“We have a natural tendency to romanticize breakthrough innovations, imagining momentous ideas transcending their surroundings, a gifted mind somehow seeing over the detritus of old ideas and ossified tradition. But ideas are works of bricolage. They are, almost inevitably, networks of other ideas. We take the ideas we’ve inherited or stumbled across, and we jigger them together into some new shape.”

Steven Johnson, author of the new book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation.  Read the full context of the quote in the article The Genius of the Tinker.

Check out the illustrated trailer for the book that I posted last month.  I’m looking forward to reading this book as soon as I finish Delivering Happiness by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (highly recommended)

Via Michael Lebowitz

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Is Consumerism Killing Our Creativity? How much time do you spend consuming knowledge, inspiration, or creative stimulation in a day?  This drive to consume comes at a price, and research shows that satisfaction found in the search and consuming process stimulates the brain in a similar manner as acting on real creative activity. Are you getting your “creative rush” by simply searching and consuming, or are you creating which rewards you in the long term? Go ahead and take a few minutes to consume the full article at The 99 Percent.

Is Consumerism Killing Our Creativity?

How much time do you spend consuming knowledge, inspiration, or creative stimulation in a day?  This drive to consume comes at a price, and research shows that satisfaction found in the search and consuming process stimulates the brain in a similar manner as acting on real creative activity.

Are you getting your “creative rush” by simply searching and consuming, or are you creating which rewards you in the long term?

Go ahead and take a few minutes to consume the full article at The 99 Percent.

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“Creativity is a double-edged sword. The more ideas we have, the less likely we are to stay loyal to one. So the creative mind ends up jumping from idea to idea, and none of them happen. There is no correlation between how great an idea is and the likelihood of it happening.”

Scott Belsky

Via Surfstation

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Jill Greenberg: How Much Do You Push the Envelope?

The 99 Percent just published a segment of Jill Greenberg’s session from 2009 on pushing the envelope.

“What’s interesting about controversy is that it gets your pictures out there.” Photographer Jill Greenberg on the value of pushing the envelope.

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Schools Kill Creativity

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong you’ll never come up with anything original.” - Sir Ken Robinson.  As children we are never frightened of creatively exploring at the risk of being wrong, but we grow older our education system and culture aid in the unlearning of creativity and help children minimize the risk of being wrong.

Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for recreating an education that nurtures creativity.

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Routines, Systems and Spontaneity The height of sustainable creative process can be found at the intersection of routines, systems and spontaneity.  Mark McGuinness writes about the balance of these three core processes in an article for Behance Magazine. Routines - “a key that unlocks creative inspiration” through associative triggers Systems - creating systems so that nothing gets overlooked when your routines are broken by events Spontaneity - taking moments to wander from the usual routine to expose yourself to new experiences Via ilovecharts

Routines, Systems and Spontaneity

The height of sustainable creative process can be found at the intersection of routines, systems and spontaneity.  Mark McGuinness writes about the balance of these three core processes in an article for Behance Magazine.

  • Routines - “a key that unlocks creative inspiration” through associative triggers
  • Systems - creating systems so that nothing gets overlooked when your routines are broken by events
  • Spontaneity - taking moments to wander from the usual routine to expose yourself to new experiences

Via ilovecharts

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