520R - Journal #2

The Creative Brain

Author: Ned Herrmann

Ordinary people think creative people are awesome. In fact, everybody has creative abilities but people block their creativity by themselves because they don’t want to take risks and do something wrong.

All human beings are able to be creative, it’s innate. We don’t need to be a genius. Just a solution to a mundane problem can be creative. Our creativity can always be reaccessed.

There are three keys to creativity: Understand the creative process and its parts and how the four steps of knowing occur at each part. Understand what obstructs each step at each part. Try to increase creative awareness all the time.

Creativity’s source is brain. Creativity involves both invention and action. Ideas can come very fast but action can take a long time. Ideas can come out of only one part of the brain but action needs mental capabilities in all parts of our brain. Action can involve some different steps while ideas can come in a second.

Graham Wallas described four stages for creativity process. The first stage is preparation stage where we define the problem, search for solutions. The second stage is incubation stage. We just leave the problem and let our minds rest. The third stage is illumination stage. At this stage ideas arise. The last stage is verification. At this stage we search whether the idea achieves to solve the problem or not.

The key to living creatively is passion. Children’s passion and curiosity is the source of their creativity. We can re-learn a lot of things from children. Passionate people are enthusiastic, energetic and much more creative.

About me...

Hello,

I'm Sinem and I come from Turkey. I'm 23 years old. I studied Advertising and PR at university in Turkey. I'm very happy to be in Vancouver and at UBC.
See you,

Sinem

520R - Journal #1

Everyone Can Be Creative

Most of the people think creativity is the work of genius. But creativity is part of human’s nature and everyone can be creative. I read an article which experts discussed creativity . The article is “Let Your Creativity Soar”. The main idea of the article is that everybody can be creative.

This article interested me because I studied advertising and public relations at university. My major was concernd with creativity. Professors at university taught us that creativity comes when you really try to be creative. You need to work on. When you believe that you can be creative , when you diverse your knowledge and when you’re aware of your social environment you’ll see that you can be creative. The more interesting and diverse the things around you , the more interesting and creative your ideas become. There’re some techniques which helps you to be creative. For example, brainstorming is a good technique. We did brainstorming about every topic, brands, advertisements, current events etc. at university. It really helped to develop our perspective and of course creativity.

The experts who wrote the article say that many people are afraid of new ideas. They think they have no time for creativity. But creative process in individuals is orderly every moment in time. They need to pay attention to their thoughts and capture them. There are also some exercises to boost creativity. Creativity is teachable. Nirmal Verma who is a celebrated Indian writer says “Creativity is a matter of regular hard work and not inspiration. There's nothing glorifying about it. It's 99 per cent perspiration."

Creativity is not a talent. I believe tahat everyone has potential to be creative . They should try. They’ll feel happier, more independent and they will be self- reliant.