Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Search for Creativity

Creativity is something I am very interested in; What is it? How does it work? Is it different from Innovation? Can we teach it? Are some people better than others at it? How does it relate to programming and design?

I have been investigating concepts related to creativity and have been looking for sources of creativity. Part of this research has been working on projects with Edward de Bono to look at models of supporting creativity, e.g. The Six Thinking Hats, the CoRT techniques and Po. Some of the other models of creativity I have investigated, experimented and published research additionally with the following techniques; MindMaps, BrainStorming, Analogies, and Freewriting.

But models are not enough, to help identify sources of creativity I am looking at a range of people in a range of fields to determine if there is any commonality. I'm looking at inventors and their approaches. I'm looking at how literature is created, and how different authors have created their works. I am also looking at comics to see if their writing differs significantly from books. By looking at Television writing I am hoping to see if writing for a medium that is not only visually-based, but action-based, is significantly different. Finally I am looking at RPGs to see if they can aid creativity.

http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/Research/research11.html