Creativity and education

Two interesting and entertaining videos looking at the role of, and attitude to, creativity in education.

The joy of fun

Two great ways to bring a smile to people’s faces.

Travelling underground in Stockholm just got much more fun.

I want to be “kinded” and do some “kinding”

LQTM

Clean water for all

Amazing innovation for providing clean drinking water. Nanotechnology at its best. Watch a video here.

Doing your bit to reduce petrol consumption

Quick question for you:

Let’s say your goal is to reduce petrol consumption.

And let’s say there are only two kinds of cars in the world. Half of them are Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon and half are Priuses that get 50.

If we assume that all the cars drive the same number of miles, which would be a better investment:

• Get new tires for all the Suburbans and increase their mileage a bit to 13 miles per gallon.
• Replace all the Priuses and rewire them to get 100 miles per gallon (doubling their average!)

This is from a recent post by Seth Godin highlighting a counter-intuitive arithmetical question. On first inspection it seems that option 2 is the best but work through an example and prove to yourself that option 1 saves more than double the amount of petrol.

PDF Newspaper

A neat site for converting your blog to a pdf newspaper. Never wanted to do it before but it looks great and is very simple to do.

Guy Kawasaki offers Innovation advice

Eight minute video outlining 10 steps to consider in your innovation efforts.

Guy Kawasaki Explains the Art of Innovation in 10 StepsTechnorati Tags: innovation, kawasaki

Innovation videos

Some fascinating glimpses as to what will be possible in the coming years. Look at the Sixth Sense Mobile Computing video for instance. Courtesy of Idea Connection.

Jim Telfer’s 1997 “Everest” speech before the First Test vs South Africa

“The easy bit has passed. Selection for the Test team is the easy bit. You have an awesome responsibility on the eight individual forwards’ shoulders, awesome responsibility. This is your f***ing Everest, boys. Very few ever get a chance in rugby terms to get for the top of Everest. You have the chance today.

Being picked is the easy bit. To win for the Lions in a Test match is the ultimate, but you’ll not do it unless you put your bodies on the line. Every one jack of you for 80 minutes. Defeat doesn’t worry me. I’ve had it often and so have you. It’s performance that matters. If you put in the performance, you’ll get what you deserve. No luck attached to it. If you don’t put it in, then we’re second-raters.

They don’t respect you. They don’t rate you. The only way to be rated is to stick one on them, to get right up in their faces and turn them back, knock them back. Outdo what they do. Outjump them, outscrum them, outruck them, outdrive them, outtackle them, until they’re f***ing sick of you.

Remember the pledges you made. Remember how you depend on each other at every phase, teams within teams, scrums, lineouts, ruck ball, tackles.

They are better than you’ve played against so far. They are better individually or they wouldn’t be there. So it’s an awesome task you have and it will only be done if everybody commits themself now.

You are privileged. You are the chosen few. Many are considered but few are chosen. They don’t think f*** all of us. Nothing. We’re here just to make up the f***ing numbers. No one’s going to do it for you. You have to find your own solace — your own drive, your ambition, your own inner strength, because the moment’s arrived for the greatest game of your f***ing life.”

If it is to be, it is up to me

Ten very smart 2 letter words.

Really, I’m trying out a new system – ScribeFire.

Creativity – an individual act best done in groups

Groups contain a valuable mix of perspectives and a range of problem solving styles. The individuals in the group bring their own unique knowledge/skills/experiences and combine with the others to provide a vast collective pool of knowledge.  Within this pool are all potential elements of a creative idea.

An idea is a new combination of existing elements. Once shared new elements reside, however fleetingly, in the minds of those listening. A new element can be the missing ingredient or needed spark that stimulates the new idea. However, whilst the new idea may never have happened if another person hadn’t added that vital element the new idea can only ever be formed in one person’s mind.

You can only combine/synthesize/associate two things you are aware of. The benefit of working in groups is in their ability to stimulate new ideas in individuals. The final act of creativity has to be an individual one.

Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this.