The Legendary "Creativity, Innovation and Change" Course

Hello my lovely readers. Hope you are all doing splendid!!!

Well, I have been having an amazing journey for the past month and a half. It all began when my brother sent me a link on a online course.

It's a course called "Creativity, Innovation and Change" conducted by remarkable professors of Penn State University in collaboration with Coursera. This is the site https://www.coursera.org/course/cic . Coursera provides a wide range of free courses too, I highly encourage you to check out the site! 

The professors Dr. Jack V. Matson, Dr. Kathryn W. Jablokow, Dr. Darrell Velegol and their team at PennState have done an excellent job in the field of creativity and I am so inspired to share my learnings with you all. All materials, links are with respect to the course and all credits go to these talented profs.

 

Creative Diversity 

(By Dr Kathryn)

1. We are all creative people in different ways. 
2. All ideas are creative. There is no such thing as 'out of the box' are only creative.
3. There are four different creative variables :

• Creative Level - is your mental capacity. It is in terms of your intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, skill, experience. Some are talented in arts, others are skilled at cooking.
• Creative Style - is your preferred way of managing and using your creative levels.Some have a more structured way of solving problems while others have a less structured approach to change.
• Motive - is what channels our energy/inspires us to move forward in life. Motivation is the key which will make you add more energy in what you do and thus contribute to your creativity.
• Opportunity - is the availability of a problem to solve and how we perceive it.

Remember there is no ideal creativity. That is there is no ratio of this much creative level and this much style is better than others. Creativity changes based on the situation.

CENTER  

(By Dr Darrell)

Character, Entrepreneurship, owNership, Tenacity, Excellence, and Relationship

Creativity involves a process that requires many skills. Creativity works best when a system of practices is happening at the same time.

There are three villians that disrupt what we want :

1. Fear. Behind every fear, there is often some good thing that we throw away.
2. Not being focused - busyness
3. Needing certainty. If you have to be SURE of yourself before proceeding, that is a big STOP sign in life. Having the capacity to run experiments is essential to forward progress.

CENTER is a strategy which will bring those few important things that are vital in a person's life.

Character - (who am I) I am _____; I will be _____. I am a computer programmer, I will be  a good human.
Entrepreneurship - (pursue your dream) I run experiments and risks toward my dream of _____. I am passionate about developing software that will benefit the society.
owNership - (how do you want life) Based on my Character, I choose _____. I choose to bring harmony around me. 
Tenacity - (you will do it no matter what) I will hold on in my pursuit toward _____. I will hold on in my pursuit towards "serving the needy".
Excellence - (you will be the ONE) I plan and focus hard work on gaining skill in _____.  I plan to be a great solutions developer.
Relationship. (the core in you) My family is _____; my home is _____. My family is my joy and pride, My home is my love.

Having a few values for each one of the elements above and looking at it each morning will inspire you. This was the Life Ring exercise which was to draw your motivation in the center surrounded by a few goals for the main priorities such as self, family-friends, partner, children, job, community, venture.

 

Intelligent Fast Forward

(By Dr Jack)

Intelligent Fast Forward is a learning process and has nothing to do with self esteem.

INTELLIGENT refers to the analysis of the failure in order to maximize the acquisition of knowledge;  

FAST refers to conducting experiments in a parallel fashion using minimum resources in the shortest time possible; 

FAILURE relates to the sub-optimal outcomes that are inherent when exploring new creative and innovative ideas.

EXPERIMENT - RISK - FAIL - LEARN - CREATE 

Einstein was once quoted, “Genius is making all possible mistakes in the shortest period of time.” He certainly knew about IFF.

Here is another Einstein quote that I like....

"Spring of Joy" Activities.

Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with life. Working working working it just consumes my other self. Today on a sunny Sunday morning I just sit back and say to myself what are the things I really love to do. Lets see....

1. I really love listening to divine music and praying.
2. I love reading inspirational books.
3. I love emboss cloth painting.
4. I love crocheting.
5. I love techie stuffs-creating websites, apps, photoshop.
6. I love writing poems and making gifts.
7. I love planting.
8. I love baking.
9. I love nature walking.
10. I love spending time with my family and friends.

Okie dokie I am going to start on one of these "spring of joy" activities. You too go ahead write down your list and enjoy your moments of bliss, for you deserve to be happy.

10 seconds of care through words.

Back again....So I am in full gear in my career and there have been difficult times.  I wanted to share with you some beautiful words said by my bus driver friend Na. She is a wonderful woman. Out of the blue this is what she told me "Your job is important. It is difficult to find good work. People may be funny at work but it doesn't matter. You do your work right and nothing can go wrong. Honesty is the key. Work provides food and pays the bill. Hang on to it. Good Luck. " Her words brought a smile on my face and gratitude in my heart. I don't know anything about her, we just say our usual goodmornings and thank yous. But on that day she just spoke out. I hope these words bring a smile to  you too. Thank you Na.