Hi All,
It’s taken a long time for the wheel to turn. None of this is new—the excitement followed by deep disillusionment with notions of creativity. I don’t have the references to hand, but going back to the 1960’s some of us went through the available thinking and research that was done in this area, at that time, and came to much there same conclusion that seems to some a revelation today.
I remember some of the seminal works pushing creativity in the wake of Sputnik, which were followed by careful research in journals like Design Studies. There was also research of a more philosophical (and convincing nature) that suggested that creativity, like many other psychological constructs was DEEPLY problematic—a point that was ignored then and continues to be neglected today. (BTW, there are parallels between our recent discussions of knowledge and the current interest in creativity.) So much for learning from history.
(An Aside)
I was once at an ergonomics conference in which someone was excitedly talking about hypertext. I asked him if he had ever looked at the work of medieval mnemonicists?
“Gee!” he replied laughing excitedly at my question. "My literature search only went back to the mid 1940’s". The rest of the audience laughed with him.(end of aside)
What some of you might find more interesting is that some of us took out "Time for some deep reflection” in the mid sixties, and now 50 years on, find ourselves in an altogether different, and I happen to think, more productive space.
Most of my own work in information design over these years, to today's buzzword, was about so called Design Thinking—Design Thinking Research, if you will, and how we might turn design into something useful.
One finding STANDS OUT. The big ‘creative’ moments occur during what we call diagnostic testing. At the moment when we seem to be at our most ‘scientific’ we have epiphanies, creative revelations. The very things the creatives shun and eschew turn out to be the most productive. Go figure!
David
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blog: http://communication.org.au/blo <http://communication.org.au/blo>g/
web: http://communication.org.au <http://communication.org.au/>
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO • Communication Research Institute •
• helping people communicate with people •
Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
Phone: +61 (03) 9005 5903
Skype: davidsless
60 Park Street • Fitzroy North • Melbourne • Australia • 3068
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