Creative Thinking - week 2

Creativity and creative thinking, is it something that people are born with? Or perhaps a one in a million talent? there has been many misunderstanding when it comes to creativity and it lead people to believe that creativity belongs only to a few certain special people. Do you think that people like Elvis Persley, or Steven Spielbeg created their works just out of the blue of that their ideas came out of nowhere? It is through hard work that their masterpieces were created. People who practice high creative ablilities work much harder than the average person.


So what is creativity?
Creativity is the :

• Act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality.
• Involves two processes : thinking, then producing 

"Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being... creativity requires passion and commitment. out of the creative acti is born symbols and myths. it brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness-ecstasy."
- Rollo May, The Courage to Crate


http://www.creativityatwork.com/articlesContent/whatis.ht

Most people think that to be creative is a hard task and labelled themselves as uncreative people. There is no such thing as people who isn't creative.

The truth is that everyone in the world has creativity in them, even you.
  
The reason thinking creatively is a though task for most people is that because our creative ability is in an inactive state and note actively growing. Creativity is like our muscle. The more we train our muscles, the stronger we become. It is the same, as our creative ability is used more frequently, better creative ideas will come.


If you think that "Creativity is only for people in the art field." think again !

Businessman, Engineers, and Scientists too use creativity in their works. Businessman needs creativity to create a system that is effective and profitable for their company. Engineers and scientists use creativity to explore the unexplored. Even you use creativity subconsciously to solve problems in your daily life. So, now do you think creativity is only for people in the art filed?

  CREATIVE THINKING TECHNIQUES

Many techniques in creative thinking are available to help enhance and accelerate the innovation process.

Different power think, and to think creatively, are not inherited. Thinking and creative thinking are learn-able skills like walking, driving car, run. Some are better than others but, given sufficient motivation, everyone can develop a fair amount of skill.

Techniques that cause creative thinking include:

-Lateral Thinking >> defined as "seeking ways to solve problems by obviously illogical means." In science, many major discoveries have come about through a chance observation accident, or mistake that led to non-obvious ways of perceiving things. A lateral thinking session resulted in a major new design concept. The lateral thinking technique used was "reversal" which set off the provocation, "the reciprocating belt is fixed." This changed thinking into an entirely new direction, leading to the new design concept. 


-Metaphoric Thinking >> involves producing new ideas by joining the problem to something in a totally unrelated realm (often in nature).


-Positive Thinking >> Our positive-thinking technique involves viewing a negative from different angles and perspective and turning it into a positive.


-Questioning Conventional Wisdom >> here, we deliberately question existing theories and methodology and take risks (something which comes naturally to many researchers).


-Capturing and Interpreting Dreams >> This technique produces the subconscious in generating new ideas. It requires keeping a pad and pencil by your bedside to record your dreams.

http://www.winstonbrill.com/bril001/html/article_index/articles/101-150/article106_body.html

 To sum it up :

THINKING CREATIVELY

• -          Creativity is to invent something which did not exist before, either as a product or a thought.Its developing something new to ourselves. When we change ourselves, the world changes with us.

• -          Its can be used to create products, processes and services in the first place. To impress our customers to become happier through improvements in our quality and quantity of output.

• -          When we come up with a new idea, we actually are a creative thinker.

• -          Brainstorming works by merging someone else’s ideas with your own to create a new one.

• -          Creative thinking process can be accidental or deliberate.

• -          Accidental way occur without using special techniques, like a chance happening making you think about something in a different way and you then discovering a beneficial change.

• -          Using special techniques, deliberate can be used to develop new ideas.

• -          These techniques force the emergence of a wide range of ideas to spark off new thoughts and processes.

• -          Developments of projects occur much more efficiently using these deliberate techniques.

• -          Ongoing creative thinking (investigation, questioning and analysis that develops through education training and self-awareness) occurs all the time.

• -          Ongoing creativity takes time and practice to master it, but it becomes an attitude surprisingly.

http://www.brainstorming.co.uk/tutorials/creativethinking.html

Personal Comment by each member

One must learn the methods and techniques if we wish to enhance our creative ability. Therefore, I found out that there are many useful methods that could able to help us improve our skill of thinking. Think anytime, anywhere no matter what we are doing. Thinking could able to help us get idea and solution, simply bring out our creativity. We will surprise someday when we are able to think with different perspective and way. 

- Tong Weng Foong

Creative and thinking are very much related to each other. We need creativity to make our ideas in our mind to become unique and special. If we have the idea only and without creativity, it is useless for us to try to materialize it. 

- Tang See Tien

I believe that creativity is needed and will be with us for the rest of our lives. It will no doubt be the ability that
will change the world just like the invention of PC and Iphone.

- Tan Ben Hur

For me, creativity is the things that u can invent anything to be another new generation design. It is the process of coming up with something new and different from others. Anyway, day dreaming is one of my method which is a very effective tools to be creative.

 - Tang Tak Choon

Is thinking creatively easy? Is thinking creatively inborn? Creative is neither easy nor hard. It is dependent to each other. And yet, creative is not inborn also. Hence, always take action after you think something, or get the idea, because you will never know is your way of thinking is creative, or working unless you try it. Always remember, practice makes perfect.

- Ong Yen Xiang