In a money-saving revelation for organizations inclined to invest in specialized information technology to support the process of idea generation, new research suggests that even non-specialized, everyday organizational IT can encourage...
I love it when I find a website that really makes me think. I did that this week, with the site for the Global Oneness Project. The Global Oneness Project says its goal is to “to plant seeds of empathy, resilience, and a sacred...
If you haven’t yet seen Mark Rober’s wildly viral How to See Germs Spread video, you should. In fact, stop reading and go watch it right now. The clear demonstration of how germs spread from surface to surface is disconcerting, to say...
In a New York Times opinion column this fall, Larry Smith, founder and editor of Smith Magazine, suggested that his six-word memoir format is a good one for recording our pandemic times. I agree. Six-word memoirs are exactly...
Thanksgiving is going to be different this year. In the midst of a spreading pandemic, many of us will be missing holiday traditions and large family gatherings to stay safely at home. As we do, we’ll be trying to figure out how we can...
We have a squirrel-proof bird feeder in our yard. We’ve had it for years and it really is quite effective at keeping squirrels out of the bird seed. The seed is protected by a weighted bar. A bird can sit on the bar and eat happily, but...
It’s official: Netflix has signed revered filmmaker and director David Fincher in an exclusive four-year deal. The artist, which has directed cult classics like Fight Club, Se7en, The Social Network, Zodiac, and Gone Girl, revealed the...
I’ve used a lot of brainstorming techniques, but here’s a new one I’m anxious to try. It is called the Locus Blossom Creative Technique and was developed by Yasuo Matsumura. The technique uses a grid design to help problem solvers...
Recently, I’ve been thinking about writing. I’ve been reading research about writers and thinking about how it relates to the writing students do in schools—virtual or otherwise. Of course, there are many kinds of writing students need...
I left elementary school absolutely convinced I could not draw and, in fact, that I was no good at art. Any art. I’m not sure exactly when that happened. As a young child I enjoyed drawing, painting, clay, and creating all manner of...
It is autumn in Michigan, that beautiful season that fills me with equal amounts of awe and dread. Crisp fall days with glorious leaves and (pre-COVID) cider mill trips are some of the most beautiful of the year. But we all know what’s...
An expert in creativity and innovation is calling for schools and universities to increase their emphasis on teaching creativity, as new research shows it is a core competency across all disciplines and critical for ensuring future job...
Yes, (in case you wondered after my “learn from failure” post) I’m still taking French. For fun. This semester I’m taking a conversation class in which we do a variety of activities to attempt to communicate in “spontaneous French.”...
In today’s digital landscape, it’s critical to understand why design matters beyond the realm of the creative department. After all, marketing, branding, sales, business collaborations, and partnerships all hinge on the strength of a...
I’m not a regular watcher of America’s Got Talent, but the pandemic changes many things. So, recently, I ended up watching the last few episodes of the talent competition. There were singers, lightening-speed dancers, magicians,...
TikTok may be on the verge of a US ban, but the app‘s content creators are still bravely pursuing their dreams of dancing mediocrely to vacuous music. They all need a hit song to make their videos go viral. But it’s hard to work out...
The Guardian today published an article purportedly written “entirely” by GPT-3, OpenAI‘s vaunted language generator. But the small print reveals the claims aren’t all that they seem. Under the alarmist headline, “A robot wrote this...
RX8, the latest release from the audio experts at iZotope, today launched with a bevvy of new features and an an updated interface. As you can guess from the sub-heading, I’m most excited about the all-new guitar de-noiser. As a...
Facebook‘s AI boffins have developed a new system that creates original dance routines for any music that you feed it. The system doesn’t merely imitate the Moonwalk, the Renegade, or whatever other moves the kidz are busting on TikTok...
Have you ever wondered what the Weeknd thinks about your taste in music? Me neither. But I can now officially inform you that he loves my choice of tunes, thanks to a new Spotify microsite. According to the streaming giant, Alone With Me...
Genius has lost a lawsuit against Google that claimed the Big G stole lyrics from its site. The music company claimed to have proof Google was scraping its lyrics and displaying them in search results, thanks to a clever mix of digital...
The Edinburgh Fringe is the world’s largest performing arts festival, but this year’s event has sadly been canceled due to COVID-19. Fortunately, art junkies can still get their fix of the Fringe at a virtual alternative curated by an AI...
Red Antler co-founder Emily Heyward’s new book draws from her years of experience in the marketing industry and dives deep into making a brand that people love and trust.
If you’ve ever wondered what you’d look like in animated form, you can now find out. Developers Tejas Mahajan and Niraj Pandkar have created an AI tool that can turn your photos and videos into cartoons. Cartoonizer is based on a...
As we consider the social emotional strengths that will serve students well in building creativity—and in learning—one good place to start is with The Henry Ford Museum’s Model i, a model of design thinking for innovation. The Henry Ford...
In recent weeks, social media has exploded with a debate about schools reopening. And—like pretty much everything else related to schools—everyone seems to have an opinion, regardless of whether they’ve been near a public school in...
Noah Kalina, the photographer behind cult-loved books, a deeply respected art photography practice, and a viral video project that has amassed over 44 million views, opens up on his early days as an artist and his unlikely new medium.
Our speakers at the 2020 99U Conference explored the theme of The Creative Self with insight, wit, and compassion. Here's a look at the keynotes, master classes, and workshops from our first virtual 99U Conference, filmed at a production...
Exploring the ways we can show and receive love in our relationships with clients, employees, and colleagues, and build lasting, reciprocal links rooted in acts of care.
An exercise that shows us how to build time into our schedule for those secret aspirations, and how to create with soul to capture genuine energy in our work.
The year 2020 will be known for many things, but one of them certainly will be innovation. All of us have had to flex in ways we never expected. Individuals, businesses, and organizations of all sorts have had to find new ways of...
I thought I was finished with blogging. Creativiteach had a good run–seven years at the point I paused—and as I looked toward phased retirement, it seemed a good time to wind things down. Last spring, I thought I’d take the...
A new brain-imaging study has studied the brain activity of jazz guitarists during improvisation to show that creativity is, in fact, driven primarily by the right hemisphere in musicians who are comparatively inexperienced at...
Technology has shifted the way that professors teach students in higher education. For example, by uploading recorded lectures online, students can reference a digital copy of the topics discussed in class. However, lecture-based...
Economists and business leaders agree that innovation is a major force behind economic growth, but many disagree on what is the best way to encourage workers to produce the 'think-outside-of-the-box' ideas that create newer and better...
Country music songwriters must perform a careful dance when they work with famous singers who may be less talented at writing songs but bring the needed star power to attract fans -- and, importantly, to get the song recorded in the...
It's increasingly common for managers to instruct employees to 'be creative' during brainstorming sessions. But according to a new article, being creative in the workplace is potentially fraught with peril because creativity itself is...
Video games that foster creative freedom can increase creativity under certain conditions, according to new research. The experimental study compared the effect of playing Minecraft, with or without instruction, to watching a TV show or...
A typical child plays many roles, such as friend, neighbor, son or daughter. Simply reminding children of that fact can lead to better problem-solving and more flexible thinking, finds new research. Better problem-solving was just one...
How can employees' working time be organized so as to enable them to perform in the best possible way when completing both creative and routine tasks? Economists investigated this question and made a surprising discovery. Which working...
Humans use imagination a lot, whether it be thinking about what's for dinner later tonight or trying to imagine what someone else on the other side of the world may be experiencing after reading the news. As situations become farther...