Creativity, Inc.
by Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace · Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace
Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull recounts how the studio built candid feedback loops, protected fragile early work, and handled failure across films from Toy Story onward. Useful for anyone responsible for managing other people's creative output.
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More resources on Creativity & Innovation
hbr.org
Harvard Business Review (hbr.org) offers research-based articles, case studies, and practical guidance on leadership, strategy, and organizational performance for managers and executives.
Creative Thinking: Techniques and Tools for Success
In today’s ever-growing and changing world, being able to think creatively and innovatively are essential skills. It can sometimes be challenging to step back and reflect in an environment which is fast paced or when you are required to assimilate large amounts of information. Making sense of or communicating new ideas in an innovative and engaging way, approaching problems from fresh angles, and producing novel solutions are all traits which are highly sought after by employers. This course will equip you with a ‘tool-box’, introducing you to a selection of behaviours and techniques that will augment your innate creativity. Some of the tools are suited to use on your own and others work well for a group, enabling you to leverage the power of several minds. You can pick and choose which of these tools or techniques suit your needs and interests, focusing on some or all of the selected approaches and in the order that fits best for you. The practical approach of this course enables you to acquire an essential skill-set for generating ideas, with plenty of: - Fun e-tivities and exercises; - Practical lectures and tips; - Video representations of the techniques in action. By the end of this course you should be able to: - Pick a type of brainstorming you think will be useful to apply to a challenge - Use alphabet brainstorming in tackling a challenge - Use grid brainstorming in tackling a challenge - Use a morphological chart to synthesise a solution to a challenge - Use the TRIZ contradiction matrix to identify recommended inventive principles - Apply SCAMPER to a range of challenges The greatest innovators aren’t necessarily the people who have the most original idea. Often, they are people- or teams- that have harnessed their creativity to develop a new perspective or more effective way of communicating an idea. You can train your imagination to seize opportunities, break away from routine and habit, and tap into your natural creativity. Join this course and a community of practitioners in CREATIVITY!
Austin Kleon
Austin Kleon's personal site, where the author of Steal Like an Artist posts short essays, reading notes, and interviews about keeping a creative practice going. Archive and weekly newsletter are free; his books are sold separately.
Where Good Ideas Come From
Riverhead Books' animated short summarizing Steven Johnson's argument that breakthroughs emerge from slow hunches colliding in connected environments rather than sudden flashes. Gives you the vocabulary of the adjacent possible and liquid networks.
Your Elusive Creative Genius
Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity (TED Talk, highly recommended in r/productivity)
The power of believing that you can improve | Carol Dweck | TED
TED talk in which psychologist Carol Dweck contrasts fixed and growth mindsets, drawing on classroom experiments with praise and the idea of 'not yet'. Explains how framing ability as changeable affects effort and response to failure.