Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity

Today, it seems like companies are "creatively bankrupt" and only focusing on cost cutting, efficiency and top-down control. But what they are forgetting is that creativity really is a fantastic competitive advantage and focusing on developing and expanding on creativity will make the business more successful!


Josh Linkner's book Disciplined Dreaming brings readers to a realization that creativity is the only sustainable competitive advantage for individuals and companies because it is innovative and cannot be exactly replicated. The book offers creative techniques that will prepare you to take this creativity challenge within your own organization, and will allow you to discover and ignite your own creative abilities. To do this, Linkner organizes the book in a 5 step methodology:

1. Ask: identify and clearly define your specific creativity challenge
   
2. Prepare: prepare yourself mentally and physically for the creative process to maximize creative output
   
3. Discover: explore every avenue that might lead to creative ideas
   
4. Ignite: proven techniques for sparking creativity and generating better, and more, creative ideas
   
5. Launch: make your best creative ideas a reality!

For this post, I'm going to focus on some of the techniques I found interesting from the "Ignite" phase of Disciplined Dreaming. This will give you a taste for the book, and hopefully sparks your interest to read the whole thing!

"If you're unwilling to be different, you'll never get to the next level. The very fact that the entire industry does something a particular way is a great reason to explore the exact opposite approach" -Josh Linkner

Linkner writes that one of the most common stumbling blocks is the feeling that you need to imagine and perfectly design the entire creative solution BEFORE beginning work...this is not true! Creativity is an evolutionary process. Below are a few of the techniques that I found especially innovative for sparking creative discussions. These techniques allow for creativity and are part of this evolutionary process:

• Imbizo Groups- a Zulu expression for "gathering"- this is a group of people from diverse backgrounds and disciplines who have come together to simply discuss an idea. This group has NO end goal in mind, other than the goal of exploring. The groups needs to let go of the outcome goal and simply allow for creative, diverse discussion.
• The Hot Potato-put everyone in a circle except for a note-taker then toss a football to random person who will then shout out an idea that is no more than one sentence. The person isn't allowed to think about it, analyze it, or contemplate phrasing. This allows for spontaneous creativity and creates a situation that removes obstacles such as fear.
  
• Personas-rather than thinking about a generic, one-size-fits-all audience, try crafting personas (EX: two kids in college, age 52 living in Chicago, risk-taker). This allows you to get inside the head of your audience and make them into a specific person you can relate to instead of a faceless, nameless target. Then have creative conversations while having this person in mind.
• TDWR (Think, Doodle, Write Repeat)- A doodle-unlike a chart, diagram or illustration- carries an unfinished quality to it that makes it the ideal breeding ground for new ideas. Let your mind wander without limitations or rules, don't edit, judge, plan or re-read your doodles. Many people learn and process things visually, so doodling can help spark ideas!

The book offers many more creative techniques that spark new, innovative ideas, this was just naming a few. After reading, I found that these ideas allow us to open up different paths and generate different ideas compared to regular, structured meeting that occur frequently within organizations.

Lastly, I will leave you with this quote:

“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system” –Machiavelli

It might be scary at first to jump away from your normal way of doing things within your organization, but if you have a positive outlook in mind and are motivated from these new creative techniques, your organization could become more competitive in today's shifting marketplace through tapping into the power of creativity.

You can purchase Linkner's book here,
see it on Google Books,
...or find it at your local library. Enjoy!

MANIAC Offers Fascinating Fall Programs

It has been an exciting summer for the UW-MANIAC group, filled with 'soirees' to the Madison Children's Museum, Sector 67 Hackerspace, Slow Food UW, and (next week) Dr. Evermor's Sculpture Park. But we're just getting started, and the fall promises some fascinating professional development opportunities, each offering fun chances to 'stretch our knowledge' into creative skills and spaces:

'Jammin' in the Fall' (9/15) is our quarterly idea networking session -- bring half-baked ideas you want to try out on others, and come ready to hear some excellent ideas that can benefit from your perspective!

'UW-MANIAC Breakfast - Semester at Sea' (9/20) offers an opportunity to hear Amy Climer's story of her experience teaching in Spring 2011 on this floating academic institution. What are some things we can learn from her experience that can be applied to our work?

'Improv Skills for the Workplace' (10/6) brings back Barry Callen and Nell Weatherwax... for a full day session! Improv comedy skills help us think quickly on our feet and respond creatively and collaboratively to surprises at work. The tools we learn can be applied to staff meetings, project teams, and even our personal efforts to keep the day flowing energetically -- come, learn some cool activities, and then take that energy back!

'Getting Comfortable with Complexity' (10/25) challenges us to dive right into the heart of our work reality: Many of the issues we face today are filled with uncertainty, dynamic forces over which we have limited influence, and factors that seem to bring about changes that are hard to understand. Yet, there are some useful strategies for assessing these challenges and developing effective responses to them... Join Christine Kelly as she takes us on this excellent adventure into complexity... we are sure to emerge with some great ideas that can be applied to our current issues!

These are great programs... and there are more planned as we continue through the semester. Be sure to read the "Raving MANIAC" Newsletter for updates, too!

Hey MANIAC’s!

The Innovation and Collaboration Learning Café titled “Transformative Thinking, Being, and Doing” will be held on Tuesday, May 3^rd from 8:30a.m.-1p.m. in the Lowell Center! For more information and to register, click here!

These cafes seek to sustain learning about creative thinking and integrate it into the way we teach, research and work together. This workshop will explore the foundations and applications of transformative processes in our personal and professional lives. We will use storytelling, the Seven Levels of Change, Transformative Design and Theory U to better understand collaborative change.

Make sure to find out more about UW-MANIAC and Fully Prepared to Engage and keep up with our upcoming events!

Hope to see you on May 3rd for the Cafe!

UW-MANIAC Breakfast Series: "Mini" Big Learning on April 7th!

The next MANIAC Breakfast series: "Mini" Big Learning will be on Thursday, April 7th from 8-9:30 a.m. in the Red Gym, Mezzanine C. Come identify and develop new tools and strategies to help transform your creative ideas into innovative solutions.

How can you pass that up?

This special "Mini" Big Learning Breakfast will pump you up for the Big Learning Event (being held June 7-8) by providing participants with details about BLE and the study groups created to promote thought-provoking discussion and learning. We will also discuss the BLE as a highly innovative approach to learning that has potential to significantly alter our expectations and opportunities in the future.

Join us at this FREE pre-BLE event and jump-start your brain with discussion and learning.

Network, have fun, learn! Be a MANIAC!

UW-MANIAC is Jammin' at the Union on March 7th

The next MANIAC Jammin' session will be held March 7th, 3-4:30pm at Memorial Union. Facilitated by Darin Eich, Jammin' offers a unique opportunity to network about ideas in a fast-paced, highly energizing manner. In a short time, you'll get LOTS of great feedback about your idea, and make connections with others who can help you bring it successfully to implementation!

Now THAT's a good workshop!

Come to Jammin' on March 7th... it's free, it's fun, it's fantastically useful!

UW Innovation Days - Feb 10-11

The UW-Madison College of Engineering hosts an annual inventions student competition that is in focus these next two days. If you have a chance to check it out, please do so. You can also learn more about this annual event at: http://innovation.wisc.edu/

Our group needs to find better ways to connect with this initiative... each year, a number of really interesting student projects emerge, some of which become viable as products that are adopted in industry. In a number of impressive ways, the College of Engineering engages its students in collaborative, team-based learning activities that prepare them to work in fields that increasingly require such skills.

Next MANIAC Breakfast Offers a 'YES...And' Improv Moment!

The MANIACs will enter the New Year with a bang on Thursday, January 27th when we welcome Barry Callen and Nell Weatherwax for a MANIAC Breakfast on "Improv Skills for the Workplace." We will meet at Memorial Union, 8-9:30am -- please register today for this free program!  Barry and Nell bring a wealth of experience from their work with CORPROV Improv Training, an approach that applies improv skills to a wide range of workplace challenges.

Have fun! Learn some skills! Be a MANIAC!