Saturday, April 12, 2008

A Creativity Site Recommendation

Kay from California just sent an address to a mind-stirring site from the guy who wrote A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative, just re-released in a 25th anniversary edition.

The same fellow also produced the Creative Whack Pack, a set of cards with 64 different imaginative idea-producing strategies and the Ball of Whacks, "a creativity workshop in a ball."

I have a set of those cards in my bottom desk drawer, but I'd never before gone looking for the site: Creative Think by Roger von Oech. It's a plenty lively place.

In a recent post, von Oech suggests having a "mantra" for your work, but using the word more in the sense of a motto. His is "Look for a second right answer." That's bound to produce interesting outcomes, and it contains a strategy not simply a goal.

My own is "Go after the best result," with the fuller version being: "I unhesitatingly, serenely, joyfully go after the best result." I want to figure out a way to build in the kind of strategy his offers. I'm convinced that having a pithy statement of guiding principle installed in my brain is a bit like having a centerboard in a sailboat.





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