Check out what your classmates thought about our session on the Innovation Engine:
Culture has an enormous impact on creativity.
“I thought it was interesting when Tina pointed out that habitat also included the incentives/processes around your job/workplace/environment. I definitely feel that a lot of pursuing my own passions has been figuring out sacrifices to make in not catering to those incentives. I wonder if there is a way to redesign these processes to give more flexibility for people to learn/explore more of their own passions.
It was also very insightful when Tina said you can start anywhere in the innovation triangle. Instead of just focusing on imagination (which leads to the thinking of “”I either have it or I don’t”"), you can start from what you do have (your knowledge or your attitude), and go from there.
Finally, I liked the connection between attitude and culture, imagination and habitat, and knowledge and resources.
Thanks Tina for the book! That was touching
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“- Thinking about creating win-win culture (inspired by hangman game) isn’t intuitive but something very effective to understand is possible to do
- Intrigued by the 4 quadrants of passion v. confidence. It was fascinating for me to distill how I feel about certain topics – and I even surprised myself with tasks I put in certain categories. Would love to go deeper into unpacking how habits and attitudes are affected by where a task falls on passion and confidence spectrum
- Really love the metaphor of a quilt over a puzzle – “”fix it!”"”
Being able to be fully into an activity and getting everything we’re able to out of it really depends on the people we do the activity with. For the first activity where we had to laugh hysterically at the joke someone made up on the spot was really hard, no one really laughed so it was hard for each person to feel like they can laugh.
“1. Punch Line game
2. Natural resources are an asset
3. Culture is a strong influence
4. Attitude is important!
5. Six attributes for creative environment”
“Have fun. Be creative. Be bold. These are the takeaways that I get from each class that I attend for MS&E 277.
Today, my major takeaway I got came from the thought experiment, “”Design a Birthday Party v. Design a Birthday Celebration.”" From this, I understand that even though I’ve been working toward seeing the world through a different lenses, how I frame my situation sets the stage for how I tackle the problem. Looking forward, I will continue to look for the angles outside of the physical laminations of the problem. For example, what ?????? = a Celebration!
p.s. Thank you so much for being unconventional and giving students the books as a gift
. Way cool. I really think this will shift how students interact with the material. ”
I really liked the idea that habitat has a big effect on innovation and creative thinking. I have noticed, since starting to visit the d.school for this class and working on projects in this space that being aware of the resources in your surrounding affects your creative process. I think if you are open to the resources around you and treat things as tools then you can fully take advantage of your environment and allow yourself to think freely and be creative. However, if you do not think about your surroundings as tools or opportunities then you limit yourself to the norm. It is very hard to see opportunities if you are not open to them and would like to understand more how you can train yourself to be more aware and observant of problems that you can solve.
“I really liked the emphasis that the presentation placed on environment. So many people today anecdotally ascribe success of any kind, innovative breakthroughs that require a lot of creativity to achieve, to an innate “”genius”" based solely on intelligence that very few people have. Even worse, they see this “”genius”" is something that you either have or you don’t.
However, I liked how the lecture presented a person’s environment as a crucial factor influencing his or her creativity. Someone could be the most creative person in the world, yet such talent may remain hidden if it is confined to a typical school desk or high-walled cubicle or squelched by a culture that does not celebrate any departure from convention.Such a culture is perpetuated by the idea that creativity is a type of genius that only certain people have. This is tragic as society needs to harvest its best innovators in order to make appropriate progress in the twentifirst century. In order to change this, institutions (such as schools and companies) should disrupt their very structures by purging them of anything that encourages rigid, fixed thinking and creating a more collaborative,playful atmosphere.”
The six factors of creativity, i.e. imagination, knowledge, attitude, habitat, resources and culture are dependent on each other. I found the habitat idea most interesting. As Silicon Valley is one of the most creative places in the world, I once heard my friends ask why all the companies around are like kindergartens. This idea also applies to team brainstorming, it’s important to find a right space for it and prepare the right tools.
“1. External and internal forces work in complementary ways to shape creative thinking- Attitude & Culture, Imagination & Habitat, Knowledge & Resources.
2. Habitat is the stage and physical space where you play out your life. Culture is the soundtrack to that stage. (I came up with this last piece based on the different music played in the Coca-Cola commercials.)
3. We don’t think creatively, because we’ve always been taught that there is one and only one answer. ”
I really appreciated the practice of having to think about the plethora of resources that are at our disposal, especially while at Stanford. I often think I take these things for granted and therefore do not always take advantage of them. I also found my classmates’ ideas to be incredibly insightful in highlighting resources that I often overlook, (such as literacy). This has inspired me to reflect on the resources that are available to me, and how I can leverage them to propel me into the future.
“I really like the exercise where we were given time to list the resources we already have. It made me see things quite differently: we tend to take for granted things we have to search for other things and lose the opportunity to make use of what we already have.
The exercises that teach us on the power of paying attention was also very powerful. Made me a lot more aware of the importance of details we often overlook. Wonder if there’s any exercises to help practice paying attention in real life because I feel like it’s really easy to forget even though I became more aware of it.
Overall, quite an amazing class today. Learned a lot of cool and useful stuff and it was super fun.”
“If I had to pick only one thing in the lecture, the example 5+5 = ? vs. ?+? = 10 was *very* striking and meaningful to me. It really looks like traditional education doesn’t put students in the right mindset to be creative.
Other than that, I liked the section about the habitat and environment: I think people often underestimate the importance of this, and it was very useful to stress that even more: even if I think I had that feeling before, stating it in such a clear way made me concretely realize how much this is important.
Finally, I liked the 2 axis diagram (confident vs. not confident, passionate vs. not passionate) and Rich’s advices to make us move post-its from the lower right corner to the upper right corner. It looks like many of our dreams lie in the lower right corner, and after all it doesn’t seem that hard to make them come true.”
“I had two major takeaways from today’s class. First, the idea of internal influences (imagination, knowledge, attitude) and external influences (habitat, resources, culture) was the first time we have really discussed in class the idea of external factors. We have discussed the concept of “”spaces”" and standing up during brainstorming to help raise the energy, but this was the first time external influences was really highlighted as being a major contributor to the creativity process and it was really enlightening.
My second takeaway ties directly into the first. As the class progresses and as this session in particular highlighted, much of the creative and innovation process hinges on the concept of “”reframing.”" Tina has referred to the Einstein quote twice now in class, and it really resonates. Realizing what resources you really have at your disposal is a problem of reframing. Understanding the benefits (and limitations) of your habitat requires reframing. Really changing your POV and PAYING ATTENTION, as the shopping center exercise demonstrated, requires reframing. I understand that most of the concepts are much more complex than simply allowing oneself to view things differently, but it seems that, in most cases, that is always the first step or the first requirement, whether it be in defining the problem or coming up with the solution. It especially hits home with me as I am not particularly good at reframing. I tend to get very comfortable in my current frame and am reluctant to challenge it. Rather, I sit around and view everything from the status quo, and, at times, try to make things fit into that view even though they don’t. In short, the revelation has really helped me identify an area in which I need to focus on improving. I need to, stealing a line from Apple marketing, “”Think Different.”"
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“What really stuck with me is the interplay of all 6 elements of the creativity engine. The engine is also incomplete without any one of the 6. It inspired me to build up my knowledge base, but also to know that this is just one part of a much bigger puzzle. What’s more important than a store of knowledge is the toolkit to put that knowledge to work.
PS: I’m very excited to create my failure resume!”
Habitat is a critical aspect of your ability to work effectively, and if your surroundings aren’t suitable for your needs, change them.
I felt that we received a lot of great information in today’s class. It was definitely interesting to see how companies have tried to integrate creativity in their work environment.
“I enjoyed class especially working with random groups of students in the class. I thought we went through culture perhaps a little too quick. On a different note however I really liked thinking about what resources I have and I think that was a little eye opening.
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“My two favorite moments from yesterday’s class were the mapping of the passionate vs. confident and the conclusion of the inGenius presentation. Taking time to segment different activities by confidence and passion made me realize that overcoming low confidence is much easier than overcoming a lack of passion. Furthermore, gaining confidence in something I am passionate about is simply a matter of putting in the time, and the process should be exciting and enjoyable because I would be growing in a direction of interest. Passion on the other hand isn’t really something that can be forced, and may not be gained through time; it requires a change of perspective.
Lastly, examining the correlation of multiple degrees of Tina’s innovation engine framework was very interesting. The idea that greater knowledge begets greater resources and vice versa in the same way that culture and attitude may influence one another is an intuitive concept, but one that is certainly not obvious. It is exciting to think of these relationships functioning almost like a perpetual motion device, in which ever greater momentum may be attained.”
“The discussion on available resources really caught my attention. Like Tina mentioned, my first thought about available assets was about money and skills but essentially there are numerous resources around us which in the first thought may seem intangible but if used wisely, are extremely invaluable.
I think “”failure”" on its facade, does sound like an unfortunate event but in a holistic scheme of things, any failure does teach you a lesson. Especially it helps setting up the right priorities next time you attempt a similar thing!”
“I had two major takeaways from the class. The first was the blatant realization that I am the only one getting in the way of making the things that I am passionate about the things that I am confident in. I can enrich the experiences in my life and treat my problems more like quilts.
The second takeaway from the class was a reflection on what is passion. When Tina was going to give the books away, the teaching team had mentioned something about them going to the most passionate people, the ones who stepped forward. But stepping forward was an act of agency not a manifestation of passion. My takeaway from that is that passion is like fire, it can be big, bright, hot, and out there, or it can be the red, ever-burning coals that keep the fire going long after the flame has died away. My manifestation of passion is more coal like, it is what drives me it is what gives an even keel and the strength to continue. It may not manifest itself in jumping at the first chance that occurs, it is what reminds me that I will create more chances for myself in the future allowing me to be thoughtful of my surroundings and the priorities of others.”