I shudder at those little blank spaces that social media sites use to invite me to share what’s on my mind. As soon as I see the query, anything that I was thinking dissolves into a vat of internal gibberish. While I have friends whose humor, wit and sense of life enable them to tweet and indeed entertain their readers with what appears to be effortless abandon, my poor brain freezes up at the sight of invitation to share what I’m thinking.

As a student of creativity, this reaction intrigues me. I know the guidelines for brainstorming and can defer judgment with the best of them…or can I?

Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, etc. even this blog all have an element of self promotion. So I instantaneously think of and evaluate the comments I could make in response to those little open invitations against a long list of internal and professional criteria. As quick as I can think of something to write, I can snipe it off. Leaving me with a pile of half-thought expressions. So I am in fact judging so rapidly that I don’t leave one thought standing.

Perhaps our digital world further highlights differences in creative styles and expressions that we already know about. Some creative styles may serve a glib fluency that sparks ideas using social media as its medium. For other social media almost seems as if its an extension of thinking out loud. Still others are internal processors — only ready to share information when it’s articulate and clear in their own heads. In those cases social media can become a forum or a place to pilot an idea. So while social media and the Internet may increases the diversity of sources for ideas, individual style may still factor into how one taps and uses it.

While, I’m not sure how I’ll respond to the next invitation to share “what I’m doing.” But I will try to take a breath and…improvise.

Not only does culture influence creative output, it creates our definitions of what creativity is. The Western conception of creativity is deeply rooted in an individualistic culture. At the same time they tried to explain knowledge using individual experience as their focus, philosophers such as Hume, Kant and many others contributed to developing the idea of creative imagination. (See The Creative Imagination by James Engell for more context.) Both the Romantic notion that creativity results from an inner essence and the mechanistic-reductionist contention that it results from unique and useful associations places the individual at the center of creativity.

Yet, today teams and workgroups are charted with being innovative and creative - collectively. To the Western mind, this almost seems like a contradiction. This may be one reason why a simple creative process model like divergent-convergent thinking can help teams work creatively. The model’s simple structure and guidelines for behavior helps individuals play well together. It also helps balance individual contribution with collective output. While a solution that’s implemented may be a group effort, individuals had an opportunity to contribute to its development based on personal experience and knowledge. When a group develops and implements a creative solution the process of working together is reinforced.

This year’s Creative Problem Solving Institute will be held in Danvers, Mass on June 21-24. This eclectic meeting of minds and hearts will appeal to anybody who believes that we have the imagination to solve problems and create opportunity. CPSI provides workshops, training and inspiration to become undaunted. There’s also thought provoking keynotes, opportunity for great discussions with brilliant people, drumming and dancing.

Like no other conference, it provides hands-on learning experiences that enable you to think differently and stretch your beliefs about what is possible.

http://www.cpsiconference.com/

“Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions – who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans….they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when IMAGINATION is joined to COMMON PURPOSE and necessity to COURAGE.” Barack Obama, Inaugural Address. 1/20/2009

Certainly the word imagination in President Obama’s inaugural address got my attention. But it was the combination of imagination with “common purpose” and “courage” that resonated. To me, it is a recipe for leadership, and a rallying call to thought-based action with an implied link to values and accountability.

(To see, the phrase in contaxt go to the 9:45 mark in the C-Span Video.)

Check out TED. TED = Technology, Entertainment and Design

This sight features a series of 15 minutes talks from TED conferences on the process of innovation in technology and design, the role of collaboration in creativity, where designers find inspiration, the nature of the universe and. Fabulous for getting different perspectives and sparking your own ideas, it’s a salon for our times.

It’s customary to greet each New Year with renewed vision, new business plans and resolve. However, as I work on mine, I need to resist disillusionment fostered by the business climate that 2009 inherited. Ideas from two classic organizational development texts redoubt my efforts.

Senge’s (1989) description of creative tension as the relationship between the vision of what one wants and a clear picture of current reality reminds me that the gap between vision and reality is the source of creative energy. So, there will be plenty of opportunity in 2009 for creative thinking and problem solving.

Bellman’s (1993) comment that “commitment is taking responsibility for creating the life that we want” (p. 30), reminds me that an actor in the above creative tension is me. Real commitment translates to action and is manifest when in the willingness to expend the 90% perspiration that Thomas Edison claimed as necessary to implement an idea.

With these notions in mind, ideas, plans and action emerge more important than ever in making 2009 a great year.

Bellman, G. (1993). Getting things done when you are not in charge. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Senge, P. (1989). The fifth discipline. New York: Currency/Doubleday.

        In this season’s flurry of holiday networking events, this past Tuesday stands out. In addition to rubbing elbows and exchanging business cards with bright, energetic professionals, I heard two inspiring stories made more compelling juxtaposed with one another. One was from the Presiding Judge for Multnomah County Circuit Court. The other from a recovered meth addict.

OWLS Luncheon
The judge was the keynote speaker at the Oregon Women Lawyers Queen’s Bench holiday luncheon honoring women judges. Warm and funny, she told us of an idyllic 1950s childhood in central California followed by college at UC at Berkeley during the turbulent late 1960s. She graduated, went to Law School, moved to Oregon and became a deputy district attorney for Marion County. Later she worked for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office and in private practice. In 1966 she was appointed to the bench.

The judge told us about the support she received from her parents and her brothers. Her mom, always prim in a dress and pumps, refused to put boundaries around her daughter’s dreams and capabilities.
Sitting in a festive room of 200 women attorneys and two-dozen female judges, it’s easy to become complacent about journey professional women have made in the space of one career. But the Judge reminded us. She highlighted the gender composition of law schools in the early 1970s, the lack of women on the bench and evolving make-up of the judicial system during the last 30 years. Her career honors diligence and tenacity that is sometimes necessary to be recognized for one’s competence and capabilities regardless of gender or ethnicity.

After lunch, I saw the Judge walking on the other side of the street, petite and unassuming. It struck me that every day there are trailblazers and pioneers among us in out communities.

Holiday Party
That evening I attended the Portland Female Executives (PDX FX) holiday soirée. It doubled as a fund-raiser for Dress for Success, a non-profit organization with programs that create economic independence for disadvantaged women. I was sipping red wine and catching up with a former colleague when our attention was called to the front of the room and our guest speaker from the Portland’s Dress for Success affiliate was introduced.

I had noticed her earlier. Attractive and articulate, I expected that she was the non-profits managing director there to thank us for our support. I was surprise when she told us that five years ago we would have found her homeless meth addict sitting in a jail cell after her sixth arrest. In jail, she read a letter from her daughter who she had been removed from her custody. The child’s note failed to grasp the seriousness of the mother’s condition, but contained the elegant innocence of a wish that her mom would take the time to get better. The addict was moved. She prayed and started taking steps to change. She found a rehabilitation program and asked for help from her parents, who solidly supported her efforts.

The rest of her story was about the support and coaching received from Dress for Success, going to a community college and then a local faith-based university. She holds her life as a candle for hope and change.

Two Stories Together
While the stories are very different, I heard in each an expression of imaginative will that help each woman beat the odds. In the first story, a person took advantage of opportunities to change a system . In the other story, a person takes the leap and makes the commitment to change herself.

Recently, I’ve attended meetings with people who either own small businesses or are in transition, meaning they are unemployed, relocating or looking to change careers. In each meeting, the moderator has inquired about how the bleak economic news is affecting attendees and their efforts to grow or change. These meeting leaders note that people may feel stuck.

I agree with that. But I disagree with some of the suggested remedies for “stuckness”, such as avoiding the news and keeping one’s eye on the prize. To me, these feel over simplistic. I think unleashing one’s imagination might lead to more novel and effective solutions. To do its best work, the imagination needs information.

Continue Gathering Data
Information, whether one perceives it to be good or bad, has value. Ignoring it just leaves one uninformed and making business decisions based on gut and dreams. Gut and dreams can be part of good decision-making but, only one part, and they are influenced by the murmuring in the shadows any way. It’s better to shine a direct light on news and data, do your analysis, the reflect on what emerges with a trusted adviser. In that way your gut and dreams are balanced by a stable foot in reality and that is more likely to lead to innovative thinking.

Information is a Tool
Avoid “stuckness” when gathering and accessing data by focusing on how it informs your plans or thinking. Beware of being distracted by the data and letting it become the end itself. Use data points to look at your goal from a different perspective. Use it to clarify the situation, or break a big challenge down into sub-problems that can be prioritized and addressed. Use it to further determine what is really important to you. This openness to information and willingness to gather as much as you can about the your business environment may lead you to discovering alternative paths to a goal.

Knitting together options, alternatives and new possibilities is the job of our imagination. The more we fuel it with experience and information, the more imagination has to work with.