CREATIVITY AND PRODUCT INNOVATION CAROLINA ARISTIZABAL 2014
CREATIVITY It all starts when you (in this case Me) ask yourself about what this ten letters word means, what does it stands for or how shall we use it... During our lifes im sure we used that condition or apply the verb: to be creative so much times, but the fact is 多have u noticed how creative are you beeing?, im pretty sure that the most of us havent, we never realize that we use creativity in every step of our lifes, in every decision we have to take, every new day, even in our unconscious we are beeing creative beings. But...多what is a creative person or how can we recognize a creative mind?, i guess when the word is used to describe a person or a behaviour, it has a lot of possible meanings depending on the context, the person and how or why is he/she being creative. everybody has its own way of be and its own point of view about the world we live in.
Each day of life can be consider a creative challenge, because we must do the best of us and use what we have learned and lived to make every day better, we must avoid going on the same things every day, we must scape from routine and that isnt an easy work, specially when your life tends to be always the same, so waking up every day with the goal of giving the best or ourselves can be consider one of the most difficult challenges, it may sound easy but that way of thinking and the positivism to go further everyday isnt part of everybody, so the ones that doesnt think that way must train theirselves until getting it...and how can we do it?
Nowadays there are way too much activities, books, conferences and such others things that talk and teach others how to be a creative person and how to approach that quality not only in design process but every problem we must resolve during our lifes, because being creative is the way we can get out or solve any adversity or problem we have using the things that surround us, using them as well as possible, to came up with the best solution, not only for you, for everyone interested in. Being creative doesnt mean you are going to be the genius or the most curious person anybody could see, it can be an inner hability and doesnt have to be shown or noticed by everyone, just because it goes really close with the personality and the interests of the person who is being it. As I said before, everybody can be creative in different ways or situations,and probably without noticing it. We can find really creative persons and also those who arent, but it is a condition that we can improve during our lives, we can estimulate and work on it as we do in all other human capabilities, there are a lot of techniques and excercises to do so everybody at the end can be as creative as he or she wants.
BE WHO YOU WANT TO BE, NOT WHAT OTHERS WANT TO SEE
If we start thinking in all the possibilities we can find from the surroundings there would be a solution for every problema we face, there are a lot of sources for ideas and solutions such as our previous knowledge and expertise, sendipity, doing things spontaneously, nd also using creative techniques, but we have to be patient and really conscious if we want ho hace great and usefull solutions.
As designers i consider we must relate even more every step and every day of our lifes with creativity, we must learn to see what surround us in a different way, a way that teaches and enriches our living, we must develop a critical eye and a hardwork mind to take advantage of everything around. It may sounds weird to someone but if you ask yourself what is around you and why is it there, how it Works and how you can relate it with something in you life, you will come with many abstact taughts and ideas that can help in any problema solution.
WHAT?
AND NOW WHAT?
SO WHAT?
WHAT´S NEXT?
This diagram shows how we should question ourselves from what we learn from the outside and what reflections can we make, this in order to obtain more specific information and discover the feelings and desires beneath the initial problem. Answering this questions may lead us to a deeper solution or ideas for a certain issue, this is a key to provide better and complete alternatives that may fullfill the need or the desire in a broadly way, and this ensures succesfull ideas. Why can we hace better ideas if we go through this questions? it is very simple, when you find something and you start asking and asking you why is it happenning, you would find the inner reason, the one from the heart, the real feelings or thoughts of someone, even if that person haven´t tell you them.
The main objective related to our profesional life is how to satisfy the client needs or how to solve any problem related to design and consumer, going through some phases in order to define the main aspects of the problem and how are we going to deal with each of it. The logycal way of the procedure is: go from an idea to a concept and the turn that concept in an usefull product, this covering all the product lifecycle from creating, to designing, then using and as last step disposing it, here is a graphic tha summarizes all the process of idea generation in three phases.
Number of ideas
From Memory, Logic and direct association
Surprisingly new, useful perspectives and paradigms Silly, Absurd, Exaggerating, even Destructive
Time
The first phase is the logical one, where the problem is defined, were a lot of information is collected relating to the problem and finding solutions first from the things we know and have in our memory. The second phase is the Intuitive: After the logical phase and not in line with the solution, the problem is becoming autonomous (unconscious problem),this is the time to let fly our imagination and think different, this in order to have as crazy ideas as possible even if we dont trust them, someothers will... The third is the critical one, this is the last phase and here is where we go on a depth analysis, verifying what its interesting and what new concepts can be apllies into a good solution, then we gice to that solution the finishing touches.
Those three phases can also be transformed into the CPS model or The Creative Problem Solving model, this model also has three phases
Problem
Concept
Ideas
But each of those phases has several activities and things to do in terms of converging or diverging as neccesary.
Brief Analysis Problem statement
Reformulation
Inventorizing and combining Stating
ยกOne single target!
In this step, what we first do is explore the facts and information we have to find all the problems and challenges inherent in the situation and the opportunities they represent. This step is about make sure we are focusing on the right problem and if not, re-define what we want or what's holding us back.
Generation Idea Generation
Inventorizing - clustering - ordening Synthesis
Selection
ยกOne ore more ideas!
Generating ideas is much more than doing a session of "Brainstorming". In this step we have to be very creative and propose original ideas, here is when we can explore ideas that can be good solutions while the process. It is probably the most entertaining and funny stage of the process, here we can let our mind fly and find as much ideas as possible, even if they are crazy ones, then we need to make some clustering, we can form groups of ideas by categorizing them dependen on some criteria, or by similar concepts. Then when having the clusters we may do some connections between the ideas to find truly innovative combinations, and try to define one or more concepts or solutions for the initial problem. The idea generation phase is probably the most creative one, here where we can apply a lot of techniques to propose as many ideas as possible and start thinking in a different way. There are a lot of idea generation techniques, here are some of the most used.
Analogies
Brainwriting
Breaking assumptions
SCAMPER Brainstorming
Acceptance Evaluation Prepare Concept Development
Developing Details
ÂĄConcept!
What we first do in this part of the process is clarify and improve the best ideas generated in the previous phase, then we need to generate the criteria for evaluating the success and reach of ideas. After definin how to evaluate the ideas, we must aplly those criteria to the best ideas to help to decide which one have the greatest potential to solve the problem, and then when we find the best one what we ave to do is define all the details related to it, such as the main user, the context, how is it going to work, what are the advantages and disadvatages, and some other aspects in orden to bring a complete solution for the problem.
This is the final stage of all the creative process so it is also important how we present the results of all the process, the sketches and drawings are very important if we want others to understand our proposal, so for a clear and easy to understand concept we must use technical drawings, sequence of how to use the product, models, and always place the concept in the real context and with the user.
“ALWAYS DESIGN FOR TOMORROW, TODAY IS OVER�
Brief Analysis Problem statement
Reformulation
Inventorizing and combining Stating
ยกOne single target!
Generation Idea Generation
Inventorizing - clustering - ordening Synthesis
Selection
ยกOne ore more ideas!
Acceptance Evaluation Prepare Concept Development
Developing Details
ยกConcept!
AND HERE IS AN EXAMPLE... During our class of creativity and innovation with Marc Tassoul and Helga Hohn we learned a lot of developing design problems, specially using different creative techniques and prcedures to get always the best solution in terms of innovation, functionality and consistent with the flow of the process. In this case the problem statement was the oral care, how to deal with that, how to keep mouths clean and healthy, without using the common tools such as the toothbrush, the toothpaste and the floss. First we started with the problem statement phase doing a how to list, this technique helps a lot to find a route of what do you want to do, then we did a mindmap to have a broader notion of everything related with oral care.
To start with the second phase, which is about the idea generation, we use the how to list to start creating solutions or proposals for the main problem. After some minutes of quick idea generation we did some clustering and we formed four groups of ideas by its similarity. For each cluster and its main topic we generate a concept, ending this second phase of the process with four possible concepts. The third and last phase of the process was the final concept, so using the “dots� technique we select from the four concepts the most innovative and also the one that solve in a good way the problem, considering that it was a future problem. After selecting the final one, we start defining some aspects of the produc such as the way of using it, the technology it uses, the name it is going to have and some other things.
SOME OTHER TECHNIQUES...
Being part of the course gave me the oportunity to learn a lot of techniques, and more than tecniques i think i learned the way of starting a design process correctly, and solving any kind of problem using creativity. So here are some techiques i learned and i would like to share...
How to...?
This techquine or this way of starting the process helped me a lot durind the course, i have never used it before and it is very simple, when having the problem statement you just have to ask yourself how would you do something related with it, as much questions as possible. Then with that list it´s easier to create ideas and it is very usefull because there may result a lot of ideas very different between them.
This is an idea generation techniques, and 635 means: 6 people, 3 ideas, 5 minutes.
635
Starting with a how to, everyone in the group has 5 minutes to generate 3 ideas according to it, when time is over the papers pass to the person sitting next, and again in 5 minutes the next person draws 3 ideas, an it goes that way until the round finishes. This technique helps a lot because in 30 minutes may result a good quantity of ideas.
1
How to... 2
3
I guess the name come from “clustering-box�, if not, i see it as a matrix or a box that helps in the clustering part.
C-Box
It is very simple too...Just organize the ideas previously done according to: feasibility (difficultly or easly) and if they are known or innvative. Here is a little illustration of the box for having an idea. Know ideas
Yellow ideas
Difficult feasibility
Easy feasibility
Innovative ideas
Ideas for the future Blue ideas
Red ideas
Small risk ideas
Highly exciting ideas
Thede are just a little part of all the exixting techniques, there are a lot and very usefull too depending on the time the group have, the type of problem, how far you want to go, and some other criteria. Using the techniques in a proper way may lead to better results, following all the steps of the creative process helps to have clear ideas and also functional and feasible ideas, sometimes we think that we wont have any solution for the problem assigned, but once with start the path of creativity process, everything becomes easy and seems like ideas appear effortless and very quickly, so we should always consider all the techniques and practices related with creativity even when we are stuck on.
If someone ask me about creativity a lot of things come into my mind to define it...so here are some
SURPRISING
IDEAS
OUT OF THE BOX
MINDS
NEW WAYS
DIFFERENT PATHS
EVERYTHING COULD BE CREATE GOOD TIMES BE YOU ENJOY INNOVATIVE
FUN-FUN-FUN
UNEXPECTED RESULTS BREAKING RULES LIVE FRIENDS ACTIVITIES
THANKS!