The Creativity Advantage

Creativity is usually seen as a good thing, but why? The Creativity Advantage first offers an overview of creativity studies with an emphasis on the little-discussed benefits of being creative. These include how creativity can lead to self-insight, help people heal, forge connections with others, inspire drive, and enable people to leave behind a meaningful legacy. Written in an engaging style and illustrated with interesting anecdotal material, this book offers a new perspective on creativity scholarship that can serve as an introduction to the field for newcomers or as a way to encourage new avenues for research.

How can science help us develop our creativity, become better creative thinkers and problem solvers and use this as an advantage throughout our lives?The Creative Advantage is a deep dive into the science that fuels creativity. It explains how we can rewire our brain, understand our motivators, modify our behaviours, boost our skillset and instill habits to give us an advantage in this rapidly changing and competitive world.By demystifying creativity and demonstrating that it's a learned skillset, this book provides practical ways to tap into creative problem-solving techniques to incorporate into the everyday life choices. Combined with your brain's 80 billion neurons you're geared to have a creative advantage in life, to be your best self. The Creative Advantage takes the reader through these key areas:?Outlining the key elements of creative problem solving, a universal process that can enable anyone to become proficient in defining and ideating on a problem and developing, then acting on a solution;?Clarifying what's happening in the brain and how we can rewire it for creative insight;?Demonstrating how the four key elements of creativity can be cultivated: understanding our defining intrinsic motivators; identifying the essential skills and behaviours to enhance creativity; developing subject expertise through deliberate practice and, controlling our work and social environment for maximum impact; ?The value of building creative muscles through habit formation and creating ease by establishing routines to ensure your practice sticks;?The science linking creativity and brain health with a focus on the importance of sleep, movement and restorative activities to enhance cognitive abilities;?Practical ways to introduce play, daydreaming, mind- body connections to expand creative powers;?Identifying barriers, myths and what's holding you back from being your best creative self; and ?A framework to show how creativity can be applied to key life stages, enhancing both our personal and professional lives. With creative insight comes increased confidence to change your personal circumstances and in doing so the world around you, giving you understanding, knowledge and an advantage in all aspects of life.

Creativity is the most important asset we have to negotiate through this rapidly changing world. From the way we manage our work life and conduct business, to how we learn a new skill, model behaviours for our children and shape the way we age to express our unique selves, the creative brain has no limits.By broadening the applicability of creativity and recognising how it can elevate us both personally and professionally, we can start to realise the enormous reach we can have as parents, leaders, educators and in everyday life. We can establish the foundations of the creative advantage. As leaders we can have more impact as we learn the skills of effective and creative leadership to enable us to manage the challenges faced by our workplace teams, organisations and the society at large. As educators and parents, we're discovering the role creativity plays in development and learning, with educational psychologists identifying that the creative process underpins classroom learning as well as critical informal learning from speaking our first language to engaging in group play. As maturing adults we can tap into positive peak experiences, the 'flow' that contributes to happy, healthy and fulfilling lives, as well as face everyday problems that require creative responses.We must nurture and take advantage of our own individual creative abilities if we're to solve the pressing problems facing our world. This ultimately is the objective of this book, to lay out the science behind the apparent mystery of creativity, to not only appreciate our creative potential but to give us all the motivation and the tools to obtain a creative advantage in all aspects of life.It's curated from the latest research from the world's most renowned experts and thinkers in the fields of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, social science, education and psychology to provide an understanding and practical approach to successfully create an advantage where you work, live, play and as you age.

The Creative Advantage Book is the first guide for Creatives who want to take their passion to the next level - and succeed with their creative project in the 21st-Century.The Creative Advantage Book is created to encourage you to pursue your creative dream - and to make sure that your dream becomes a reality.If you're a graphic designer, a musician, a writer, a photographer, a writer, or a performer... or if you're a part of any other creative domain - The Creative Advantage Book will help you focus on the deep hidden structures that make Creatives successful - regardless of the field they're in. By learning these "creative blueprints," illustrated with numerous real-life examples (such as: Daft Punk (music), Karl Lagerfeld (fashion), Philippe Starck (design), etc.), you will be able to think, feel and act like the best Creatives in the world. In The Creative Advantage Book you will learn:- The 3 fundamental rules of creativity.- How to ignite your creative power.- How to effectively handle rejection.- How to break through in your domain.- How to get rid of creative fears for good.- The secret of the most successful Creative in the world.... and more!The Creative Advantage Book includes 2 bonus features:Bonus 1: "How they did it." Interviews: 12 Creatives reveal the key to their success.Bonus 2: Online access to 23 coaching web videos.

Swarm Creativity introduces a powerful new concept-Collaborative Innovation Networks, or COINs. Its aim is to make the concept of COINs as ubiquitous among business managers as any methodology to enhance quality and competitive advantage. The difference though is that COINs are nothing like other methodologies. A COIN is a cyberteam of self-motivated people with a collective vision, enabled by technology to collaborate in achieving a common goal--n innovation-by sharing ideas, information, and work. It is no exaggeration to state that COINs are the most productive engines of innovation ever. COINs have been around for hundreds of years. Many of us have already been a part of one without knowing it. What makes COINs so relevant today, though is that the concept has reached its tipping point-thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web. This book explores why COINS are so important to business success in the new century. It explains the traits that characterize COIN members and COIN behavior. It makes the case for why businesses ought to be rushing to uncover their COINs and nurture them, and provides tools for building organizations that are more creative, productive and efficient by applying principles of creative collaboration, knowledge sharing and social networking. Through real-life examples in several business sectors, the book shows how to leverage COINs to develop successful products in R & D, grow better customer relationships, establish better project management, and build higher-performing teams. In short, this book answers four key questions: Why are COINs better at innovation? What are the key elements of COINs? Who are the people that participate in COINs and how do they become members? And how does an organization transform itself into a Collaborative Innovation Network?

The ability to generate new products and services is emerging as one of the few sources of competitive advantage. There is no shortage of books on personal creativity or collections of creativity techniques. What makes Peter Cook's approach unique is its strategic perspective. He is concerned with ways of developing organizations where creativity is valued and systematically encouraged.

Experts describe current perspectives and experimental approaches to understanding the neural bases of creativity. This volume offers a comprehensive overview of the latest neuroscientific approaches to the scientific study of creativity. In chapters that progress logically from neurobiological fundamentals to systems neuroscience and neuroimaging, leading scholars describe the latest theoretical, genetic, structural, clinical, functional, and applied research on the neural bases of creativity. The treatment is both broad and in depth, offering a range of neuroscientific perspectives with detailed coverage by experts in each area. The contributors discuss such issues as the heritability of creativity; creativity in patients with brain damage, neurodegenerative conditions, and mental illness; clinical interventions and the relationship between psychopathology and creativity; neuroimaging studies of intelligence and creativity; the neuroscientific basis of creativity-enhancing methodologies; and the information-processing challenges of viewing visual art. Contributors Baptiste Barbot, Mathias Benedek, David Q. Beversdorf, Aaron P. Blaisdell, Margaret A. Boden, Dorret I. Boomsma, Adam S. Bristol, Shelley Carson, Marleen H. M. de Moor, Andreas Fink, Liane Gabora, Dennis Garlick, Elena L. Grigorenko, Richard J. Haier, Rex E. Jung, James C. Kaufman, Helmut Leder, Kenneth J. Leising, Bruce L. Miller, Apara Ranjan, Mark P. Roeling, W. David Stahlman, Mei Tan, Pablo P. L. Tinio, Oshin Vartanian, Indre V. Viskontas, Dahlia W. Zaidel

The use of imagination can lead to greater outcomes in problem solving, innovation, and critical thinking. By providing access to creative outlets, productivity increases in schools, businesses, and other professional settings. Exploring the Benefits of Creativity in Education, Media, and the Arts is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the stimulation and implementation of creative thinking in academic and professional environments. Highlighting the foundations of creativity from theoretical and neuroscientific perspectives, this book is ideally designed for academics, professionals, educators, and practitioners.

Drawing from 25 years of successful marketing and acclaimed, award-winning work, the authors show that bankable, creative ideas come from zeroing in on the one key business problem that must be solved and then rigorously unearthing insights that will lead to a spectacular solution.