Marci Segal, MS, Creativity and Change Leadership, Freeing leaders’ thinking so they may create new futures.

The purpose?  To grow the confidence of group facilitators to be inspiring and engaging when sparking new thinking, new ideas and new actions in their groups. Peace of mind. In a word.

Here’s a link to the session: Know-Thyself-Creativity for Facilitators

Registration for the conference, the Creativity Expert Exchange at Buffalo State College closes soon.  Take a look here to make your arrangements.

Hope to see you there…

Marci Segal, MS, Creativity and Change Leadership, Freeing leaders thinking so they can create new futures, since forever.  Founder, World Creativity and Innovation Week, April 15-21.

Likely you are aware of my involvement with World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15-21, (WCIW) as its founder in 2001 and steward.  Each year around this time my attention goes 100% (and then some friends would say) to support the energy, and shake the bushes so that everyone on the planet feels they can lift themselves away from the future the past was leading us to, toward a new one.

World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15-21 is a focused time of year for people to celebrate their creativity, their ability to

• be open to and generate new ideas
• be open to and make new decisions
• be open to and take new actions

that make the world a better place and make their place in the world better too.

2013 WCIW Three New Things

Each WCIW I find at least three new things to do or think about, and in so doing, influence my future…

1. Prepared and presented my first Pecha Kucha at Toronto PechaKucha, the topic being World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15-21.
2. Attended the opening of an art show of never seen creations.
3. Made a new slow cooker recipe.

I hope you found new things too, new thoughts, ideas, decisions, actions… it would be great if you want to share…:-)

Feel Free

Feel free to look around  World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15-21 for examples of what others did all over the planet.  Pretty amazing stuff.  There’s more on our Facebook page and Facebook group.

Feel free to consider how you might leverage World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15-21, 2014, next year, to shift to a newer, brighter future.  We’ll be looking for volunteers – so let me know your interest.

Thanks to all who made this year a tremendous success!

Until the next…

Marci Segal, MS, Creativity and Change Leadership, Freeing leaders’ thinking so they can create new futures, founder and steward, World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15-21 (since 2001)

Nice thought piece for World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 -21.  Maybe by the end of the week, you’ll have a plan of which priorities to choose from for some juicy new ideas, new decisions and new actions.  Wouldn’t that be a great outcome for this week! http://wp.me/p1XI3D-1TM

Marci Segal, MS, Creativity and Change Leadership, Freeing leaders’ thinking so they can create new futures, founder, World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15-21.

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Creativity and the Brain – “We were born to create! In fact, before we were born, we, with the help of our mothers, exerted a significant amount of energy in creating neural connections among neurons (the brain’s major brain cells). These connections created a complex brain system, with some of the most interesting connections happening in our frontal cortex – the big protrusion at the front of our head. This part of the brain is quite distinct from other animals and often described as being responsible for many of the incredible abilities that we tend to consider “humanly”, including our creativity.”

See on www.canc.ca

See on Scoop.it – Creativity and Learning Insights

Today, frog is pleased to release the Collective Action Toolkit (CAT).

See on designmind.frogdesign.com

Marci Segal, MS. Creativity and Change Leadership. Freeing leaders’ thinking so they can create new futures.

Marci Segal, MS. Creativity and Change Leadership. Freeing leaders’ thinking so they can create new futures.

365: 2012/07/25 – we become new (Photo credit: Foxtongue)

Thanks again to Women in Science and Engineering who invited me to present at their 2013 conference Imagine, Innovate, Inspire held at the University of Toronto this weekend.  My 90-minute interactive keynote: Language to Leverage Creativity: Prepare to Nuance your Networking was fashioned so participants would:

• learn something new that would help them get to know their creativity (so they could use it to support innovation)
• network with new people
• have fun.

Accomplished?  From the feedback:  yes, yes, and yes.

Keynote debrief

(After each experience I reflect on questions such as what surprises me, what’s great, what’s next, etc.)
For this keynote what surprises me is that these how to’s remain teachable.
How to:

• access imagination
• get new ideas easily
• receive others’ new thinking
• use specific questions that invite collaboration

It’s great to be reminded that people feel:

• relieved and encouraged knowing they don’t have to be creative to do creative things.
• inspired and supported using positive interacting skills that build on their strengths.

Think there’s room for this kind of behaviour in work scenarios?  Wouldn’t it be nice, eh?  How to, too.

Taking it further

Inspired by the group I was reminded of this poem. Even though one might think creativity is a magic wand, and people always appreciate it, it’s important to remember there’s effort involved and all does not necessarily fall gently, neatly and easily into place. It’s best to be ready for that moving forward.

By Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy, “For the young who want to” from Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). First appeared in Mother Jones V, no. 4 (May 1980). Copyright © 1980, 1982 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc. Used by permission of the Wallace Literary Agency, Inc.

Let me know if you’d like a keynote like this one to vitalize your next conference.

Creativity = New ideas, New decisions, New actions

©2013 Marci Segal, MS, Creativity and Change Leadership; Freeing leaders thinking so they can create new futures.

extraversion + introversion (Photo credit: tind)

“Fresh ideas come when your brain is relaxed and engaged in something other than the particular problem you’re embroiled in… This is the polar opposite of what happens in brainstorming sessions. Long showers, soaks in a tub, long walks, or doing chores are frequently when those “synapses” that find alternative solutions to a problem in new ways all hit together so that the big idea can spring.” This from an article in Fastcompany called Why Innovation By Brainstorming Doesn’t Work by Debra Kay.

I wonder about the situations Kay sites with regard to introversion and extraversion.  Introversion describes being inside our minds, when are quiet or reflecting or inwardly wondering; extraversion describes interacting with others and/or the world outside, possibly through talking or engaging with others. From a Myers Briggs Type Indicator® perspective, we all access these attitudes, inner and outer. We feel more energized using one more so than the other: the one that energizes is referred to as our preference.

I wonder if the quality of insight that comes from introverting varies much from those that arrive from the extraverting for people with preferences for extraversion than for people with preferences for introversion.  Do people make meaningful and different kinds of connections in the inner world than they do in the outer one?  Is it possible that the creation of new ideas is influenced by personality style preferences?

Is it possible that the one-size fits all approach to generating new ideas is archaic?  Is it possible that people of the different personality preferences need distinct rules of behaviour be a their best to generate new ideas and make new decisions?  I think so, and will be writing more about this as I review the Creativity and Personality Type: Tools for Understanding and Appreciating the Many Voices of Creativity, and converge on new thinking since writing it in 2001 in preparation for the pre-conference session with Danielle Poirier Getting Unstuck at the Association for Psychological Type International conference this July in Miami.

Ask: I could use your help. Please let me know your thoughts, feelings, inklings and experiences of personality style differences in generating new ideas and making new decisions; together we can create something wonderfully beneficial and useful. Even though I’ve led innovation training, creativity thinking and team building sessions for years, including designing corporate meetings that take into account the personality style differences I am still curious to know what doesn’t work for you when it comes to working with creating new ideas for innovation?

® Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Myers Briggs, and MBTI are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Trust in the United States and other countries.

Marci Segal, MS, Creativity and Change Leadership; Freeing leaders’ thinking so they can create new futures.

Related articles

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The Future is an album by Canadian musician Leonard Cohen. His song, Anthem, provides a strong metaphor for insights into where to look for new ideas.

Anthem

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.

Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government –
signs for all to see.

I can’t run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
a thundercloud
and they’re going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring …

You can add up the parts
but you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.

Danielle and I are leading a masterclass at the Association for Psychological Type international this July in Miami. She mentioned Cohen’s song in our planning conversation today.  Superb, eh?

Getting Teams and Individuals Radically Unstuck: Creating a Vital and Viable Future (yes you can…:-)) is a one-day program using depth psychology, Jungian type and creativity-thinking methods and tools to support people moving beyond perceived boundaries. Magic. There’s a crack in everything.  more info

Marci Segal, MS, Creativity and Change Leadership; Freeing leaders’ thinking so they can create new futures.