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04/01/20 • 33 min

Flourish As You Age

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#8 - VCAD - Idea Generation: Provocation

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My favorite book on the process of idea generation is Serious Creativity by Edward DeBono. One of the creative thinking devices invented by DeBono is the use of creative provocations. Debono invented the word “po” in 1968 to symbolize the process of engaging in a creative provocation.

A provocation is a “forward use” statement. It is designed to propel your creative thinking forward towards further creative exploration. DeBono points out the words like hy(po)thesis, sup(po)se and (po)ssible all indicate this aspect of a present activity that prepares us for insights in the future.

The word “suppose” and the phrase “what if” are mild provocations that nudge our creative thinking in the right direction. DoBono’s “Po” is intended to be more radical and disruptive to our normal ways of thinking. His provocations can involve things “we know to be impossible, contradictory, or logical nonsense.” A provocation knocks off our normal path of thinking, pushes us out of the rut, and leads us down new and unexplored paths.

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#7 - VCAD - MINDRAMP's Creative Cycle

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This podcast reviews MINDRAMP's analysis of the creative process.

The goal of the VCAD Project is to equip you with the tools you need to create your own, virtual activities. As discussed in the podcast on “Your Creative Responsibilities,” we offer a few plug-and-play ideas but encourage you to invent your own activities. Use our guiding principles to stimulate your own creative thinking. Invent activities that make sense for your unique and singular circumstances.

To help you with this process, the VCAD materials offer some guidance on how to cultivate your creative powers and deploy them towards the task of designing virtual activities.

Creative people produce creative products by working their way through a creative process. The quickest way to ramp your creativity, therefore, is to learn to use an effective creative process. By using a clear step-by-step process, you can design and implement products that are more creative and innovative. In the process, you become a more creative person (even if you didn’t think of yourself as being creative.)

MINDRAMP’s has analyzed the creative process and developed an outline of four major activities, with a total of nine stages, that are generally needed to produce novel ideas that are useful. We call it the Creative Cycle because the process frequently loops back on itself. The completion of one creative cycle leads naturally to the generation of a new creative cycle. Creativity becomes a self-propelling process. Creativity begets creativity.

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Support our work to promote creative aging. Subscribe to the MINDRAMP Podcast.