who need what you have. It is to sell to people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to hire people who need a job. It is to hire people who believe what you believe.

Wright brothers vs. Samuel Pierpont Langley

• Wright brothers were driven by a cause to change the course of history
• Langley was in pursuit of the result, in pursuit of the riches.
• The law of diffusion of innovation
  • Needs between 15 and 18 percent market penetration.
  • 10% -> 15% “crossing the chasm” (Jeffrey Moore)
• TiVo failure
  • What you do simply serves as the proof of what you believe.

Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream” speech

• I believe - They showed up for what they believed.
• not “I have a plan” speech
• We follow the inspiring leader not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves.