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The Creative Drumbeat

  By Fred H. Schlegel | March 14, 2011 - 8:41 pm |
14 Comments

Warning – I’m tying together a few loose ends here. Things may get tangled. The application of scientific process to business practice has been one of the critical drivers in the success of modern enterprise. Observe, hypothesize, measure, analyze, apply, repeat. It drives efficiency and progress. Unfortunately things get dicey at the edges. There is an art to being a breakthrough business, in being able to observe the unobservable. Sometimes our ability to envision surpasses our ability to measure. Sometimes you just have to leap. “Leave space for things to come to you,” says Janice Cartier in her discussion of artistic process. In a way, creativity’s feeling of random discovery is a scientific process we have not yet come to terms with. Robin Dickenson commented that for him the creative and scientific processes were modes of thinking that can be switched between. Kay Plantes commented that both the scientific and … Continue reading →

Creative Approaches

  By Fred H. Schlegel | September 20, 2010 - 9:37 pm | ,
2 Comments

Creative approaches can come from unexpected directions. Today I was to teach a bit about entrepreneurial creativity in class, but had the chance for a real lesson an hour before. Carmen Benavente, author of Embroiderers of Ninhue: Stitching Chilean Rural Life, spoke at Indiana University today about her experiences in Chile. In 1971 at a time of turmoil in Chile she found herself back in her home region.  Surprised and frightened at the fear and mistrust she encountered upon arrival, she spent the night thinking over an idea – to invite the women of town to meet and share and learn embroidery. I found her story compelling, in part because of how quickly a creative impulse could catch fire. “Stitches afford a vocabulary for the designs,” said Carmen Benavente. The women were hesitant at first, saying they couldn’t even draw a straight line. But by the second day many in … Continue reading →

The Science Of Creativity – Homework!

  By Fred H. Schlegel | August 2, 2010 - 9:16 am |
9 Comments

I was going to deconstruct an article on creativity I just read in Newsweek. Instead, I’m just going to say you need to read it for yourselves. Get past the scary call to action about creativity declining in the United States. (Scary for those of us who live here at least) This is one article where the really interesting and useful stuff is in the second half. As you read keep in mind: Creativity is about the creation of something original and useful – don’t limit your thinking to fine art categories. Creativity can be learned and encouraged in every part of the educational process, possibly improving overall effectiveness more than when limiting to traditional categories. The need to be creative is a deep, neurological need. Kudos to Po Bronson and Ashley Merry at Newsweek for a great synopsis.  Creativity is messy, which means there’s plenty to argue about in … Continue reading →

How Do You Value Relationships? How Does Facebook?

  By Fred H. Schlegel | May 18, 2010 - 1:15 pm | ,
26 Comments

While searching for a family heirloom my mom came across her mom’s high school autograph book. Most of the inscriptions are from 1881 and in verse. It’s a beautifully tooled leather booklet. Gives the autographs some weight, some feeling. It was fun leafing through. Most of the inscriptions are in verse. My mother tells me that her father and mother often traded poetic notes with each other and it looks like the practice was widespread, at least in this neck of the woods. While I’m sure many of the verses were used multiple times among many friends, each page provides a touch of personality — a small window into the lives of people I never knew. It felt very personal. “My friends in my album I ask you to write, but to tear out the leaves I deem impolite.    A. Maiers” Annie had a sense of humor. As did Jeannie: … Continue reading →

Planning for Serendipity – Taking Flight

  By Fred H. Schlegel | December 17, 2009 - 11:49 am | ,
15 Comments

From the ideas from strange places department: So, if Wilber and Orville had decided to open a different kind of shop to pay the bills, let’s say a bakery for example, would they have flown today in 1903? (That would be December 17th, 1903) “While most engineers assumed that a successful aircraft would need to be inherently stable, as bicycle builders the Wrights made their living building vehicles that were inherently unstable.” NOVA Wright Brother’s Flying Machine (Currently on Hulu.com) The bike shop turned out to the the perfect training ground for the first successful aeronautic engineers. The leap concerning stability – …led to a focus on control – …onto a critical insight about wing warping which came when Wilber reached for a cardboard box containing an inexpensive tire tube. From giving a box a helical twist to steering a biplane. Serendipity. But as with all serendipitous moments (and most … Continue reading →