R. Keith Sawyer

I read a lot of books on creativity. Part of the reason is that I speak and train on the subject. But that doesn’t explain why I get sucked into so many of them. I have the nasty feeling the reason is that I think there is a magic bullet, a philosopher’s stone, an ultimate solution to being “creative”. I know that’s a fool’s game. There is no elixir or serum or special genuflection that will cause greater creativity. I know building a creative approach comes from practicing the art of creativity and then using it. (No doubt about it, I won’t make any money if I try to write a book that says that.) But I still approach way too many books on the creative process with the hidden hope…this time…maybe this time…

I know I’m lying to myself. But I let myself keep falling into this trap of false belief because, even if none of the books contain the single great solution, most contain some good ideas.

Keeping the preceding in mind, you may understand why I was first disappointed by this book, then eventually glad to have purchased it.

The disappointment comes from blurbs and reviews that made me believe in the impossible, again. “Here,” I thought, “Might be the culmination of all the answers I’ve been looking for.” (And I know answers can’t culminate, but I think that tells you something about my mindset when I dove in.)

The book promises “The surprising path to greater creativity” (the subheading) and “an eight-step creativity program” (this from the book jacket). What the book actually delivers is stories, examples, and creative tools that are loosely gathered into eight categories which the author has declared to be steps.

So, once I was over my undeserved disappointment, I began to realize I was getting much more from the book than I expected. No, it is not an eight-step or a ten-step or a twelve-step program. But is a useful collection of information, tools, and stories that will help anyone understand how to be more creative. One measure of how well a book of this type is working for me is the number of dog-eared pages. And there were quite a few when I finished. Ideas, tools, quotes – a nice collection of useful information.

None of the preceding is meant to imply that you shouldn’t follow Sawyer’s steps and exercises if you want to be better at creativity. In fact, for someone making their first forays into becoming more creative, this might be an approach that works. I’m just saying that, for anyone who has previously done any exploring in the world of creativity, the exercises will not be the reward.

And let’s talk about timing. It may be that part of the reason this book worked so well for me was that I read much of it on a plane flight headed to a presentation I was giving on (yes, you guessed it) creativity. The timing was perfect, and I wound up using much of the discovered information in that presentation. (And I will be using much of it in future presentations.) Does that make the book good? Not necessarily. Does it make it serendipitous? Probably. But it does show that, in the right mindset, there are lessons and ideas within this book that can be quite useful.… (plus d'informations)

There are two things to think about when reading this book: how does a school’s faculty capitalize on group genius to transform mediocre education into world-class learning? And, how to we help children and teens learn to work in groups so that they learn how to stand on one another’s shoulders to solve the problems they are asked to solve? Yes, this author takes us into the world of music, business and innovation, but we can use the seven principles of effective and innovative groups to design learning experiences, particularly with web 2.0 tools to inroduce learners to the power of creative collaboration.… (plus d'informations)