Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

Hands down, the best class I ever took was called "Spring Training for Situation Comedy Writers" at UCLA.  The teacher had been a writer on a variety of sit coms and in first class he said, "I don't want you to write a sit com in this class, I want to train your comedy muscles."  At that point, he asked us to write 10 jokes in ten minutes.  Whether it was luck or talent, I wrote 10 jokes in five minutes and got big laughs.  It was a incredible experience and I'm going to share some of the great warm ups and techniques we used in that class, but this time we are going to have a series of creative workouts.

LESSON 1:  BEND THE RIVER

The Professorial Stuff. Deconstructing creativity is a lot like analyzing a joke, you have details but no Gestalt.  In Serious Creativity, Edward De Bono describes how the brains default setting inhibits the ability to think creatively.  The brain is what De Bono calls a "self-organizing mechanism"  It automatically sorts data and information is automatically digested and classified along neural pathways.  These pathways are like rivers -- they grow deep and long with patterned thinking.  Like  a dictatorship, it's efficient, but once these patterns "set" the ability to think creatively slows.  For example, a word like "car" triggers images of all kinds of cars, but the brain will serve up "expected" cars.  To create a radically new car, we need to bend the river -- creating a new connection that probably would not occur without a creative effort.  Basically, I want you to develop the habit of bending that river.  That's what creativity tools can do. 

Work out #1.    Take a look at the Clorox bottle above and in 5minutes -- write down as many uses for the bottle as you can.  Don't limit yourself -- just think of it as a simple creative exercise.   (You will get a lot more of this exercise if you don't cheat and look below.)   Okay, I will see you in 5 minutes.

All right. Most people create 10-15 uses for the bottle.  Now I want to give you another 5 minutes.  This time I want you to write ways that would be impossible to use the Clorox Bottle.   I will see you in another 5 minutes.  Again, don't sneak a peek.  Work with it.  Believe me, it will stick in your memory longer.

Welcome back.   Chances are you struggled a bit.  But if the Eureka Moment hit you -- you realize that you've bent the river.  Clorox bottle as artwork?  As a paperweight?  As the character in a movie?  As a set of bowling pins.  A photo frame.  What you've done is realize that the impossibility is the first step to seeing creatively.  Ah Hah.  Please click the comment box and share your impossibilities.   Marty