Creativity Becomes an Academic Discipline

Laura Pappano in The New York Times: 

Critical thinking has long been regarded as the essential skill for success, but it’s not enough, says Dr. Puccio. Creativity moves beyond mere synthesis and evaluation and is, he says, “the higher order skill.” This has not been a sudden development. Nearly 20 years ago “creating” replaced “evaluation” at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning objectives. In 2010 “creativity” was the factor most crucial for success found in an I.B.M. survey of 1,500 chief executives in 33 industries. These days “creative” is the most used buzzword in LinkedIn profiles two years running.

Traditional academic disciplines still matter, but as content knowledge evolves at lightning speed, educators are talking more and more about “process skills,” strategies to reframe challenges and extrapolate and transform information, and to accept and deal with ambiguity.

Creative studies is popping up on course lists and as a credential. Buffalo State, part of the State University of New York, plans a Ph.D. and already offers a master’s degree and undergraduate minor. Saybrook University in San Francisco has a master’s and certificate, and added a specialization to its psychology Ph.D. in 2011. Drexel University in Philadelphia has a three-year-old online master’s. St. Andrews University in Laurinburg, N.C., has added a minor. And creative studies offerings, sometimes with a transdisciplinary bent, are new options in business, education, digital media, humanities, arts, science and engineering programs across the country.

When asked I often say that I am an independent student. To me being willing to learn new things quickly and juxtapose them against what you already know to see what comes out of that friction is the key to smarter creative thought. My concern with institutionalizing the teaching of creativity is that if you are not curious and willing to constantly study no amount of university classes will instill that in you. Are we making creativity studies the new MBA? Wanted by everyone for the effect it may have on their careers without regard to whether it is the best way for an individual to cultivate creative thinking. You can teach someone how to play the piano, but if they are lacking musicality you can not make them into an artist. 

Neil Gaiman Reads Dr. Seuss

Entertainment Weekly's On The Books section points us to this gem:

Don’t you wish that Neil Gaiman was your kooky uncle? He would sneak you into the circus and you’d get to hold the Biggest Amazonian Python That Ever Lived (whose name is Lucille). He’d help you put frogs in your sister’s bathtub. He’d keep secrets for you, like that time that you accidentally buried your dad’s favorite watch in the park. He would agree that pirate treasure is only good if it’s buried. To help you cement the fantasy that Gaiman is your favorite uncle, here he is reading Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham.

Cupid Brand Guidelines

First there was The Santa Brand and of course now we get Cupid Brand Guidelines.  

Icons, A Short Film Of Iconic Cultural Images

Promoting The Sunday Times’ Culture section refresh, the short film “Icons” by creative agency Grey London and directed by Us, features a shifting series of iconic cultural moments from Oscar-winning film Forrest Gump to Auguste Rodin‘s sculpture The Thinker.

Love this, short but really effective at conveying the breath and depth of culture. Here is the making-of, once again, let's celebrate the crew:

Holiday Travel, In China

Kevin Kelly shares this amazing fact in a Google+ post: 

The largest human migration these days takes place every year around this time: Chinese Lunar New Year. Hundreds of millions of humans take every possible avenue to return to their home villages from the cities they now live in. In a space of about one week to 10 days, 3.6 billion passenger miles will be clocked on trains, buses, and cars. The Chinese search engine company Baidu (Google equivalent) created a heat map of these trips gathered from the locations provided by the smartphones of their 200 million subscribers. The three densest nexus you see here are Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong/Shenzhen.