Blog 8 - TALES OF CREATIVITY & PLAY

 

TALES OF CREATIVITY & PLAY

Tim Brown is the CEO of the “innovation and design” firm IDEO. This is the second video from IDEO people on this blog. First one was the 9th video of TED Talk series by David Kelley, the founder of IDEO.

 

In this video, Tim talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play with many examples. He emphasizes the importance of using everyday items in a playful manner to nurture your creative self. As people get older, they tend to forget the importance and need to be playful. He also refers some scientific experiments conducted with people under the influence of psychedelic drugs. These drugs open up the mind and loosen up the control of our mind. As a result, the person acts more “creative”. People need to understand that, “creativity” is a natural characteristic of human beings. Look at children; they are all about creativity. As they grow older, they get conditioned by the social norms of what is acceptable and what is not. And you guessed right: creativity or playfulness is not accepted in the social and business environment. But that is a wrong perception. Look at all the successful companies: Google, BCG, Zappos etc. They create an environment where their employees can be as creative as they can. And what is the result: they create wonderful solutions.

 

After watching the interactive speech made by Tim Brown on video, basically he talked about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play and has given examples that can be done work and etc. He experimented an activity with the audience whereby everybody was given 30 seconds to draw their partner. Time was up, and the rooms were mostly filled up with laughers and many sorrys were heard. Now this was then explained as the fear of judgement. He then compared the being of a child and an adult. The contrast was vividly clear. We don't know enough to be self-conscious when we were younger. Every kid lived freely in their own wilderness but at some point, we lose that ability in ourselves. And so, he began another activity using Finger Blasters and 30 circles where he instilled that we have the ability play with no boundaries. 

 The fear of being un-liked or un-wanted was too great for us to overcome and this is why it is common for us to see that in the working environment now. Therefore, creative thinking and play makes up a very distinct difference within each other. Without it, our engagement to explore more possibilities is limited. He told it is not necessary that creative and play involves only playful building and exploration. It could also involve playful role-play. To create does not only put thought into the product but also the environment and one self. Tim named a few successful companies like Google and Pixar where their offices were designed to feel relaxed, focused but buzzing with activities such that the Google office in Switzerland have an indoor slide. Working environments like these would influence oneself in participation and use it as an empathy tool. When they imagine and act it out, they provide these intuitions that would not confine one to not only work better and creatively but also emotionally. Tim mentioned that it's not anarchy, the game of life has its rules and we ought to know how to play. 

 

Creative thinking and play needs to be practiced more especially by us adults because it is insatiable once we get going, and that the enlightenment is our potential. We won't settle for anything less, we would self-edit to do our jobs better. We would engage to do more. The consciousness in realizing that creative and play shows freedom that would evolve our own choices. Its builds that sense of trust with colleagues and they are now your best friend. It is a visual language. 

 

Reference:

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_tales_of_creativity_and_play?language=en#t-16696