This is an outstanding example of creative problem solving.
Being creative requires using different lenses and breaking through static or ingrained thought patterns. On a number of different levels, this video exemplifies how to turn obstacles into opportunities. It’s about a 7 minute video, and a little slow (with intro material) in the beginning, but hang in there and prepare to be wowed.
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
The easy part is understanding a new technology; what’s harder is to think creatively about it.
In this 3 minute video, Jason Pontin, editor in chief of the MIT published Technology Review, tells an interesting story about tanks, technology and how to stay young.
I like how he sums it up:
How can we be unconfounded by new technologies and remain creatively challenged by them?
We must be as little attached to the past as teenagers. We must expand the critical faculties we have, not in the disparagement of new technologies but in thinking intelligently, rationally and joyfully about how they can change our lives for the better.
What do you get when you cross a science nerd with a jazz saxophonist? Apparently, a researcher with enough curiosity, talent and intelligence to actually video, in real time, the brain functions of people at their most creative.
A friend of mine recently pointed me to the story of Charles J. Limb, M.D., a researcher and jazz musician at Johns Hopkins University.
Using advanced MRI scans, Limb and his pals have recently taken some pretty cool pictures of the human brain during intense periods of creativity. Their mission: To measure the difference between a brain in a normal state and one rocking out during a jam session.
This winter I was introduced to TED talks a collection of speeches by today’s most intelligent people. The range of topics are fascinating so I strongly encourage anyone to check it out.
Anyway, one of the first speeches I heard/saw (because you can, if you choose, just download the sound without the video as a podcast) was given in 2006 by Sir Ken Robinson. As soon as I saw it I was hooked. He’s brilliant.
Before I go any further, I should also say that in order to be brilliant in my book, you also have to be funny. For me, Robinson clicked on all cylinders.
So when I saw his speech at TED talks plugged on Spurgeonblog, one of my favorites, I conked myself on the noggin and thought, “Why didn’t I do that?”
And since I don’t think I can say it any better, Chris Spurgeon puts it this way:
For more than a year I’ve been forcing friends to watch this 20-minute presentation by creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson on what’s wrong with our educational system. Now it’s your turn. His talk (filmed at the 2006 TED Conference) is funny, profound, inspirational, inflammatory, and paradigm shifting Watch it and see if you don’t also want to throw out our K-12 and college curricula and start over.
Anyway, I was inspired enough by this speech to write this column titled “Why Stupidity is a Good Thing,” for a local paper. I should have linked to Robinson’s talk back then.
Oh well. Better late than never.