10 Things Creative People Know

by Peggy Taylor and Charlie Murphy

Do you consider yourself creative?

If the answer is "no," you are not alone. We have been working as creativity facilitators for close to two decades, and whenever we ask people this question, shockingly few hands go up. It turns out that you don't have to be a great artist to be creative. Creativity is simply our ability to dream things up and make them happen.

Cooking breakfast, planting a garden, even developing a business plan are all creative acts. But here is where the arts do come in. Participating in the arts even—as amateurs—unlocks our creativity and empowers us in our everyday lives.

A recent UCLA study found that when young people engage in the arts at an early age, they outperform their peers in every category, from academics to life skills. Cross-cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien tells us that in many traditional cultures, when an ill person goes to the healer, he or she is asked four questions: When did you stop singing? When did you stop dancing? When did you stop telling your story? When did you stop sitting in silence? She calls these the healing salves. Numerous studies show that activities like drawing and creative writing—even knitting—raise serotonin levels and decrease anxiety.

Creative expression opens the door to the inner world of our imaginations. It is here that we make meaning of our lives. It is here that motivation takes root. The more creative we are, the more capacity we have to imagine what's possible and make those visions real.

1. Our lives have meaning.

All life is interconnected and full of purpose. There is, as teacher and philosopher Parker Palmer says, a hidden wholeness in each of us waiting to emerge. Discovering our unique purpose is one of the great adventures of life.

2. We are all creative.

Creativity is not found just in the chosen few who exhibit artistic talent. It is a force that flows through every single one of us, allowing us to dream things up and make them happen.

3. Creative expression empowers us.

Making art—when we're not judging ourselves—supercharges our creativity, makes us happy, and heals our wounds.

4. We are good at heart.

At the core of each person is compassion and love for the world. Creative expression gives voice to our goodness.

Try Out a New Story
The power of creative expression to transform is rooted in our human need to be seen and heard. One of the most basic ways to exercise our creativity is to tell our stories. The next time you are in a meeting, at a party, or among a group of friends, try this exercise: What story could each of you tell about yourself in three minutes that would significantly shift people's views of you? After three minutes, the listeners take a moment to acknowledge the storyteller. What new insight did the listeners learn about the storyteller?

5. Life is an adventure to be lived, not a problem to be solved.

Something quite different—and more creative—happens when we live life from the vantage point of possibility rather than pathology.

6. Change is an inside job.

We each have a life on the inside that is as real and vast as life on the outside. Coming to know who we are on the inside empowers us to make our lives count.

7. Diversity is a resource.

Nature thrives on complexity and diversity, and the same is true for the human community. Our differences in age, gender, race, culture, and backgrounds provide a rich source of learning.

8. We thrive when we feel supported.

When we identify our strengths and celebrate our successes, we become more powerful.

9. We each have the power to make change.

Regardless of our age or life situation, each of us has something to bring to the table. Learning the skills to make positive change needs to be at the center of education.

10. The challenges of our time require intergenerational collaboration.

When adults take the creativity and vitality of young people seriously, whole new possibilities emerge. Given the challenges currently facing us, we need to walk forward together.

Source: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/ten-things-creative-people-know

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Adapted from Catch the Fire: An Art-Full Guide to Unleashing the Creative Power of Youth, Adults and Communities by Peggy Taylor and Charlie Murphy for Education Uprising, the Spring 2014 issue of YES! Magazine. Published by New Society Publishers, January 2014.
Read more:

• You Can’t Bounce Off the Walls If There Are No Walls: Outdoor Schools Make Kids Happier—and Smarter
• Architect of Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind Law: “I Was Wrong”
• A Passion for Peppers: The Movement to Save New Mexico's Treasured Chiles

Painting the Town: Part 1 - The Public Realm

 

Streets and squares have always been the most important places in our cities. We have always wanted, nay, needed to come together, meet and socialize, buy and sell, gossip, celebrate and work together, and this all began in the public realm. Meeting and spending time with other people in a beautiful place is pleasure, it makes us more alive, and creates a sense of gaiety. And we have an innate desire to beautify places where we gather, particularly for special occasions, to increase the geniality of the event.

Give some children chalks and a pavement and they will immediately collaborate to color the street with patterns and drawings. Children learn to make their own inexpensive chalks by mixing chalk powder and pigment with a little water, rolling handfuls into sticks, and letting them dry. Then they are off. In English “play streets”, in Italian piazze, and in European “Wohnstrasse” (Living Streets), children - and their chalk - have free reign for creative expression.

This urge to beautify the street has been taken to high aesthetic levels by the ancient tradition of street painters. Known for centuries in England as “pavement artists”, and in Italy as “Madonnari”, these artists work with high quality chalk to create works of extraordinary beauty. Pavement art can now be seen in cities around the world, and sometimes, through use of trompe l’oeil, appear to create vast chasms in the street revealing waterfalls and nether worlds. While these are created by individual artists working alone, rather than by the community, they always cause strangers to pause and talk to each other, thus enhancing the street’s sociability.

Since 1972, an international festival of street artists has been held in the main piazza of Grazie di Curtatone, Italy, and other festivals (Savannah, Denver, etc) have since appeared across America.

The public realm was always the primary location for community celebration, and usually included elaborate decoration of the streets themselves in the form of flower carpets, sand art, etc. More than just decoration, these festivals originally involved the entire community and have been absorbed into religious celebrations. In India, for example, Rangoli (hand painted patterns on the floor) are part of the Hindu Festival of Light.

Across Italy, in towns and villages like Genzano near Rome, Noto in Sicily, Spello and Cannara in Umbria, communities take great pride in their elaborate “infiorata” (flower carpet festival) temporarily created for the Corpus Domini festival. This day-long event involves months of deciding on a design, preparing the flowers, and an entire night of preparation wherein the community carefully lays a carpet of flowers, each street presenting a unique and beautiful image. Everyone takes part, young and old, and a much needed meal is shared at midnight before the work continues until dawn. The next morning, the streets are awash in celebration and admiration of the artwork before the formal procession where the priest ceremoniously walks along the flower-carpeted streets.

Cannara’s “infiorata” is still a genuine community event, created by the people, and for their own celebration. But in some towns, such as Spello, inundated by bus loads of tourists, it has become more secular and commercial. Organizations are formed to compete for the high stakes prizes awarded for various best carpet categories, and souvenir stalls rake in the profits.

Perhaps the single largest flower carpet in the world is created every two years in Brussels’ Grand Place. Composed almost entirely of begonias, this carpet celebrates great events in Belgium’s history, evoking great national pride.

In some European cities, the floor of the pedestrian zone is decoratively paved with colorful pebbles and mosaics. Freiburg, Germany treats the floor of the whole historic district as a permanent “carpet”. Geometric patterns, flowers, historic, cultural and business symbols emphasize the unique character of each street and square. Outside shops and businesses are emblems signifying the building’s use, and the coats of arms of each of Freiburg’s sister cities are laid in mosaic in front of the Rathaus.In most modern cities today, any street painting typically exists to dictate traffic flow and communicate information to commuters. Some streets are multi-purpose, but there is no doubt that the automobile now dominates. But in some residential areas in Portland, community groups gather once a year to paint an intersection to “take back the street” for the pedestrian.

City Repair, a Portland based non-profit organization, “educates and inspires communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live.” They provide a very unique service – helping neighbors to paint (or repaint) an intersection with a brightly colored abstract image. Each neighborhood creates a different design. On the day of the painting, old and young, and even small children are handed a brush and allowed to fill in the lines. These images also serve another purpose - that of traffic calming. When motorists approach one of these brightly painted intersections, they tend to slow down.

Painting the streets can also add life and vibrancy, adding interest but also pride in the communities. In Istanbul, a retired forestry engineer painted a giant staircase up the hill all shades of the rainbow “to make people smile”. This technically illegal act was so prized by the community, that officials, after painting it back to grey, were forced to paint it back to a rainbow. People in adjacent neighborhoods were inspired to paint their stairways too.

Further, in some places painting the streets can be a form of protest or expression, to draw attention to an issue and communicate it to the community. In another rainbow-colored event, activists painted over the typically white crosswalk near the Russian embassy in Sweden to protest Russia’s recent controversial anti-gay legislation. Others use stencils to paint messages on the street and advocate for change. This one in particular again draws attention to our modern usage of streets criticizing cars and lauding the fat-burning bicycle as a preferred mode of alternative transportation.

The floor of our city is our “common wealth” – it belongs to all of us. Whether we paint it, or make it beautiful for special community events, or pave it permanently with patterns and emblems, we are celebrating our shared places and claiming the public realm for pedestrians – for all of us – to socialize, to celebrate, and to enjoy together.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1AHBZybjW4

Source: http://www.livablecities.org/articles/painting-town-part-1-public-realm

Landfill Harmonic

 A cello made from an oil can and pieces of wood thrown in the garbage; a saxophone made of spoons and buttons. These are the instruments crafted by Nicolas, a recycler with no previous experience making musical instruments, living hand-to-mouth by the garbage dump in Catuera, Paraguay. Inspired by this initiative and creativity, Maestro Luis Szaran, director of "Sounds of the Earth," formed a "recycled orchestra" with children living at the dump. "Our main goal isn't to form good musicians, but to form good citizens." Now 30 members strong, listen to the sweet sounds of these recycled instruments and the hopes and dreams of the children who play them.

• http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=3704
• Source: http://www.creativevisions.org/get-involved/cap/landfill-harmonic

Landfill Harmonic
Alejandra Nash & Juliana Penaranda-Loftus

   To demonstrate that creative and simple solutions can bring powerful social transformation to the poorest communities.

    Creative Visions Foundation (CVF) provided Landfill Harmonic with production and outreach services from project inception including pro-bono legal, public relations, and strategic partnerships. CVF raised funds through individual donations and foundations and helped market the online trailer that reached more than 850,000 people. Additionally, Landfill Harmonic has been featured in other CAP member newsletters, and was invited to present at TEDx San Diego through CVF.

Too many children in the world are born into lives with little or no hope. Our film reveals a mind-boggling, inventive effort to change that - musical instruments made from trash. In the barrios of Paraguay, a humble garbage picker uses his ingenuity to craft instruments out of recycled materials - and a youth orchestra is born. Music arises and children find new dreams.

Our film will showcase the power of creativity, hope, empowerment, and community work. We began official production in 2011. We filmed some of the children who learned to play violin, flute, drums, cello, string bass, and more - all made from recycled metal drums, tin cans, and plastic pipes. Their spirits soar with each note they play.

We are returning to the village in 2012 to update the progress of three young children who recently entered the orchestra. Landfill Harmonic shows how trash and recycled materials can be transformed into beautiful sounding musical instruments, but more importantly, it brings witness to the transformation of precious human beings.

Our lives were changed in making this film so far - and with your help in allowing us to complete it, we hope to change yours.

Eight Guidelines for Urban Design: Keeping Creativity at the Heart of Cities

The buzzword ‘creativity’ comes in handy when making top-down planning strategies sound somewhat more positive, inclusive or even alternative; making them attractive not just to cultural practitioners and publicly funded arts organisations, but also to local residents and businesses who associate creativity with notions of change and innovation. However, this often ignores the fact that creativity cannot be used interchangeably in different contexts. What creativity signifies in some cultures is very different from others. Whereas in Europe creativity stands for originality, in other parts of the world it signifies how well someone can replicate ideas. There is no common ground in defining what “applied” creativity is. In cultural strategy, creativity is often used as a proxy for how much cultural consumption infrastructure a city offers. Planning creativity in favour of consumption is a risky undertaking that often gentrifies original clusters of cultural production.

In this post I will explain the reasons for this and will conclude with a toolkit on how to sustain the field of cultural production.

Cities were extremely important for the emergence of contemporary cultural production as they are places with extreme spatial and social density, access to infrastructure and with labour specialisation and cultural emancipation. In the UK this led to the emergence of what was first called cultural industries, now known as the creative industries to allow an expansion into technology and innovation markets.

Cultural production

Cultural production requires a complex contextual setting to access both cultural content and cultural audiences. Philosopher Pierre Bourdieu (The Field of Cultural Production) describes this as a process of artistic position taking within a distinct field of forces and power relations in an urban ecosystem. With forces he means the different interconnected ‘scapes’ of cultural flow, for example ethnoscapes, financescapes and technoscapes (see Appandurai) that form part of the socio-cultural-economic relations triangle. Power relations are determined by the position we hold as either cultural producers or consumers.

At the development stage of a specific culture-led urban regeneration project, cultural production is often sidelined by extensive investment in cultural consumption infrastructure and venue-based activities that are costly and need to be subsidised over a long term. Culture in the context of cultural and creative industries is confronted with the tension between cultural content and cultural instrumentalisation. The latter is the cause of disparity between the image of a creative city and the practicabilities of physically embedding culture and creativity in cities.

Economic growth

One form of cultural instrumentalisation is represented by Richard Florida’s creative class model, which positions the creative city as a place-marketing strategy. Culture becomes merely a means to non-cultural ends as entrepreneurial city leaders favor short-term economic growth over long-term activation of cultural assets.

Creativity and cultural production become secondary in this narrative, leading to the alienation of local creative activity through a) perceived displacement caused by changes to the local field of cultural production, and through b) physical displacement such as gentrification and the inaccessibility of affordable work and living space. Hence cultural production and in effect also consumption cannot be sustained without subsidies.
(Besides sustaining the material fabric of cultural activity, it is crucial to maintain the contextual field of production from which cultural content emerges!)

Social cohesion

Creative city advocator Charles Landry has since the late 80’s consulted city councils on how to make cities more beautiful, liveable and socially inclusive. His socially creative city goes hand in hand with the emergence of alternative cultures in the 1960s and 70s, from which ideas about active audience engagement, museum learning and visitor participation came from. This again brought forth social inclusion legitimation programs in which art institutions had to monitor their work with communities and evaluate projects in order to receive public funding.

Local authorities and cultural institutions became trapped in the legitimisation process of commissioning culture. This fostered the emergence of high-cost flagship cultural facilities that stimulated cultural consumption as a ‘safe’ public investment option, without actually creating the space from which creativity would emerge from cities, rather than being imported into them.

So, what would a policy look like that fosters local cultural production and creativity?

1) Understanding the creative industries
Creative city policy makers should not rely on the given categories of the cultural industries (for example fashion, media, fine art). They should instead operationalise interdisciplinary work to broaden cross-sector growth possibilities and an understanding of the needs of the creative industries in other business sectors. This would stimulating new cultural content and non-normative approaches to urban problems for example.

British Council Toolkit: Mapping the Creative Industries

2) Alternatives to culture?
The creative industries are often praised as the saviour of urban economies despite being precarious sectors with little long-term employment and revenue stability. Policy makers need to assess whether their urban strategy requires cultural resources or if there are alternatives in solving urban problems.

3) Land-use and infrastructure
Beyond assuring openness towards infrastructure and land use strategy, we have to create an awareness for the involvement of creatives professionals in policy/public consultation. Creatives need flexible space and not an expensive flagship development that they cannot access (means have to match ends after all).

Case study: Cultural production, place and politics on the South Bank (Peter Newman & Ian Smith)

4) Stakeholder analysis
A detailed stakeholder analysis is necessary to determine local cultural actors and networks of cultural production (creative workers and the creative class are not the same stakeholder group and need different support structures). It is financially and culturally more efficient to operationalise already existing cultural resources, rather than displacing them with imposed networks and structures.

Case study: Urban development and the politics of a creative class. Evidence from a study of artists (Ann Markusen)

5) Home-growing talent
Home-growing creatives is a highly important element of anchoring cultural production locally. In creative city literature, education often becomes sidelined, assuming that creative talent is simply floating around freely. Education is about providing quality teaching and access to networks and knowledge. In today’s mass education market these virtues are long gone as arts students for example have little academic challenges to conquer, while spending all their fees on art school studio space and scarcely allocated tutorials.

Case study: The art of innovation. How fine art graduates contribute to innovation (Andy Pratt et al.)

6) Governing principles
Planning and jurisdiction boundaries are often misidentified and cause complications at the implementation stage, hence many initially promising developments being conformed to investors needs or bogged down completely. Much work needs to be done analysing the proposed cultural support mechanisms qualitatively before reaching the policy implementation stage (to avoid an expensive overhaul of an unsubstantiated strategy).

Case study: Beyond the Creative City. Cultural policy in an age of scarcity (Jonathan Vickery)

7) Communicating goals
While working with ‘creatives’, the necessary formal structures of policy development will still be required in providing a structured and accountable response to specific urban problems. This confirms that a balanced conversation between authorities and cultural stakeholders is necessary to map collective goals.

8) Conclusion
Planners, policy makers and creatives need the willingness to learn from policy mismatch, in order to follow an open strategy agenda that would allow for the right support structures to foster connectivity and growth. For cultural production this would mean sustaining the field of production (i.e. the local urban identity) and providing the possibilities for creativity to remain at the heart of the creative city.

Case study: The cultural contradictions of the creative city (Andy Pratt)

Silvie Jacobi is an artist and cultural strategist studying urban geography and creative industries at King’s College London.

Images via Metro Centric and Buildington

Source: http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/big-city/152256/eight-guidelines-keep-creativity-heart-cities

Tales of a Beginning Teacher

http://www.yesmagazine.org/for-teachers/teacher-stories/tales-of-a-beginning-teacher

 

On his first day of teaching, Brendan Clarke entered his southwest Chicago classroom wanting to teach kids to create rather than imitate, to break the line, rather than stand in line. Two years later, Brendan left to study permaculture and regenerative community design. This is Brendan’s story.

posted Sep 01, 2011

Students dive into "Facts to Annoy Your Teacher" after receiving a shipment of books.

Courtesy of Brendan Clarke

As I sweated through my suit in my 95-degree classroom, it occurred to me that I had never been truly nervous for the beginning of school until I became a teacher. As a student, I was always excited. Who will my teacher be? What will we learn? Similar questions stirred in my mind, but now I was responsible for the answers to both. Who will I be as a teacher? What will they learn? It was a case of the blind leading the all-too-closely-watching. Still, things were off to a good start.
The buzz of Spanish that had filled the hallways of this 95 percent Latino school had died down, and the security scanners had been stowed away. The smell of chilaquiles form the staff potluck lingered in the hallways, and even the brick walls seemed to exhale as the commotion of the first moments of the first day of school settled into the morning's work. The kids were listening quietly and attentively; the copy machine had worked without a tantrum in the morning; and my suit added a nice air of authority to my otherwise adolescent appearance.

The door swung open and a young Latino boy with a face as round as a basketball bounced his way into the room. He was Alan. He was late. And he did not close the door.

In the middle of my first few minutes as a teacher on the southwest side of Chicago, as I was spewing off the standard fare about punctuality and attendance, I found my authority challenged. The door swung open and a young Latino boy with a face as round as a basketball bounced his way into the room. He was Alan. He was late. And he did not close the door. I was about to welcome him when he interrupted me, saying, “It’s a dude!”
How to respond?
Somehow, in my five weeks of teacher training over the summer, we had failed to cover the appropriate response to the “It’s a dude!” entrance. Over those weeks, I co-taught high school English to an average of four students, but I never had an Alan. As a new teacher, I lacked the experience to have good judgment, but I made up for it with perseverance. Teaching was not a job, it was an act of social justice, and so I carried on.
“Please t—take your seat,” I managed.
“Oh my god, man. It’s a dude!” said the yet-to-be-seated Alan.

Chef Fraction stands in for Mr. Clarke to teach the students about fractions.

Courtesy of Brendan Clarke

Thus began day one of year one. By my prep period at 10:30 a.m., I was passed out with my head down on my desk and the lights off. By 2:30, when the kids had left, I was passed out again. By the end of the week, I was a rag doll masquerading as a fifth grade teacher.
Around this same time something strange happened to me. For one of the first times in my life, I realized that I was failing. Like me, my students were not where they needed to be. That single fact was the reason I joined Teach For America (TFA): to help kids get a good education and to “catch up.” Suddenly, however, I was confronted by the possibility that I might actually make things worse for these kids.
Fast forward two years, many 90-plus-hour work weeks, and a summer spent creating an integrated curriculum from scratch with the help of two amazing fellow TFA teachers.
As on my first day, I am soaking wet—again.

Despite uncertain beginnings and uncertain futures, something happened here. My students succeeded. Therefore, we succeeded.

But this time, it is not sweat. I have just finished a year-end ritual known as “the balloons” with my students. A dozen staff and parents watched as I read Dr. Seuss’ Oh the Places You’ll Go to 26 beautiful, brilliant fifth graders, all nervously holding a colored water balloon in their hands. Shortly after, I asked the students to raise their balloons above their heads, and I popped each one as they shouted our class theme: “Repair the World!” In the end, there was only one balloon and one dry head remaining—mine. My students quickly solved the problem.

Alan cannot hide his anxiety as his turn comes up in the famous "balloons" activity.

Courtesy of Brendan Clarke

Still smiling, still dripping, I sat down at my desk after dismissing the kids for the last time. A slightly taller, slightly less-round Alan, now finishing sixth grade, bounced into the room. After laughing about “the balloons,” which he had experienced as my fifth grade student, we chatted about his future for nearly an hour. It was not so much any particular plan, but his relentless hope, burgeoning maturity, and endless humor that made his lasting impression on me. Despite uncertain beginnings and uncertain futures, something happened here. My students succeeded. Therefore, we succeeded.
To the discontent of my principal and many families, I no longer teach fifth grade in Chicago. Critics may point to me as an example of the problem with TFA: many teachers do not stay in the classroom (though many do).
After two years, I left because I still have similar questions to the ones I had on the first day, but the answers have changed. As a teacher, I want to be the mentor to my students who breaks down barriers, rather than builds them up. I want to teach kids to break the line, rather than stand in line. I want to teach kids to create, rather than imitate.

In the end, my story, like teaching, is about relationships. Absent was a deep relationship between my students and the natural world.

It is not enough to teach kids how to read when the natural world that sustains us is in critical condition. What is the need for teaching addition if there is no clean drinking water? What goal—beyond testing literacy—guides our education system? I left because I am no longer concerned with what my students will learn, but with what they need to learn.
In the end, my story, like teaching, is about relationships. I formed many deep relationships with my students, their families, and my teaching colleagues. Absent, though, was a deep relationship between my students and the natural world. I saw it in the unhealthy food my students were served, and in their ignorance about climate change. I saw it in the rising attention-deficit disorder diagnoses, which may be better defined as nature-deficit disorders.
I have left the classroom to rebuild the vital relationship between kids and Nature. I will be studying permaculture at the Regenerative Design Institute in California. Through this program I will learn how to build sustainable communities that work for both people and the planet.
On the first day of school this year, I will be a student again. Although I am returning to the role of a student, I will always be a teacher. I am Mr. Clarke in my continuing contact with my students, and will someday return to teaching kids, with the forest as my classroom.

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Tips for New (and not so new) Teachers

Courtesy of Brendan Clarke

1. Teach natural history. Bring the students outdoors. Take on a project that you don’t think you can handle. Just one. Restore a creek, monitor a wetland, inventory local flora and fauna.
2. Make mistakes. Learn with the students and let them see you fall and pick yourself back up.
3. Be grateful. Every day you get a new chance when students show up. Take time to celebrate success.
4. Dress up. A costume and an accent will be remembered well beyond the last day of school. So too will that project or lesson you dress up for.
5. Let it go. Realize that what you’re working on may never be perfect. Accept the same of your students so that they don’t burn out, and neither do you.
   

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Brendan Clarke wrote this story for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Brendan is an educator, yoga teacher, writer, and environmentalist. He is a former intern for Yes! Magazine and is currently studying permaculture and nature awareness at the Regenerative Design Institute in Bolinas, California.

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• Connect and Engage: Education for Mind & Soul
  Here's a resource to connect your students' learning with their local community, culture, and environment. Also learn how knowing yourself can translate to being an even better teacher.
• Lessons From Nature Continue
  Counselor Larry Davies turned to nature to help teach and heal troubles of Washington high school students. Twelve years later, he's helping Floridians become better environmental stewards

Connect and Engage: Consumption
Resources to accompany on The Story of Stuff and Consumption: Facing the Future, The Center for Ecoliteracy, UNESCO, and Redefining Progress.

10 Ways to Chair Meetings to Foster a Creative Atmosphere and Help Creative Thinking

• http://www.creativity-portal.com/articles/edward-glassman/chair-meetings-foster-creativity.html

By Edward Glassman, PhD

The creative climate in a meeting depends in large part on the actions of the leader. This person can make or break creative thinking. These suggestions to the chair can make a great deal of difference to the success of the meeting.
1. Do not compete with other people to generate ideas. Support and build on the ideas of others.
REASON: Leaders tend to favor their own ideas. This discourages other people from contributing.

2. Respond non-evaluatively to new ideas. Create an atmosphere in which people consider all ideas.
REASON: Responding in a non-evaluative way encourages everyone to participate.

3. Do not permit anyone to be put on the defensive. Find value in all points of view. Start with what you like about what you heard.

REASON: This approach encourages everyone to contribute and help new ideas.

4. Get people to talk about the positives of an idea before the negatives. Do not kill an idea; just put it aside.
REASON: This approach encourages everyone to contribute and help new ideas.

5. Keep your energy level high.

REASON: Your interest and alertness helps others.

6. Use every member of your work group. Talk to domineering people privately. Help quiet persons.
REASON: Everyone has unique perspectives, valuable ideas, and information that contribute to the quality of the outcomes.

7. Tape meetings and ask persons with poor behavior to listen to the tape.

REASON: This helps them to change their behavior.

8. Rotate the chair of the meeting.

REASON: Being a follower and leader leads to commitment and participation of others.

9. Do not damage egos or self-esteem.

REASON: This encourages everyone to share and leads to greater levels of participation.

10. Defer judgment during idea generation and avoid early commitment to an idea.

REASON: The leader has great power to sway members. This does not always result in choosing and developing the best idea.

Please let me know how these suggestions work for you. If you are not a leader, show these to him/her and let me know the result. •

© 2011 by Edward Glassman. All rights reserved.

About the Author | More by Edward Glassman
Edward Glassman, PhD was the President of the Creativity College®, a division of Leadership Consulting Services, Inc., and Professor Emeritus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he headed the Program For Team Effectiveness And Creativity. He was a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow at Stanford University and Visiting Fellow at the Center For Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC. His biography appears in “Who's Who In America” and “Who’s Who in the World.” He retired and now writes books.
Send Edward questions about your creativity at work through his Web site: www.r-and-d-creativity-innovation.com.

The Enabling City - Social innovation for urban sustainability and participatory governance.

• http://enablingcity.com/
• http://blog.springboardinnovation.org/2011/01/guest-blogger-chiara-camponeschi-talks-creative-urbanism/

by Chiara Camponeschi
The Enabling City 2010

Creative Urbanism: Citizen Innovation and the Power of the Everyday.

Springboard believes that ordinary citizens can become extraordinary change leaders- and with good reason. Today, groups of ordinary citizens, better know as ‘creative communities‘, are joining forces to respond to our current ‘triple crisis’ in innovative and inclusive ways, inspiring a global movement of positive change along the way. With my toolkit, The Enabling City, I wanted to document and celebrate creative community initiatives that stimulate social innovations for urban sustainability and participatory governance. In particular, I wanted to explore what I refer to as ‘place-based creative problem-solving’, a participatory tool that leverages the imagination and inventiveness of citizens in collaborative efforts that make cities more vibrant and sustainable.

Place-based creative problem-solving is a holistic approach to urbanism that works to make cities dynamic social change hubs. As in the case ofBroken City Lab, it does so by providing opportunities for creative self-expression that lead to moments of reflection and collective action. Another example that may be well known to Oregonians is City Repair, an organization known internationally for Intersection Repair, the citizen-led conversion of an urban street intersection into a public square. Operating under the assumption that localization - of culture, of economy, of decision-making - is a necessary foundation of sustainability, City Repair allows citizens to reclaim urban spaces in order to plant the seeds of greater neighbourhood communication, community empowerment, and cultural sustainability.

What makes place-based creative problem-solving so promising is precisely the value it gives to the everyday, raising awareness on the local and personal cultures that exist alongside more ‘official,’ or institutional, ones. In an enabling city, local administrators can support ‘place-based creative problem-solving’ by investing in socially innovative ideas that harness the power of local know-how while simultaneously pushing for a new idea of governance that is open and responsive to today’s challenges. The challenge for cities, then, is to foster a culture of ‘creative urbanism’ that links communities together and unlocks the creative potential of citizens to meet their own needs.

Transition Towns is an example of a community-led program that works to address local needs while rebuilding resilience in the face of climate change and economic recession. Initiatives linked to the network seek to reduce carbon emissions by running thematic sub-groups and partnering with a wide variety of actors to embark on Energy Descent Action Plans. Italy’s Banca Etica is another example of the role that creative leadership can play in promoting a kind of sustainability that opens up new avenues of participation for civil society. As the country’s first ethical bank, it manages savings raised from private citizens, organizations, companies, and institutions and invests them in projects pursuing social and environmental goals that directly strengthen and support citizen initiatives.

Socializing can go a long way, too! Human Library is an creative global concept designed to promote dialogue, reduce prejudices, and encourage understanding in the form of a mobile space that gives visitors the opportunity to speak informally with “people on loan” (a group widely varied in age, sex, and cultural background.) And of course, there are countless interesting initiatives that leverage the reach of online networks to enhance off-line experiences, just think of portals like Share Some Sugar, School of Everything and Boskoi, to name only a few.

As a whole, I believe these examples speak to the desire of communities the world over to participate more meaningfully in the process of brainstorming and designing initiatives that address the complex realities of urban and cultural sustainability. In so doing, creative urbanism not only challenges our ordinary ideas about expertise, but it actively redefines our understanding of participation itself. After all, in the words of activist and community organizer Grace Lee Boggs, “we are the leaders we have been waiting for.”

Chiara Camponeschi works at the intersection of interdisciplinary research, social innovation and urban sustainability. For more examples of creative urbanism and place-based creative problem-solving, visit:www.enablingcity.com

Creative City Toolkits

These Toolkits were developed as 'how-to guides' to assist local governments, arts, cultural and heritage organizations with the processes of cultural planning and cultural mapping, and the development of public art projects and programs. The Toolkits are available below as PDF documents.

• http://www.creativecity.ca/english/online-resources-mainmenu-144/ccnc-publications-mainmenu-169/toolkits

The Rise of Creative Class

CHANGETHIS A Creative Manifesto: Why the Place You Choose to Live is the Most Important Decision of Your Life

The creative class – innovative knowledge workers in all sectors of the economy - will rule the 21st century.

'Talent, technology and tolerance'

A leading thinker on creativity believes attracting talented people is the driving force behind successful cities. In an interview with EurActiv, Richard Florida, author of 'The Rise of the Creative Class', said European countries are battling to attract and retain innovative people. Richard Florida is author of 'Who's Your City?' and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

You have suggested that attracting large numbers of 'creative types' to a city can help generate a more innovative and creative culture. Have many cities have put this theory into practice and how can European governments practically apply this idea?

For a place to prosper in the Creative Age, communities have to approach the global economy utilising a comprehensive framework for community and economic development. In The Rise of the Creative Class, I presented a 3T approach to economic development that provides communities with a strategy for positioning their community for growth in the global economy.

Talent: The driving force behind any effective economic strategy is talented people. We live a more mobile age than ever before. People, especially top creative talent, move around a lot. A community's ability to attract and retain top talent is the defining issue of the creative age. As the global economy becomes more competitive, European countries, like other peer nations across the globe, will be challenged to attract and retain the brightest talent, as well as provide the necessary skill training and education opportunities to stay competitive.

Technology: Technology and innovation are critical components of a community or organisation's ability to drive economic growth. To be successful, communities and organisations must have the avenues for transferring research, ideas and innovation into marketable and sustainable products. European universities are paramount to this and provide the innovation infrastructure necessary for the creativity and technology transfer.

Tolerance: Economic prosperity relies on cultural, entrepreneurial, civic, scientific, and artistic creativity.

Creative workers with these talents need communities, organisations and peers that are open to new ideas and different people. Europe has to continue to be a place that is receptive to immigration, alternative lifestyles and new views on social status and power structure.

Cities and the Creative Class