Building Leadership Skills: Stimulating Creativity
Welcome to the workshop which starts now with some simple, and we hope, fun, pre-thinking activities that will be needed for the workshop. These activities are described in the following posts. All workshops start at 9:00 a.m. and finish at 4:30 p.m.
For more information about the workshops, please go to http://infopeople.org/workshop/314.
Are you working on a project that would benefit from some
new ideas and perspectives? This is your chance to brainstorm
some ideas and get some feedback from your associates.
Bring a BRIEF description of your project to the workshop
so we can quickly understand what you're working on. Think
of it as an "elevator speech." If you got on an elevator and
someone asked you what you're working on, how would you
explain your project before you reached the 5th floor?
Thinking in new ways means seeing old things in new ways … or seeing new things. None of us can see everything there is to see in the world so we tend to wind up looking primarily in directions that interest us or are important to our well-being. One easy way to look in a new direction is to pick up a magazine you’ve never read before. As librarians, it may be harder for you to find magazines that are new to you, but please try. One bookstore in New York has over 7,000 magazine titles … surely there are some you haven’t seen or read before.
Buy a magazine that you would normally never ever read … look for one that has a lot of pictures and ads rather than lengthy articles. You want to be able to butterfly through it rather than dive into it.
Go through the magazine and tear out a couple of pictures that intrigue you … don’t worry about what they mean. If you see any intriguing headlines or words, tear them out also. Bring the pictures, words and the magazine itself to the workshop.
If you're having trouble finding a new magazine, you might want to browse through this list from Yahoo.
Mindmapping is one of the simplest, yet most powerful, tools a person can have in her or his creativity toolbox.It is a non-linear way of organizing information and a technique that allows you to capture the natural flow of your ideas. You can learn how to do it in 5 minutes at Mindmapping in 8 Easy Steps. Then take another 5-7 minutes to practice it by mindmapping your ideal vacation – assume you have two weeks and you’ve saved all the money you need to have a really terrific time. You can go where you want, with whomever you want and do whatever you want.
Supplies: Get the biggest piece of blank paper you can find – easel pad paper is great. Gather a bunch of colored markers (or crayons), put “My Ideal Vacation” in the center of the page and then just let your thoughts flow out from that center place. Put down everything that comes to mind even if it seems silly … this is just thinking on paper … it’s not an actual plan. Let things surprise you.
For a different approach, gather your family or friends who might be going on the vacation with you and give everyone a marker and create a group mindmap.
Perhaps the most powerful question for stimulating creativity is: Wouldn’t it be great if …? It opens minds to new possibilities and frees us from the contraints of “How?” Think about your own library and come up with a MINIMUM of 15 responses to that question. Please print each response on a 3x5 yellow sticky note and bring to the workshop with you. Here are some examples (feel free to use any that speak to you):
WIBGI … ?
