urbocharging Creativityurbocharging CreativityIn Tony Buzan's book Head First, the chapter on Creative Intelligence describes an exercise to test your creative thinking capabilities: give yourself two minutes, and write down every use you can think of for a paper clip. According to Buzan, the scores range from 0, which must require a certain talent in itself, through an average of 4-5, to 8, which he describes as a "good brain-stormer level", to 12 ("exceptional and rare") to 16 or more, the "Thomas Edison level". A person might think of 25-30 in their lifetime, given unlimited time to consider the issue.
I did the paper clip exercise, and was intrigued by the results. I got 11, which I've reproduced further down in this page, so as not to spoil it for those who wish to do it clean. I did a purely verbal version with my mate Ray, and he got 14, which shocked me somewhat, but then he wasn't occupying his mind with actually writing. Buzan then goes on to describe how to massively increase the creative options available for such a task - I won't quote extensively because it's Tony's book and in any case I've made a Mind Map® of the technique below.
Essentially, the technique involves using similar principles to those of memory techniques. Rather than just think of what to do with a standard-sized paper clip made of grey steel, extend your thinking: What if the paper clip were huge? Or brightly coloured? Or were melted down and used to cast a sculpture? Or were sharpened and tipped with Dendrobates toxin?
The possibilities are staggering. This is my Mind Map® of the process:
My ideas were (page down)...
I'll post examples of ideas resulting from the extended creative process when I get a bit more time. (As usual.)