Melt Them Down - E - Chapter 2 USING ACRONYMS

Melt Them Down - E - Chapter 2 USING ACRONYMS


The magic behind the very first creative tool I learned in 1976 from its creator, Bob Eberle, S.C.A.M.P.E.R capitalized on the use of CHANGING VERBS in your thinking process to spark unique, novel, unusual ideas

To see thousands of graphics related to Bob Eberle's S.C.A.M.P.E.R. creative thing tool go to

https://www.google.com/search?q=dominos+noid&hl=en&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilqrLLxvnTAhVW62MKHYxaBD8Q_AUIBigB&biw=1126&bih=588#hl=en&tbm=isch&q=s.c.a.m.p.e.r.

Bob learned from working with Alex Osborn, creator of BRAINSTORMING [the creative thinking tool not the cliche] about Alex's list of 83 questions he had his creative people at BBD&O use to generate ideas for their clients' add campaigns.  Bob was a teacher, an educational consultant, and wanted to create a tool that children and adults of all ages could easily use.

First he limited the number of VERBS to 7 and chose a FUN and EASY TO REMEMBER acronym.

Since meeting Bob in March of 1976 I have played with the use of ACRONYMS to help clients create their own.  Often I encouraged them to use their company's name to generate their own tool.

The general term for these acronym tools is CHECKLISTING and there are now hundreds of versions of them.  The concept or design behind CHECKLISTING is to create a standard list of questions or action steps that are easy to remember and use in any meeting, especially IDEA GENERATING meetings led by trained facilitators.

Returning to my S.P.R.E.A.D.ng model from the previous chapter and the focus on striving to turn a team, department, entire plant or office, division or corporation these 6 verbs starting with E stand out

educate for creative thinking

emancipate creative thinking throughout

embrace creative thinking as a way of life

enable creative thinking for all employees

encourage all employees to use their creative thinking

endow all employees with the right to think creatively on their jobs (at least 10 to 15% of the time.

Please accept that these may take months to 2 or 3 years to truly become a new way of life for you, your people and your corporation.

Conformity, Consistency, SOPs are still major parts of the corporate mindset across the US

Disruptive Thinking has been a buzzword for the past decade or so.

Will it truly become part of the business nature?

Melt Them Down - M - Chapter 1

Melt Them Down - M - Chapter 1


M - Chapter One
S.P.R.E.A.D.ng Creative Thinking Throughout teams, groups, departments, plants, offices, divisions, entire corporations.

I began creating a workable system, a machine, a process for helping individuals thru to entire corporations to S.P.R.E.A.D. creative thinking throughout from their front and rear doors to their CEOs offices, shortly after I attended and presented at my first CPSI.

From the many presenters (LEADERS) at CPSI I was learning what was being done or tried to be done at their corporations or their clients' corporations to make creative thinking a primary focus.

The first consultant I spoke with was Bob Theobold who had spent a couple years creating, planning and developing a Creative Thinking program for IBM in the 70s.  I found him in Colorado and called him using the ancient AT&T long distance phone call system.  We spoke, actually I listened, for about 90 minutes.  That one call cost me over $120 and took me months to pay it off through my monthly AT&T bill payments.  It was only the beginning of my adventures into CREATIVITY PROGRAMS in AMERICA's WORKPLACES.

Summary of my listening:

He was angry, frustrated, filled with hate because he had spent so much time creating the program at great expense to the company and it was NEVER implemented because one manager saw no value in it.

He didn't have a CREATIVITY CHAMPION.  One of the first variables I learned that is needed to internalize creative thinking as a cultural factor.  I would learn about the need of CREATIVITY CHAMPIONS many times over the next few decades.

Through extensive reading of articles in various types of publications from business journals to association journals to educational journals to popular mainstream magazines and through doing workshops or speeches for Fortune or Forbes top 500 companies I began to learn what were some of the actions, activities or programs companies were doing in the 70s and 80s to expand creative thinking use inside their organizations, corporations or companies

Here is the general list I discovered from 1978 to 1990

some of these were my clients all the rest I read about or learned about from other consultants during CPSI or ACA or IN or ICINC conferences.

Here are some of the things they did or were doing.

I discovered that some companies like Ford used SUGGESTION SYSTEMS and had been since the 1940s plus they rewarded successfully ideas through a small percentage of profits from the implementation of the employees' ideas.

I came across the famous 3M 15% Rule that was created by CEO, Terry McNight in the 1940s that almost every speaker, consultant or author from the 60s onward included in their articles, books, speeches, workshops or training programs.  I would learn from a mix of 3M employees that it was mostly a MYTH.

Yes I came across a mix of internal creativity clubs such as the unofficial G.R.I.T. group at 3M made up of retired and current 3M employees in 2005 and I believe still exists.  I was a guest at two of the lunch meetings in 2005 & 2006 and they used my earlier book: BROKEN CRAYONS as their book for discussion one month. Another was the famous OZ GROUP at duPont. I met a few of its engineer and scientist members through a mix of conferences.

From 1978 onward I have collected many books that organizations or corporations have published internally or for public consumption about their efforts at S.P.R.E.A.D.ng creative thinking throughout.

Occasionally I have learned about how CONTESTS were used to spark increase amounts of creative thinking.

Often I came across internal newsletters distributed among employees.

The concept of IDEA MEETINGS, formally created and facilitated by trained facilitators instead of the usual sit around and "brainstorm" meetings that were never planned is another activity I discovered.

To learn more about my thoughts of the Bastardization of Alex Osborn's "BRAINSTORMING" creative thinking tool and the horrible cliche "BRAINSTORMING" go to:

http://www.cre8ng.com/areas-of-knowledge/happy-new-year-2011/about-me/brainstorming-or-brainstorming

A few even developed their own IDEA SYSTEMS during the Quality Circles and Quality Teams era of the mid 80s.

As I traveled around the country from 1984 onward I discovered many "In-House Training" programs focused on creative thinking.

I was allowed to attend a few Innovation Fairs as a speaker or guest in the US and Scandinavia from 2000 to 2005.

Thanks to many CPSI and ACA colleagues I learned about their companies or clients having Creativity or Creative Thinking Libraries.  Some of my creative thinking colleagues were the ones who set them up in the 80s to 2005.

Management Support of creative thinking activities or programs I also found from 1978 onward to today.

Unfortunately except in a few isolated cases most of these did not last more than 12 to 18 months.

When the CREATIVITY CHAMPIONS retired or were moved to other divisions of companies or simply left the companies the greatest percentage of the CREATIVE THINKING PROGRAMS simply

DIED a slow and sometimes PAINFUL DEATH
never to be restarted.

Lots of newspaper articles and magazine articles and some research studies did brag about these programs yet they still

DIED.

this is where I would like to place the cover image
from Time Magazines story

Are You Creative?
from September 1985

But due to copyright laws I can not

Also

I would like to place the July 19, 2010 Newsweek cover that announced the

CREATIVITY CRISIS in America
for now I will temporarily.

to read more about my thinking about the cover article and one other in this issue go to:

http://www.cre8ng.com/my-products/writing/articles-2/creativity-crisis-in-america-my-comments

on my website.

Key verbs is a sub-theme or structure I am using throughout this book using the key letter from MELT THEM DOWN.

For this chapter I am using 4 verbs

machine (verb)

mail (verb)

maintain (verb)

make (verb)

The key problem I have discovered through reading, interviewing and my own first-hand experiences with clients, many of them included among the Forbes and Fortune top 500 companies can be summed up in one word

MAINTAIN

Seldom have any programs been maintain the US or other countries I have traveled, worked in or studied over the past 41 years.

MACHINE

Too often companies to corporations become MACHINEs and they tend to MACHINE everything they do.

MAKE

They make things.  They make systems and too often they never truly become integrated into their daily cultures.  They become just another short-lived BUZZWORD or FAD until another one comes along.

MAIL

Too often things are MAILed but never truly integrated into daily work life.

I will return to the explanation and actual use of my S.P.R.E.A.D.ng system and how you and your organization can produce your own that will turn you into a Cre8NG Community or Organization that consists of many interconnected and overlapping collaborating Cre8NG! Communities.

Melt Them Down - Introduction

yes I am returning to complete some BOOKS IN PROCESS/PROGRESS during the next few months

MELT THEM DOWN

my follow up book to BROKEN CRAYONS

Melt Them Down - Introduction


working cover design and title:

In the early 70s I came across the book NEW THINK written by Edward de Bono that began to change my thinking.  I followed that with his book LATERAL THINKING and then I came across his entire teaching program that he designed for teaching THINKING in classrooms around the world that he called the CoRT System.


Those books and materials began my journey towards the teaching of creative thinking.


From 1976 to 1984 I worked on 5 degrees in education and completed two of them with my studies focused on the teaching, coaching, counseling, guidance of creative thinking.


While running my VENTURES UNLIMITED one day a week program at Plumosa Elementary for 23 K to 5th grade students I began to swallow up articles and books about teaching, learning, gifted education which led me to traveling to Orlando, Florida to attend a Gifted Education workshop where I met the first two creative thinking consultants of the literally thousands I have met since.


Dr. Dorothy Sisk, then National Director of the Gifted Education office in Washington and professor at South Florida University.


Dr. Bob Eberle, classroom teacher, creativity consultant for education and creator of the most used creative idea generating tool he called: S.C.A.M.P.E.R.


Through their insistence I traveled to Buffalo to attend the first of over 40 CEF sponsored Creative Problem Solving Institutes held in Buffalo, San Diego or Houston from 1978 to 2015.


In 1978 I began giving public workshops on creative thinking in adult education programs in the evening and in West Palm Beach.  When Merry and I moved to Athens for me to work on my doctorate with Dr. E. Paul Torrance in 1979 we also tried doing public workshops in Athens that we held at the Georgia Botanical Gardens outside of Athens and at Christmas break when we return to Palm Beach to see my sons and friends we held a weekend workshop through the West Palm Beach Unity Church.


Since those early attempts I have given hundreds of

Keynote speeches

Dinner speeches

Breakout or Concurrent sessions

1/2 day to 4 day long workshops on

Developing Creative Thinking


As I mentioned in the preface thanks to a young salesman from Kendall-Hunt Publishing I published my book BROKEN CRAYONS in 1995.  This book has been written to go much further based on a combination of what I learned from 1976 to 1995 with what I have learned since 1995 traveling around the world to participate in and present at nearly 200 creativity conferences on 6 continents in 18 separate countries.


The content of BC was focused on three things


1. helping ALL people accept that they were born able to think creatively


2. helping ALL people accept that we can continually improve our creative thinking traits, skills, abilities through training through books, audio tapes, cds, dvds, articles, workshops, training programs in person or on line through podcasts or webinars all of our lives


3. help train people who lead others or parents how to train their employees or their children to think more creatively.


MELT THEM DOWN has been written to go beyond basics to help push towards EUREKA!, spontaneous creative AHA!s and BEYOND.


Since I became aware of Bob Eberle's S.C.A.M.P.E.R. tool and Dorothy Fisk's many WARM-UP exercises for sparking creative thinking in individuals, teams and groups in March of 1976 in Orlando I became obsessed with collecting, creating, teaching and when possible using many such tools.


In 1979 I created my system for collecting and storing them


S.T.A.M.P.S.


SYSTEMS

TOOLS/TECHNIQUES

ATTITUDES/APPROACHES

METHODS

PROCESSES

STRATEGIES


and I have collected over 1,000 in my personal files on paper or electronically and have connections with websites from around the globe that have thousands more.  MYCOTED is only one.  Charles Cave from Sydney created one of the first when the www was barely available to the public.


Over the past nearly 40 years I have focused on trying to help teams, departments, small companies to divisions of major Fortune 500 companies develop or establish their own system for Developing Cre8ng Communities throughout from their front doors to their CEOs offices.


Unfortunately little progress has been made by myself or hundreds of other creativity colleagues around the world on a large scale.  Some programs like the OZ Group at duPoint that my long time friend Dr. David Tanner developed and ran at the company for years have been successful in departments or divisions but never across entire corporations.


At least not that I am aware of so far.


Many have started.


Most died within 2 years or less from my knowledge base, first-hand and through reading or interviewing people.


Around 1998 I created a working model to help teams, groups, departments, entire offices, plants or corporations to start their own internal Creative Thinking Development program with the intent of turning them into C,r,E,8, N, G ! Communities throughout.


C,r,E,8,N,G!


Is my Possible to Potential Creative Solution Generating Process


C - Collect your Challenges and Choose one at a time to work on

r - Read and Reap everything you can about the Chosen Challenge

E - Examine the Challenge thoroughly to discover the main or sub-problems

8 - Ideate (using at least 8 different idea generating STAMPS) long lists of ideas and organize them

N - Narrow down the long lists into clusters, groups until you agree on one or a combination of some

G - Gather tools, resources, people.  Generate a plan or plans and back up plans and GO FOT IT!


My Working Model I labeled S.P.R.E.A.D.ng

that stands for 6 clusters of things, activities, systems that to help develop creative thinking in individuals and entire organizations


S -  SUPPORT

P -  PROMOTE

R - RECOGNIZE/REWARD

E - ENCOURAGE/EDUCATE

A - APPLY, create ATMOSPHERES (Environments)

D - DEVELOP


Each team, department, office, plant, organization or corporation needs to create their own and they will vary from company to company, product to product, people to people over time


The result is the development of a C,r,E,8,N,G! Community where creative thinking is a major part throughout


That is the goal of MELT THEM DOWN to provide you ideas, tools and systems.


One word to the wise based upon my 41 years of working at this and studying such programs from the 6 continents in many countries you have one major nemesis.


Cultures, Religions, Groups, Organizations tend to believe that rigid conformity is necessary to succeed.


I strongly disagree and believe in this book title from the early 80's title by Robert Kriegle


IF IT AIN'T BROKE,

BREAK IT ANY WAY!


at least once in awhile.


During the past 10 to 15 years this has been called. . .


STREET FIGHTER THINKING

GORILLA THINKING

DISRUPTIVE THINKING


IT IS YOUR CHOICE


as George Land one of my mentors and teachers wrote in the 70s


GROW OR DIE!


Where he talked about LIFE CYCLES and how too many individuals and even large corporations are not willing

to "step out of line", "get out of the box", or If It Ain't Broke, actually BREAK THINGS in order to succeed.


We now need to BREAK THINGS more than ever around the globe.


My hope is that MELT THEM DOWN will be one of the books that will help individuals, families, teams, corporations do that.

MELT THEM DOWN and CREATE NEW CRAYONS (Taking What You Have and Making New Resources)

Chapter One
NEW BOOK
MELT THEM DOWN & CREATE NEW CRAYONS
(Taking What You Have and Making New Resources)

Little Things Can Stop Creativity

No money can stop a creative project.
No resources can stop a creative project.
No support can stop a creative project.

Yes major things or forces can stop creativity. Yet when we look at the history of
invention or in general the history of new ideas we can discover that these major forces
truly do not stop the devoted, committed, dedicated creation person.

No money, resources, support did not stop:

Ghandi
Mother Teresa
Charles Goodyear
Harriet Tubman (underground railroad during the Civil War)
Henry Ford
Chester Carlson (inventor of the Xerox process)

nor many others from the distant or recent past.

One key difference for them was their determination. Yes eventually money, resources
and support came or was acquired. They enabled the creative person to take their idea and
turn it into a larger and larger solution.

Yet the little things are what stop most of us from utilizing our creativeness long before
we get to tapping the big resources for future giant success or breakthrough.
While reading Alexander Lockhart's book: POSITIVE CHARGES, recently I came
across the following item:

#79

Understand there is only a letter difference between change and chance.
It got my attention as another small thing that often stops my creativeness or the
creativeness of others I know and work with.

Being creative produces change.

Many to most people resist change or at least resist being "changed". Being creative often requires that we take a chance or chances. Being creative requires that we venture into unknown territory and chance failure.

To be more creative we need to accept change and chance and that with either the other
will occur. If you change something you take a chance of potential failure. If you take a
chance change will normally be the result. Examine the changes your ideas will produce.
Explore and test the chances you will be taking. Do not change or chance stop you.
About a 18 months ago I had an aha that came from another small difference. While
teaching Fundamentals of Marketing courses for the American Management Associations
one issue that I stressed, similar to many presenters, speakers, and professors; was that as
Americans we tend to be REACTIVE rather than ACTIVE or better yet PROACTIVE.

An emphasis and purpose of marketing and marketing plans is to help people take charge
and be PROACTIVE.

Often becoming PROACTIVE requires many paradigm shifts for individuals,
departments and entire corporations or even industries.

The "Aha" I had was a simple change. Instead of being REACTIVE, simply rearrange
one letter in the word and become CREA TIVE or creative. I have always found it much
easier for people to be creative than for them to change and stop being reactive to become
proactive.

Still another simple change has to do to a major barrier to success or creativeness. That is
"limitation".

I can't be creative
I can't draw.
I can't sing.
I can't dance.
I can't understand computer software.
I can't.
I can't.
I can't.

If you are a fan or reader of motivational books you no doubt have read the quote always
accredited to Henry Ford....

"If you say you can or you say you can't, 
in either case you will be right in the end"
(paraphrased)

Making the philosophic choice could be a simple chance that would greatly affect your
creativeness.

That is not the simple change I am referring to related to "limitation".

Look at the word "limitation". It has 10 letters. 9 of the letters are the root cause why so
many people are not creative. The 9 letters spell "imitation". Too often we copy, mimic,
reproduce and do not think for ourselves and create.

Still another simple change can be discovered by examining the word "RECREATION".

Back up in linguistic history and respell the word as it would have been originally spelled
as a hyphenated word...

RE-CREATION

Re creation. Creating again.

Many highly creative people discover that when they experience "a blank wall", "writer's
block", "creative staleness" or other forms of creative blocks that if they simply stop and
take time to recreate they will then be able to re-create and re-tap their creativeness and
move on.

Graham Wallas referred to the space between the second and third stages of his creative
process as a good time to relax and play or recreate. By doing this you allow your
subconscious to work on the challenge and provide you an aha or enable you to be in a
state that makes you open to discovering an aha.

Oz Swallow in 1978 shared a simple change that has major implications and effect on the
creativeness of people. One night as a group of 100 or more people crowded into a small
classroom at Buff State College during the Annual CPSI meeting, Oz encouraged us to...

"Change the metaphors in your life."

He followed by explaining that all words in all languages (nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
used as adjectives and possibly verbs) are metaphors. They are not the thing or action but
rather a word referring to your interpretation of it. Therefore he suggested that we
examine the words we use. See them as metaphors. Then change our metaphors. Or
change our definitions.

An example I have used with students from elementary school to college and with
participants in workshops of a range of ages was the one

"I Can't Draw"!

First we clearly defined the word draw as making lines, shapes, marks, or shaded areas.
In turn the results could be used to represent existing or imaginery things. Then we would
redefine the act of drawing as the making of lines, shapes, marks, or shaded areas with
materials such as pencils, pens, chalk, crayons, etc using our hands, feet, arms, teeth, etc
to hold them.

The simple change in this case is establishing a realistic defintion and comparison. Most
people tend to compare themselves and their actions or skills with the "giants" in the
particular field such as art, music, dance, engineering, etc.

To learn to draw is a simple act.

To learn to draw at the level of a major artist is generally not.

Still one more simple change that can be discovered by examining the word we use. Most
to all of us have problems with daily communication. The root cause for most of us is
poor listening, either on our part or the other person's.

The change. To improve your communication listen. To better listen simply re-arrange
the letters for the answer.

listen becomes silent!

Therefore to improve your creativeness. . .

1. Accept that being creative will produce change and that simple change
often will produce creativity.

2. Accept that creativity requires some chance. Continually work at taking
bigger and bigger chances. One small step at a time.

3. Work at not reacting and instead work at creating.

4. Work at reminding yourself over and over "I Can, I Can, I Can" and ask
"How Might I or How Might We So That I Can or We Can?"

5. Stop imitating. Look for new ways for yourself. Examine the principle or
main idea behind successful creative ideas and adapt them rather than
simply adopting or imitating them.

6. Take time to recreate: relax, play a game, have fun at least for awhile.

7. Look for the metaphors that are stopping you and change them or your
definitions for them.

8. Take time to truly listen to others, yourself, nature, your problems. Learn
from Eero Saarinen, famous Finnish and American architect...

"The solution lies within the problem.

Continue looking it will tell you."

Look for your own "small changes" that will release and expand your creativity and
creativeness.

Being creative is your choice!

MELT THEM DOWN: Chapter Two Zap Out of the Blue

MELT THEM DOWN:
Chapter Two

Zap Out of the Blue

"I was taking a shower when the idea came to me!"
"I was just waking up when the idea came to me!"
"I was jogging when the idea came to me!"
"I was drinking my 9th cup of coffee when the idea
came to me!"

Have any of these happened to you?

Having you been walking, jogging, showering, dreaming,
driving when "Zap! Out of the Blue" came an idea, a solution,
a hint of an idea?

Most of us have these things happen to us.  Some of us pay
attention to them and some of us turn them into solutions
that often lead to great success and possibly fame.  Yet the
greatest percentage of us say
"ho hum another strange idea" and let them go.

There are many theories about why these happen...

a.  our muse(es) give them to us
b.  God gives them to us
c.  our sub-conscious gives them to us after we have
consciously worked very hard on a problem and finally have
let it go.

Are you taking advantage of your "Zaps From Out of the Blue"?
Do you write them down immediately?  Do you put them into
action immediately or reprioritize and set them into your
plans for that day or soon?

If you aren't, why aren't you?

If you are how are you capturing them?

Do you write them down on anything that is handy: a piece of
paper, an index card, a Post-It note, the shower stall glass,
the mirror?  Do you then plan for when you will do something
about them?

These are your sub-conscious creative mind helping you.
Let it help you while you work with it.

First for the next 7 to 14 days take 15 minutes each day to
think about what are your "Zaps!"  Write them down.  Examine
them to see if their is a pattern, a specific time, any
specific conditions.  Are you always relaxed?  Are you
working on other things unrelated to the problem the ideas
come for at the time?  Are you practicing any ritual or
habit...yoga, walking, exercising, drinking coffee, sipping
on a glass of wine?

The answers to these questions very well may give you clues
for how to deliberately cause more "Zaps!" to happen for and
to you.

Second, develop a system(s) or method(s) for recording the
"Zap!" ideas when they happen.  Make sure you have the
necessary tools and resources to collect the ideas.

Third, take a few moments when they happened to jot down
one to 3 to 5 steps of how you will take the idea(s) further
towards solutions.  Perhaps you might take a moment to
think about the resources you will need.  Or you might
take a moment or two to visualize or imagine yourself
doing the idea and look for the resources you will need
including the people.

Fourth, DO IT!!!

An example of using this plan happened the morning I wrote
this article.  I was practicing one of my morning
rituals/habits reviewing over-night email messages,
downloading overflow from my server's computer to mine while
I am reading from a book on creativity.  This morning I was
reading Paul Plsek's new Creativity, Innovation and Quality
published by ASQ while my computer was downloading files.
One phrase "Zap!"-ed from the page "Zap from the Blue" at me.
I had just been reading a message from the editor of CIA,
Andy van Gundy, who was asking about an article for the
February issue.  The "Zap!" jumped right at me.  Here was the
idea that sparked this short article.  I wrote down a Post-It
note to use later.  Took a couple moments to think
when I would use it and when I would write the article.  I
chose to push things aside because I was leaving to go out of
town for a few days to work with a client and probably
wouldn't be able to get to it for a few days.  I immediately
started writing down my thoughts into an email message to
Andy.  I got it about 3/4's done when I hit a bad combination
of keys and disconnected myself from my internet
server...............and lost everything I had written.

I then quickly made a couple notes about what I had already
written and decided I would do it later after I got a few
things that had to be done during the next two hours and
could not be done at any other time.

In other words, writing this article was an example of
practicing what I am "preaching".  Learn how you get your
"Zaps!".  Capture them. Then use them.

The result?  You'll be using much more of your creativeness

and working much less.  Best wishes for a creative month.