Business Creativity (Free Book Inside)

In an increasingly competitive business world, both individuals and companies need to be able to set themselves apart from the rest whilst being mindful of running an efficient business. As processes, transactions, manufacturing, and a whole other host of operational activities become increasingly automated and bring efficiencies to the bottom line, what is it that will propel a business to be better than their competitors? In a word: ideas. Ideas are the most valuable currency of our business landscape and will only become more important in the future. Why? Because creativity cannot be automated. An automated telephone service that deals with your customers is brilliant at taking payment or giving order statuses, but it is pretty rubbish at coming up with ways to wow your customers and delight them with new initiatives.

Introducing Business Creativity: A Practical Guide provides innovative techniques and proven theories to help you improve your creative thinking and get more out of yourself and your business. Whether you are trying to develop entirely new initiatives or redesign the way you operate, this book will help you break out of your old patterns of thought, think outside the box, and generate pioneering ideas that you can put into action.

Understand your brain and its capacity for creativity

Think differently with effective creative thinking tools

Put ideas at the heart of your business

Reap the rewards of a business built around ideas

[Taken from: http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Business-Creativity-Practical-Guides/dp/1848316852]

To get this book for free, please comment below, "Richard, I would like to read this book because...... [Not less than 15 word]" and the book is yours. Inbox me your mailing address and contact no. to my Facebook account. Happy reading! 

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Creative People are Daring

Reepicheep the Mouse from Chronicles of Narnia is a small and daring creature :) 

For the creative, thinking is an adventure. Because they are relatively free of preconceived notions and prejudiced views, creative people are less inclined to accept prevailing views, less narrow in their perspectives, and less likely to conform with the thinking of those around them. They are bold in their conceptions, willing to entertain unpopular ideas and seemingly unlikely possibilities. Therefore, like Galileo and Columbus, Edison and the Wright brothers, they are more open than others to creative ideas.

Their daring has an additional benefit: It makes them less susceptible to face-saving than others. They are willing to face unpleasant experiences, apply their curiosity, and learn from those experiences. As a result, they are less likely than others to repeat the same failure over and over.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Taken from Vincent Ryan Ruggiero’s The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought (8^th Edition), (United States: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007) pg. 90

Creative People are Dynamic

Unlike most people, creative people do not allow their minds to become passive, accepting, unquestioning. They manage to keep their curiosity burning, or at least to rekindle it. One aspect of this intellectual dynamism is playfulness. Like little children with building blocks, creative people love to toy with ideas, arranging them in new combinations, looking at them from different perspectives.

It was such activity that Isaac Newton was referring to when he wrote,

“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding… a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Albert Einstein was willing to speculate further. He saw such playfulness as “the essential feature in productive thought.” But whatever the place of playfulness among the characteristics of creative people, one thing is certain: it provides those people a richer and more varied assortment of ideas than the average person enjoys.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Taken from Vincent Ryan Ruggiero’s The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought (8^th Edition), (United States: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007) pg. 90

Creative-Idea Strategy: Think Like a Fool

Roger von Oech is the writer of my favourite book on creativity A Whack on the Side of the Head (25^th Anniversary already). One of his favourite creative thinking strategies is: THINK LIKE A FOOL. He explained:

"Carrying the strategy of "looking at things differently" to extremes brings us to the realm of the fool, the being for whom everyday ways of understanding have little meaning. It's the fool's job to extol the trivial, trifle with the exalted, and parody the common perception of a situation. In doing so, the fool makes us conscious of the habits we take for granted and rarely question. A good fool needs to be part actor and part poet, part philosopher and part psychologist. And throughout history, the fool has been consulted by Egyptian pharaohs and Babylonian kings, Chinese emperors, Greeks tyrants, and Hopi Indian chiefs.

The fool will reverse our standard assumptions. He'll say, “If a man is sitting on a horse facing the rear, why do we assume that it is the man who is backwards, and not the horse?”

The fool notices things that other people overlook. He might ask, “Why do people who pour cream into their coffee do so after the coffee is already in the cup, rather than pouring the cream in first and saving themselves the trouble of stirring?”

The fool can also be irreverent. He'll pose riddles such as, “What does a rich man put in his pocket that the poor man throws away?” When he answers, “Snot,” he forces us to re-examine the sanctity of our everyday rituals.

The fool can be cryptic. He'll say the best way to see something is with your ears. Initially, this may seem weird, but after you've thought about it, you might agree that listening to a story conjures up more images than watching television.

The fool can be absurd. Having lost his donkey, a fool got down on his knees and began thanking God. A passer-by saw him and asked, “Your donkey is missing; why are you thanking God?” The fool replied, “I'm thanking Him for seeing to it that I wasn't riding him at the time. Otherwise, I would be missing as well.”

The fool will take the contrary position in most conversations. Whereas many people would agree that, “If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing well,” The fool might say, “You don't have to do things well! Indeed, it's okay to do them poorly; otherwise you'll never let yourself be a beginner at a new activity.”

The great benefit of the fool's antics and observations is that they stimulate our thinking. They jolt us in the same way that a splash of cold water awakens us when we are drowsy. Question: Where has “thinking like a fool” helped you look at a problem in a helpful way?”

Good insights and concluding question Roger von Oech… to be more creative and generate more good ideas – think like a Fool!

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)