How Bird Brain was Hatched

Any visit of Jeff Pulver to Israel is in itself a reason to celebrate. And we do. Here at Afeka College, my new ‘home’, we have a special relationship with Jeff, as he is the first international member of the Board of Governors of the College.

Earlier this year, we hosted Jeff’s 140 Conference here, and when we found out that he would be here for Purim, we (Sharon Ariel and I) rushed to organize one of Jeff’s networking breakfasts.But we figured that it would be a shame to have hundreds of interesting and creative people here just for an hour or two of schmoozing. Why not add some kind of program/symposium following the fun?

Since we are at an engineering college, my first idea was to have a symposium focusing on the future of mobiles, or something equally geeky. But Jeff sent me a Facebook message suggesting that I look for a subject that I am passionate about.

Needless to say, I am passionate about creativity: teaching creative thinking (my first job at Afeka College, together with Alon Amit, was teaching a course called the ‘Art and Science of CreativeTthinking’), and sharing the culture and spirit of creativity. In this context I profess to be a follower and disciple of Yossi Vardi, who has been spreading this bug in Israel and abroad over the past years (more on that later).

So the first idea was a symposium on creative thinking: can it be taught or naught? Here at the college, we have a rare ensemble of full-time and part-time staff (and even students) who use creative thinking methodologies (TRIZ, SIT, brainstorming, etc.) in their courses. But this might quickly turn into a wrestling match between people proposing the various techniques. Also, it would be unidirectional and informative, a bunch of talking heads, rather than experiential.

Enter the un-conference. The un-conference is a meeting in which there is a high level of democracy. In other words, the people attending can suggest themselves as speakers, as well as the topics they choose. The schedule is dynamic and sometimes spontaneous. Wondrous things can happen in the class and outside as well.

So I contacted Yossi and asked for his moral support. He agreed, and suggested that we work together with one of his up-and-coming youngsters, Noam Fine. Noam and I met up briefly at the DLD in Munich, and then at the Arcaffe at Shuster Center (one of my favorite haunts, I used to perform there a decade ago when it was called “Rinchi’s”). Following some uffish thought, we settled on an un-conference on creative spirit and named it “Bird Brain”. Noam added the 10 to make it look respectable. He also designed the logo, set up a wiki. We enlisted the formidable organizational skills of Sharon Ariel (head of marketing at the college) and thus the un-conference was born.

So what went on at Bird Brain 10? In the auditorium, we had an eclectic mix of birds sharing their thoughts, visions, and art. Yossi talked about silliness as next to creativeness, and brought Noa Vax to the stage for an impromptu microphone tapping percussion solo. The next batter up was Yossi’s formidable brother Didi who talked about amazing useless things (two of which are on permanent display at the college). The Vardi brothers were followed by thespians, orators, musicians, magicians, conductors, inventors, patentors, and more. Presiding over the meeting on Mor’s perch was Max the talking parrot, who had very little to say, and was very popular as a result.

Outside, Hagai Cohen eggzibited his printer-organ, Moti Sokolov, president of the college rode on Didi Vardi’s walkcycle, Yossi Matias googled on the piano, while Ilil gave out delicious jam samples (jam session with jam), Aviva and Jehudi gave out smiling roses. There were lots of smiles.

You had to be there. If you weren’t, well we plan to have Bird Brain 11 on the day right after Purim, 2011.

For more on Bird Brain you can check out:

Managing Greatness
Appreciating and encouraging greatness
Best of BirdBrain
by Gil Reich on March 3, 2010

48create - creative thinking method

About two years ago, I was approached by the President of Afeka College, Prof. Moti Sokolov. He had heard (quite correctly) that I was interested in taking a sabbatical, and teaching an interdisciplinary course at the undergraduate level. This is practically impossible at large, conservative, departmentalized universities, but Afeka is a top notch community college, focusing on engineering students.

The topic which we decided upon was "multidisciplinary creative thinking". Moti's stipulation was that the course be given in English. I happily agreed.

To develop and present the course, I enlisted my right hand man (literally, being left-handed myself), Dr. Alon Amit. Alon a young man of multiple talents and pursuits: internet whiz, dentist, cook, entrepreneur and chocolate aficionado, inter alia. We found that there are over fifty different techniques for creative thinking available. After looking at many of them, we decided to develop our own interactive course, bringing together a unique mix of internet and science, poetry and patents, copy writing and technology.

There were several important features of our course:

Fun, silliness and active participation were encouraged and pursued. Applause and praise were welcome; constructive criticism was tolerated. Each student was issued with the name badge of a famous pseudoparticipant. Thus, during the course, each student went by the name of his/her particular namesake: Sir Isaac Newton, Margaret Thatcher, George Gershwin, etc.

Most of our 'get togethers' were composed of a mosaic of different 'corners', including

• vignettes from movies and advertising
• inventions with 'legs'
• famous innovators (this included writers and musicians as well as inventors)
• riddle solving and composing
• trying to improve erstwhile mundane objects and processes
• show and tell

A few of the lectures were more focused, and less interactive, relating to specific subjects, such as

• protection of ideas
• current methodologies for creative thinking

We often wandered off the game plan, allowing ourselves to meander laterally on a wide variety of tangents. For example, a word which the students didn't know might lead us to a poem, song or website (we were online the whole time). These unanticipated outings were great fun and engendered the lots of creative thinking. If Alon and I otherwise discovered a classic movie, poem or innovator that the students were unaware of (for example Andrew Marvell's marvelous "To a Coy Mistress"), then the students were instructed to seek out the poem and we read it together during the next class. We 'rediscovered' Tom Lehrer, Monty Python, and Bing Crosby, just to name a few. They also brought in their favorite inventions, video and audio clips.

To get a high mark, students needed to actively participate in class and via e-mail during the week. They would get 'bonus points' for anything and everything clever, original and funny. The course assignment was to submit a written proposal for an innovative restaurant.

I must admit that we didn't anticipate how successful the course would be. The 40 engineering students that participated in the course had vivid imaginations, were great in lateral thinking (when encouraged to do so), and rose to the many challenges of the course. They developed splendid and sometimes hilarious ideas for innovative companies, improved existing products, invented restaurants of all kinds and shapes.

During the classes, we discovered that certain approaches worked better than others.

For example, we found that in order to 'think outside the box', it helps if you have a box. We discussed various ways that you can modify a product or process (e.g., changing various physical properties). But the students' and our own ability to think of new innovations worked best when we gave them examples of things to change.

This led us to the development of a very simple process which we now call "48create". According to this method, we give the students a list of 48 ways to change the world, and 48 things to change (of course the ways and things can both be modified and adapted).

Then we pick (randomly, or on purpose) several from each list. So, for example, the things we might want to change might be:

• Coins
• Ping pong ball
• buttering bread
  
• Parking space

The four ways might be:

• Color
• Direction
• Frequency
• Size

The advantages of this technique are its simplicity, and that it works. I tried it out at the University of Toronto last September, and within a few minutes, science students were busy discussing new (and very ingenious!!) of keeping maple syrup from rolling off buttermilk pancakes.

One important aspect of the technique is that it is open ended: it seeks to foster creative thinking and innovation per se. It is not aimed towards solving a specific problem at a given time, but rather to get the creative juices flowing.

Why don't you give it a try and let us know whether it works for you? Forty-eight ways to change the world, and forty-eight things to change are available at 48create.com

And yes, of course, please feel free to add your own ways to change the world, and other things to change. That should make it even more fun!