2. @danberer| #CSES2014
Audience-Presenter Agreement
• Stop me at any point if you have any questions.
• Engage me (@danberger) and other via twitter #CSES2014.
• Take as many notes/photos and share as you please.
• You are free to leave.
3. @danberer| #CSES2014
Learning Objectives
1. Learn where innovation comes from.
2. Learn ways what technology can help you with event design.
3. Learn how to hack creativity.
Turn to your neighbor: Which of these is most important to you and why?
Turn to your neighbor and tell them which one is most important to you and why.
By show of hands, who picked [1 | 2 | 3]... who picked more than one?
Why am I qualified to speak on this subject?
Programmer
CEO of Social Tables
Special Events background
Obsessed with productivity, lifehacks, shortcuts
About Social Tables
I love meetings
MES and Event Solutions
Where does inspiration come from?
Steve Johnson - Where Do Good Ideas Come From? A central argument of his new book is that good ideas are not the product of lone geniuses, but of connected networks.
What kind of role does technology play in this, if any?
Get ideas
Store ideas
Collaborating ideas
As cheap as $299
Play games to make internal brainstorming meetings more productive
Gamestorming - http://www.gogamestorm.com/?cat=55
My favorite - Covery Story
STORING IDEAS - The key is to have one place to store everything!
Evernote Web Clipper - clip anything
COLLABORATING IDEAS
Quickcast
MindMeister
Moqups
Google Drawing
Social Tables
Activating the brain
DORSOLATERAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX - executive functions, such as working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, inhibition, and abstract reasoning.
MEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX - planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior.
Creativity is enhanced most by positive mood states that are activating and associated with an approach motivation and promotion focus (e.g., happiness), rather than those that are deactivating and associated with an avoidance motivation and prevention focus (e.g., relaxed).
Negative, deactivating moods with an approach motivation and a promotion focus (e.g., sadness) were not associated with creativity, but negative, activating moods with an avoidance motivation and a prevention focus (fear, anxiety) were associated with lower creativity, especially when assessed as cognitive flexibility. With a few exceptions, these results generalized across experimental and correlational designs, populations (students vs. general adult population), and facet of creativity (e.g., fluency, flexibility, originality, eureka/insight). The authors discuss theoretical implications and highlight avenues for future research on specific moods, creativity, and their relationships.
This meta-analysis synthesized 102 effect sizes reflecting the relation between specific moods and creativity. Effect sizes overall revealed that positive moods produce more creativity than mood-neutral controls (r= .15), but no significant differences between negative moods and mood-neutral controls (r= -.03) or between positive and negative moods (r= .04) were observed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18954157
University of Minnesota study
People w/ messy desks were more prone to creativity and risk taking
People w/ cleaner desks tended to follow strict rules and were less likely to try new things or take risks
Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights.
In case you are trying to be more creative, here are some ideas:
Keep magazines, business cards, books, art, clippings
Anything that might inspire you
http://lifehacker.com/why-creative-geniuses-often-keep-a-messy-desk-1534885018
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/24/9/1860
Lighting
Those in the dimly lit room solved significantly more problems correctly than those in the brightly lit room.
They also felt freer and less inhibited than their intensely illuminated counterparts.
http://www.psmag.com/blogs/news-blog/dim-lighting-sparks-creativity-60437/
Alcohol.
The best time to have a beer (or two) would be when you’re searching for an initial idea.
Because alcohol helps decrease your working memory (making you feel relaxed and less worried about what’s going on around you), you’ll have more brain power dedicated to making deeper connections.
In order to produce moments of insight, you need to feel relaxed so front brain thinking (obvious connections) can move to the back of the brain (where unique, lateral connections are made) and activate the anterior superior temporal gyrus, a small spot above your right ear responsible for moments of insight
Researchers found that about 5 seconds before you have a ‘eureka moment’ there is a large increase in alpha waves that activates the anterior superior temporal gyrus.
These alpha waves are associated with relaxation, which explains why you often get ideas while you’re going for a walk, in the shower, or on the toilet.
Alcohol relaxes you so it produces a similar effect on alpha waves and helping us reach creative insights.
https://medium.com/what-i-learned-today/f7fcb3b786b1
Shower + Toilet
Typical triggers for events, that make us feel great and relaxed and therefore give us an increased dopamine flow are
taking a warm shower
exercising
driving home
The chances of having great ideas then are a lot higher.
Especially if you have thought long and hard all day about a problem, jumping into the shower can turn into what scientist call the “incubation period” for your ideas. The subconscious mind has been working extremely hard to solve the problems you face and now that you let your mind wander, it can surface and plant those ideas into your conscious mind.
http://blog.bufferapp.com/why-we-have-our-best-ideas-in-the-shower-the-science-of-creativity
Distraction.
Taking a break from the problem and focusing on something else entirely gives the mind some time to release its fixation on the same solutions and let the old pathways fade from memory.
When you return to the original problem, your mind is more open to new possibilities.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/how-to-have-a-eureka-moment/
Volunteer to describe it
Coffitivity
The mix of calm and commotion in an environment like a coffee house is proven to be just what you need to get those creative juices flowing.
We are biased to reject creativity. We need to learn how to accept them.
The irony is that as a society, we’re constantly talking about how much we value creativity.
And yet, the study implies that our minds are biased against it because of the very nature of its novelty.
The authors point out that we often view novelty and practicality as inversely related.
We generally value practical ideas because they’re familiar and proven, while the more novel an idea, the more uncertainty there exists about whether it’s practical, error-free, or even useful.
There is also the social cost that comes with endorsing unproven novel ideas.
The field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identify how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity.
http://freakonomics.com/2011/09/09/why-we-desire-but-reject-creative-ideas/