Gregg Fraley

This is part two in a series of posts about the Three Oaks Creativity Weekend. I’ve titled this series of posts “Letting Go” because that was the theme that emerged. Generally meetings, events, or conferences decide on a theme and then orchestrate events around it; we did the opposite.  Since it was Not a Conference, we decided to let the group create the theme. We talked about it early on, listed a few options, then it popped up spontaneously through the weekend. Letting Go was mentioned many times, but we could easily have called the weekend, the Sound of Music. At several points, once during an improv session, the group burst into “the Hills are Alive,” and when our campers

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My wife Caroline and I hosted a private gathering last weekend, specifically to do sharing around the concept of creativity.  It was not a conference.  Only 20 people attended, and that was intentional. I’m going to post a few times about this unique “creativity weekend” so let me give you a bit  of background to start. The original impulse to host a 4 day creativity event was simply to reconnect with a number of creative people, who are also friends. When I say “creative people” I mean people with a specific interest in the topic — not just people who Are Creative. Those attending all had some connection to applied creativity, innovation, facilitation, self-expression, and the arts. The invite list

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This weekend I’m hosting a group of friends here in Three Oaks.  It’s an interesting group and I’m looking forward to a lot of “new” input. I know that by Monday I’ll have a list of new books to read, new ideas to develop, and newly refreshed friendships.  This is all good! A lot of the focus in innovation facilitation is on tools and techniques to generate new ideas.  This makes sense, after all innovation is about new things, and the tools are helpful in having you think differently. Still, one must know something in the first place. New ideas are rarely “green field”, they are usually a build on a previous idea, or a combination of old things or

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Those of you who read this blog will know of the recent online debate I had with author Ashley Merryman. Essentially, I was not letting her get away with dismissing brainstorming. Ashley co-wrote a recent Newsweek article titled “Forget Brainstorming.” While I liked the article generally, I hated the title, and disagree and dispute the conclusions she’d drawn from a subset of the research on brainstorming. The debate also highlighted the problem with the term itself; brainstorming can be either an unstructured bull crap session, or a highly structured event, and depending on which one you’re talking about, they are either a waste of time, or a smart thing to do. The exchange got me thinking, again, about when “brainstorming”

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If you are a creativity and innovation freak, you probably have already seen the excellent Newsweek article titled “The Creativity Crisis.” It’s rapidly becoming one of the most shared FaceBook links I’ve seen. If you haven’t read it, by all means do, it’s the best piece I’ve seen in recent years related to creativity, education, and it’s impact on the American economy.  For those of us in the field, it’s somewhat old news, we’ve been screaming this for years, but nothing like a major news publication to get it on the radar. The recent research is a real eye opener, especially the part that says creativity scores are a better indicator of eventual success than IQ. Wow — that’s a

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Walking down a street in North London last week, I spotted this chair in a store window. Ice cream for the eye!  It had me wondering why we “hold back” on color so much.  I’ve often resisted the urge to wear colorful clothes for example.  Why are we sometimes color restrained?  And, what does this chair suggest to us in terms of ways to use color more effectively in everything we do? In our innovation projects? This picture goes into my “forced association” picture deck, so, I can use it as a tool for ideation, but what else? I recall that Motorola once had a huge success with pagers with color. By simply adding color it opened up the consumer

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Simple concept here.  In my view this is how BP turns this oil spill situation around. First, stop the freakin leak.  Second, become the world leader in environmental clean-up and prevention technology. BP has done irreparable harm to the Gulf of Mexico. How irreparable remains to be seen, and, it depends on BP’s commitment to making things as right as they can be.  Now. BP will forever be known as the evil, money-grubbing #¢#∞¡!itches  who befouled the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn’t do the right thing by humanity and invest billions in learning how to prevent and manage disasters like this.  BP, listen!  Hire the scientists, spend the money, partner with governments, other oil companies, NASA, anybody who can

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When IBM says it you have to listen — Creativity is the new management Kool-Aid. In a study just released they  say that the “creative” management style — which is marked by taking calculated risks and communicating in new ways — will lead to more success as companies struggle to find their way in an increasingly complex world. The study, titled Capitalizing on Complexity is a synthesis of interviews from 1,500 CEO’s and senior public sector leaders.  This is what these CEO folks now believe — that creativity is more important as a skill, now, than it has ever been before.  Creativity is Now More Important than other qualitites like management discipline, rigor, or operational acumen. Personally, I think this

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I was on the phone last night with Joe Miguez, (an authority on the use of Labyrinth’s as a creative tool).  Joe was pitching an idea at me and it was fun the give and take we  had talking about it. Ultimately, he didn’t sell me on the idea, but as I hung up the phone I was smiling and I had warmth in my heart. Such is the chemistry between some idea people, even when you disagree, you don’t argue so much as you explore possibility.  That’s not so easy to do all the time is it? Is it your experience that some people are great natural, organic idea people?  And some people are totally not?  It sure is

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I tweeted this morning that I had the don’t-have-an-idea-for-a-blog-post-blues.  It’s true.  Mr. Creativity himself does occasionally run dry!  (Note to self: see if Peter Lloyd might write a song with that title). I got some humorous ideas and encouragement tweeted back at me. Gary Murning (author of If I Never, @GaryMurning) suggests an author interview.  I’ll take him up on that, but not today. @ReetaLuthra suggests that the aforementioned blues are a topic in of itself.  Yes, but a bit “movie within a movie” — not today! Mark Abrahams (@Mark_Abrahams) pushes my own advice back at me and advises me to put on my Creative Coat (see my TEDx talk). Ding! That’s it, I’ll post about The Creative Coat Concept

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