Melvin's digital garden

Conceptual Blockbusting

CREATED: 200802050252 ** Intro

  • thinking form
  • solutions to problems that don’t exist ** retarder on Mariner IV
  • conceptual blocks

** Percetual blocks

  • detecting what you expect - sterotyping ** information is context sensitive ** saw, when, panicked, Jim, ripped, haystack, the, relaxed, when cloth, the, but, he
  • difficulty in isolating the problem
  • tendency to delimit the problem area poorly ** nine dots example
  • inability to see the problem from various viewpoints
  • saturation ** you think you have the data, even though you are unable to produce it
  • failure to utilize all sensory input

** Emotional blocks

  • Freud: id, ego (socially aware, conscious aspect), superego (moralistic)
  • Kubie: preconscious
  • creativity is inhibited by the conscious ego and superego
  • fear of taking a risk
  • no appetite for chaos
  • judging rather than generating ideas
  • inability or unwillingness to incubate
  • lack of challenge vs excessive zeal
  • reality and fantasy
  • flow and angst

** Cultural blocks

  • taboos
  • humor in problem solving
  • reason and intuition
  • left-handed and right-handed thinking
  • primary and secondary creativity
  • everybody should be just like me
  • cyber is better
  • tradition and change

** Environmental blocks

  • supportive environments
  • accepting and incorporating criticism
  • autocratic bosses
  • non-support

** Intellectual and Expressive blocks

  • right problem solving language
  • flexibility in your use of strategies
  • importance of correct information
  • lack of feedback loops
  • inadequate language skills to express an idea
  • imprecision of our verbal expression

** Alternate thinking languages

  • visual thinking
  • other sensory languages
  • cognitive diversity
  • problem of specialization
  • analysis-synthesis
  • convergence-divergence
  • deduction-induction

** Blockbusters

  • questioning attitude
  • working on the right problems
  • time and effort focusers
  • set breakers ** list attributes, place as many alternates as possible
  • using other people’s ideas
  • crossing disciplines
  • crossing cultures and changing environments
  • unconscious blockbusting (postpone judgement)

** Groups

  • inadequate knowledge of the creative process and use of group creativity techniques
  • poor understanding of roles of affiliation and ego needs
  • poor leadership
  • inadequate or unbalanced group membership
  • lack of proper support

** Organizations

  • too much or too little control
  • age and size
  • tradition and past success
  • inappropriate reward system and support
  • inhibitive culture

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