the link between creativity & time

Creativity needs the playground and time to fully blossom.

Trailer from the Haniel Creative Summer School

We proudly present the first trailer on the Haniel Creative Summer School of 2011.

It was a pleasure to create this piece of educational experience that seeked to empower its participants in recreating their leadership styles and enhance it with the elements of creativity and sustainability.

Read the Guide on The Art of Creative Leadership (pdf)

We enjoyed the making of this product and want to thank the Haniel-Foundation for their support, the European University Viadrina and overall the extraordinary co-creators: Thomas Herpich, Hans-Georg Lilge, Ian Antonio Patterson, Sebastian Straube, Erik Malchow, Anna-Lena Schneider, Julia Butter, Danny Pajak and Paul Trommer and our video-editor Julian Graf for his keen endeavours on this projects.

Alexander Klebe

Creativity isn’t magic.

The act of creation is surrounded by a fog of myths. Myths that creativity comes via inspiration. That original creations break the mold, that they’re the products of geniuses, and appear as quickly as electricity can heat a filament. But creativity isn’t magic: it happens by applying ordinary tools of thought to existing materials.

And the soil from which we grow our creations is something we scorn and misunderstand, even though it gives us so much… and that’s copying. Put simply, copying is how we learn. We can’t introduce anything new until we’re fluent in the language of our domain, and we do that through emulation.

These are the basic elements of creativity:
copy, transform, and combine.

video and text from everythingisaremix

29 Ways to stay creative

1. Make lists
2. Carry a Notebook everywhere
3. Try free writing
4. Get away from the computer
5. Quit beating yourself up
6. Take breaks
7. Sing in the shower
8. Drink coffee
9. Listen to new music
10. Be open
11. Surround yourself with creative people
12. Get feedback
13. Collaborate
14. Don’t give up
15. Practice
16. Allow yourself to make mistakes
17. Go somewhere new
18. Count your blessings
19. Get lots of rest
20. Take risks
21. Break the rules
22. Don’t force it
23. Read a page of the dictionary
24. Create a framework
25. Stop trying to be someone else’s perfect
26. Got an idea write it down
27. Clean your workspace
28. Have fun
29. Finish something

thanks to Franziska for sharing these wonderful thoughts.

Change paradigms

Where does our educational System come from? Is it really educating the people for the challenges of tomorrow?

“Great learning happens in groups – collaboration is the stuff of growth”
– Sir Ken Robinson

a world-renowned education and creativity expert explains our educational paradigm – animated by the marvellous guys at RSA.

Many thanks to Johannes for sharing that inspiring animation & speech.

Creativity in Climbing

“creativity is about finding beautiful things in nature and interacting with them.
… Finding something you get really motivated on. Obsessing on it and when you are at the top, celebrating for a little while and then moving on to the next thing”
Chris Sharma

„Ich bin verantwortlich für die Zukunft der Menschheit!“

Identifizieren Sie sich mit diesem Satz? Exzellent. Denn ich suche genau Sie. Einen Menschen, der so denkt wie ich; der sich den Herausforderungen unserer Zeit stellen will; der mit seinem Leben etwas Bedeutsames schaffen möchte. Einen Menschen, der mutig ist, der Ideen hat und teilen möchte und Sinn und Schönheit in die Welt bringt.

Ich bezeichne diesen Menschen als Kulturtypus. Seine Kreativität kann Berge versetzen. Seine Energie kann andere mitreißen. Seine Projekte stimulieren den Zeitgeist und ändern das Weltgeschehen.

Und nicht weniger.

Ich stelle folgende Fragen: „Wie wollen wir leben?“, „Welche Herausforderungen sind die drängenden unserer Zeit?“, und „Welche Menschen und Techniken helfen uns, unsere Gedanken Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen?“.

Damit bereite ich den roten Teppich für das Schlagwort unserer Zeit. Sie kennen es:

Kreativität

Haben Sie sich bereits für eine Definition entschieden? Ich breche Sie auf: ich vermute dahinter sich neu verknüpfende Bänder, die voller Kraft ein ganz neues Netzwerk bilden, einen doppelten Boden für den Unternehmensakrobaten, der auf einem hohen Seil in scheinbar spielerischer Leichtigkeit seine Visionen balanciert. Der für seine Gedankenskizzen einen dynamischen Ausdruck findet. Der seine Projekte tanzen lässt.

Ich gehe einen Schritt weiter: der Akrobat ist nicht alleine! Er bildet Seilschaften. Durch den Austausch mit anderen wird er selbst zum Netzwerk. In einem Raum, in dem Kommunikation möglich ist, findet er neue Perspektiven, neue Möglichkeiten und Ansätze seine Motivation in einen Motor zu verwandeln.

Unsere Gesellschaft wächst an ihren Aufgaben. Immer feiner wird unser Gespür für das wirklich Wichtige, für uns und unsere Umwelt und immer besser soll unsere Zusammenarbeit für den Erhalt dieser Erkenntnis und deren Realisierung werden. Diese komplexe Lebenswelt verlangt von uns hohe Konzentration und dabei das Schwierigste: wir selbst zu bleiben. Die Herausforderungen unserer Zeit sind so groß, dass es nach der Umsetzung drängt.

Ich lade Sie ein, diese Idee im Sommer 2011 Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen. Ich bin der ideale Ort für diese Realisation. Ich erschaffe einen Raum, in dem sich Menschen frei entfalten können und ihre Talente und Kreativität Wertschätzung erfahren. Hier beginnt  der Dialog zwischen Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, Kultur und Politik, der neue Horizonte öffnen wird.

Ich möchte Menschen zusammen bringen, die mit- und voneinander lernen können.

Ich möchte sie dabei unterstützen ihre Ideen zu gemeinschaftlichen Visionen werden zu lassen und ihnen die Instrumente und Fähigkeiten aufzeigen und helfen weiterzuentwickeln, die ihre Intentionen in reale Projekte transformieren.

Ich möchte der Ort sein, an dem Persönlichkeiten die Werkzeuge des Denkens und Handelns gegeben werden, die sie dazu befähigen in einer Welt zunehmender digitaler Vernetzung und Kooperationen von offenen Netzwerken im Angesicht der Probleme wie sozialer Ungerechtigkeit, Ressourcenknappheit, Umweltverschmutzung und Klimawandel neue Lösungswege zu suchen und zu finden.

Ich werde

• der Ort sein, an dem ein neues Denken beginnt;
• der Ort an dem sich Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft neu denken lassen;
• der Ort, der neue Ideen schafft und gemeinsame Visionen gestaltet, die zukünftige Realität bedeuten.

Haniel Creative Summer School 2011

„The Art of Creative Leadership“
vom 25. – 29. Juli 2011 auf Schloss Wartin

http://www.creativesummerschool.de

Why Creative People Need to Be Eccentric

Creative people have a reputation for eccentricity. It’s not hard to see why when we consider the habits of some well-known creatives.

Like Truman Capote::

I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping.

Or novelist Orhan Pamuk:

In the mornings I used to say goodbye to my wife like someone going to work. I’d leave the house, walk around a few blocks, and come back like a person arriving at the office.

Or Victor Hugo:

He gave all of his clothes to his servant, admonishing him NOT to return them until he (Hugo) had completed his day’s work.

Many people would classify these examples as ranging from harmless eccentricity to borderline insanity, but if you’re an artist or professional creative, you can probably relate to some of them. And having spent 15 years coaching creatives and observing their work habits up close, they look perfectly normal – even essential – to me.

If we recall last month’s piece about the effect of mundane routines on creativity, this kind of behavior starts to make sense. Remember the three characteristics of a hypnotic trigger:

1. Uniqueness – it should be something (or a combination of things) you don’t associate with other activities, otherwise the effect will be diluted.
2. Emotional intensity – the kind you experience when you’re really immersed in creative work.
3. Repetition – the more times you experience the unique trigger in association with the emotions, the stronger the association becomes.

read the full article on 99% behance

written by

Mark McGuinness

Fachbeitrag Mitarbeiterführung: Orientierung geben

Was Startups über Werte und Visionen wissen sollten (von Guido Fiolka)

Im Beitrag zur Unterscheidung von Management und Mitarbeiterführung haben wir davon gesprochen, dass eine der Hauptaufgaben von Führung ist, anderen Orientierung zu geben. Führung beginnt also mit einer Vision. Eine Vision ist genau genommen die Antwort auf eine brennende Fragestellung, die ein existenzielles Problem, ein tiefgehendes Bedürfnis einer Gruppe von Menschen adressiert. Gründer glauben in der Regel eine solche Antwort, eine derartige Lösung zu haben. Ohne das sollte es ein Unternehmen gar nicht geben, denn es hätte am Markt nicht wirklich eine Chance.

mehr lesen auf gründerszene.de

The Law of Success (Napoleon Hill, 1927)

A small lecture from one of the basic works on success from 1927, when the great pioneer minds developed great power and success.

“An interesting experiment was conducted by this author, in collaboration with the students of a well known college. Each student was requested to write an essay on “How and Why Henry Ford Became Wealthy.”
Each student was required to describe, as a part of his or her essay, what was believed to be the nature of Ford’s real assets, of what these assets consisted in detail.
The majority of the students gathered financial statements and inventories of the Ford assets and used these as the basis of their estimates of Ford’s wealth.
Included in these “sources of Ford’s wealth” were such as cash in banks, raw and finished materials in stock, real estate and buildings, good-will, estimated at from ten to twenty-five per cent of the value of the material assets.
One student out of the entire group of several hundred answered as follows:
“Henry Ford’s assets consist, in the main, of two items, viz.: (1) Working capital and raw and finished materials; (2) The knowledge, gained from experience, of Henry Ford, himself, and the co-operation of a well trained organization which understands how to apply this knowledge to best advantage from the Ford viewpoint. It is impossible to estimate, with anything approximating correctness, the actual dollars and cents value of either of these two groups of assets, but it is my opinion that their relative values are:
“The    organized    knowledge    of    the    Ford Organization………………………………………75%
The value of cash and physical assets of every nature, including raw and finished materials …25%”
This author is of the opinion that this statement was not compiled by the young man whose name was signed to it, without the assistance of some very analytical and experienced mind or minds.
Unquestionably the biggest asset that Henry Ford has is his own brain. Next to this would come the brains of his immediate circle of associates, for it has been through co-ordination of these that the physical assets which he controls were accumulated.
Destroy every plant the Ford Motor Company owns: every piece of machinery; every atom of raw or finished material, every finished automobile, and every dollar on deposit in any bank, and Ford would still be the most powerful man, economically, on earth. The brains which have built the Ford business could duplicate it again in short order. Capital is
always available, in unlimited quantities, to such brains as Ford’s.
Ford is the most powerful man on earth (economically) because he has the keenest and most practical conception of the principle of ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE of any man on earth, as far as this author has the means of knowing.
Despite Ford’s great power and financial success, it may be that he has blundered often in the application of the principles through which he accumulated this power. There is but little doubt that Ford’s methods of mind co-ordination have often been crude; they must needs have been in the earlier days of this experience, before he gained the wisdom of application that would naturally go with maturity of years.
Neither can there be much doubt that Ford’s application of the principle of mind chemistry was, at least at the start, the result of a chance alliance with other minds, particularly the mind of Edison. It is more than probable that Mr. Ford’s remarkable insight into the laws of nature was first begun as the result of his friendly alliance with his own wife long before he ever met either Mr. Edison or Mr. Firestone. Many a man who never knows the real source of his success is made by his wife, through application of the “Master Mind” principle. Mrs. Ford is a most remarkably intelligent woman, and this author has reason to believe that it was her mind, blended with Mr. Ford’s, which gave him his first real start toward power.”

Napoleon Hill