what an amazing day filled with
incredible ideas so where do these ideas
come from this is a question that I have
been pondering for the last 35 years
where do ideas come from I started out
as a neurophysiologist poking little
tiny cells with even tinier electrodes
seeing what they would tell me about
creativity and innovation after I
finished my PhD I went out to study and
sort of learn all about creativity in
the wild working in big companies and
small companies even starting my own and
for the last almost 13 years I've been
at Stanford teaching classes on
creativity and innovation and
entrepreneurship and in my classes I've
done endless experiments with my
students trying to figure out what is
involved with unlocking creativity what
I've realized over the last few years is
that we look at creativity in much too
narrow a way we really need to open the
aperture and look at creativity in a
very different light and what I've done
is put together a model that I'm going
to basically explain to you in the next
few minutes about all the things we need
to unlock creativity and I want to point
out before I take it apart that this
innovation engine that's what I call it
has two parts the inside is you your
knowledge your imagination your attitude
and the outside is the outside world the
resources the habitat and the culture so
let's start let's start where most
people start most people start thinking
about creativity by thinking about
imagination so let's start there now
imagination one of the sad things is
that we don't really teach people how to
increase their imagination in school and
so there really are ways to increase our
ability to come up with really
interesting ideas we have to go back to
kindergarten to see where the problem is
if you're in kindergarten it's very
likely you'll get a question like this
what is the sum of five plus five so
what's the answer to this ten you guys
are really smart right okay we know it's
Ted because there's one right answer to
this problem but what if we asked this
question in a slightly different way
what if we ask what two numbers add us
to ten how many answers are this to this
infinite infinite number and this is
critically important in something that
many of the speakers have brought up
today is it the way you ask the question
determines the type of answers you get
the question you asked is the frame into
which the answers will fall and if you
don't ask the question in a thoughtful
way you're not going to get really
interesting answers consider the fact
that the Copernican Revolution came
about by reframing the question what if
the earth is not the center of the solar
system what if the Sun is and that
opened up the entire study of astronomy
but you know what you don't have to do
this in such a serious way you can
practice it every single day with jokes
because most jokes that we tell are
interesting because the frame switches
in the middle of the joke consider this
the Pink Panther if you've seen them
smoothie he walks into a hotel there's a
little dog sitting on the carpet he says
to the hotel manager does your dog bite
and the manager says no my dog doesn't
bite he reaches down the dog basically
attacks him he says what happened he
says well that's not my dog think about
it whenever you hear a joke
you will find that almost always it's
that the flame has switched in the
middle and it's a really fun way to
practice framing and reframing problems
so that's one of the ways that you can
increase your imagination but there are
other ways one of the key ways is to
connect and combine ideas most
inventions of the world most innovations
come from putting things together that
haven't been there together before often
in really unusual and surprising ways
one of my favorite ways to practices is
with the Japanese art of shin Dogu shin
Dogu is the art of creating unyuu Schley
s-- inventions they're not useful
they're not useless they're unused lists
and what they really are is a way of
saying there might be something here but
I'm not quite sure so in this example
with the Umbra
on the shoes well gee it might not be
very practical but it unlocks some
really really interesting ideas speaking
of shoes here's another Shindo goo
okay little dust fans again it might not
be practical but you know what there's
an interesting idea there again you can
use jokes for inspiration every single
day one of my favorite things whenever I
get the New Yorker and I'm sure anyone
who reads The New Yorker knows
the first thing you do is you open up
the back cover and you look at the the
cartoon caption contest the cartoon
caption contest always puts things
together that are not obvious often
consider out of scale or things that
would be very very surprising to have in
the same frame and your job is to come
up with a really creative way to connect
these things in really interesting and
surprising ways so here's a caption for
this cartoon it is we'll start you out
here then give you more responsibilities
as you gain experience now of course you
can come up with an endless number of
other solutions so those are two ways
for you to increase your imagination but
there's another that I want to bring up
today and that is challenging
assumptions one of the biggest problems
we have is when we ask people questions
and give them problems they come up with
the first right answer so we end up
getting really incremental solutions so
what we do in our creativity class is we
give problems that are really surprising
where there is not one right answer so
here's an example of one I just gave
recently this is the exact design brief
I gave this actually a group of students
at Osaka University and their challenge
was to create as much value as possible
value measured in any way they wanted
starting with the contents of one
trashcan they have two hours to do it
how'd you like that to do that one of
the interesting things about this
assignment and I put a lot of thought
into framing the problem beforehand is a
trash is actually worth it has negative
value right we have to pay people to
take it away so what happened is these
students end up spending quite a bit of
time in advance of diving into the
project thinking about what value meant
for them they thought about friendship
and community and health and financial
security all sorts of things that
ended up informing the way they thought
about the trashcans that they were going
to use to create some value to raise the
bar even further I gave them a little
bit more of a challenge I told them that
I had sent a note at which I did to my
colleagues around the world
and invited their students to
participate at the same time so there
were students in Europe in Asia in the
US and in Latin America all doing the
same project at the same time so let me
show you a couple of the things that
resulted from them a group in Ecuador
started out with the garbage can filled
with yard waste yard waste I probably
wouldn't have broke to that trashcan
but look how an amazing thing they did
they turned it into a beautiful mural or
a girl in Ireland her mom had just gone
through her brothers sock drawer and had
a whole trashcan of old holy socks you
know what she did
they were all different colors black
white gray she cut them up sewed them
together and made the sweaters
pretty cool I hope some of you will go
through your sock drawers later today so
these are three things you can do to
increase your imagination right framing
and reframing problems connecting
combining ideas and challenging
assumptions but unfortunately this is
not enough you need to look at the other
pieces of the innovation engine and one
of the next pieces on the inside is your
knowledge your knowledge is the toolbox
for your imagination today we've heard
all about medical breakthroughs and
about autonomous vehicles and why how do
they make this these folks needed a
depth of knowledge about medicine or
about engineering to bring these ideas
to life now of course you can learn
things by going to school by reading
books but one of the most powerful ways
to learn things and decay knowledge is
by paying attention most of us do not
pay attention to the world around us not
only do we miss opportunities to see
problems we can solve but we also miss
the solutions that might be in front of
us and one of my favorite ways to teach
students this is to send them out into
locations they've been to many times
before and get them to look at them with
fresh eyes but I'm not the only one who
does this I want to tell you a quick
story about a friend of mine Bob Segall
who's a professor here at Stanford who
taught a
Stanford sophomore seminar for two weeks
and it was called the Stanford Safari
and the students basically over two
weeks act as if they were naturalist as
if they were just like Darwin in the
Galapagos but they were on the Stanford
campus and they talked to everyone they
could to give a different point of view
in perspective about Stanford from the
groundskeepers in the pest controller to
the librarians in the organist and all
the living Stanford presidents they
walked away not just with a deep
understanding of Stanford but an
incredible appreciation for how
important it is to pay attention but
imagination and knowledge are not enough
every person needs to have the attitude
the mindset the motivation the drive to
solve the problems are going to solve if
you don't have that drive and that
motivation you're not going to connect
and combine ideas you're not going to
reframe problems you're not going to
challenge assumptions and go beyond the
first right answer most people
unfortunately view themselves as puzzle
builders they basically see themselves
as having a very defined task and their
job is to get all the pieces and put
them together to reach that goal but
what happens if you're a puzzle builder
and you're missing one or two pieces
what happens you can't reach your goal
true innovators true entrepreneurs
actually see themselves as quilt makers
they basically take all the resources
they have around them they leverage the
things even the garbage can right they
leverage the materials they have that
they're available that are available to
them and create something that is
surprising and really fascinating this
is incredibly important we have to view
ourselves as as those who can leverage
the resources we have around us to
really make amazing things happen so
this is our internal combustion engine
for creativity our knowledge is a
toolbox for our creativity our
imagination is the catalyst for the
transformation of that knowledge into
new ideas and our attitude is the spark
that gets this going but unfortunately
that's not enough and it's one of the
reasons why there's so many of
amazingly creative people who are
basically not living up to their
creative potential because they're not
in environments that foster and
stimulate and encourage this type of
innovation so we have to look at the
outside of the innovation engine let's
start first by looking at habitats
now habitats exist several things it's
certainly the people you work with it's
the rules it's the rewards it's the
constraints it's the incentives but even
more than that it's the physical space
consider the fact that when we're little
when our kids we go to kindergarten
they're stimulating environments you
walk in you know it's a place you're
supposed to be creative it's colorful
they're a lot of manipulatives you're
the room is very flexible but
unfortunately you graduate from this
type of environment and you get to go
study somewhere like this the chairs are
lined up in rows and columns
they're bolted to the floor and if you
talk to anybody you get in trouble I've
told you I spent my entire growing up
writing silence is gold and silence is
golden okay and the fact is we then get
very upset because of students you know
they're just not so creative anymore and
everyone laments that and then they are
successful in this environment and they
go off to this environment where they
work and I know why you're laughing
because it's all too familiar these type
of offices were designed to be like
prisons and unfortunately what happens
is we again get very frustrated that the
people who are working in these type of
environments are not very creative the
thing is the space we're in tells a
story every space is the stage on which
we play off our life and it tells us
what role we play how we should act I'm
fortunate enough to teach at the D
school and these are actually some
pictures from my class now it might look
like the kids are back in kindergarten
they're actually working on a very
sophisticated problem here as are the
students in this picture but the room is
much more like a kindergarten space with
lots of manipulatives lots of things to
prototype the room is set up it's like a
theater we can set it up differently
every five minutes depending upon what
we want to do nothing is bolted down
really innovative firms know this as
well this is a picture from Google in
Zurich this is a picture from Pixar
these are not frivolous because these
are messages that the company is giving
to the employees that say
innovation creativity and playfulness
are valued here but this is not enough
we also have to think about the
resources we have in our environment and
resources come in so many different
flavors unfortunately we think of
resources and things like money and
money is a fabulous resource we
certainly benefited from it here at
Stanford in Silicon Valley but it's one
of many resources that we have available
to us we need to look at the natural
resources we have to look at the
processes we put in place we have to
look at the cultures we build
unfortunately I get a chance to see this
happening in different places the world
I was up in northern Chile recently and
it was absolutely spectacular gorgeous
up in the north of Chile you know the
beach was endless it's three thousand
mile beach and the Andes are there and I
said to the people in this town of out
of Augusta gee what's really getting in
the way of your success and this man
said to me well it's a really horrible
environment I said really did you look
outside because they didn't see they
were trying to replicate the resources
someone had somewhere else as opposed to
seeing the resources they already had so
here picture of this city think of the
culture their culture is important
culture is the last piece of the
innovation engine culture is like the
background music of any community of any
organization of every team of every
family and I'm going to play you two
video clips to demonstrate this think of
the music in these video clips as the
culture in each of these scenes I'm
going to play the same clip twice this
is a clip from 1919 Coca Cola bottling
Factory okay and I want you to think
about how you feel what you would want
to be there and what you think is in
those bottles
okay I'm gonna go on to the next one
okay you got the point right so the fact
is this is the outside of your
innovation engine but let's put it all
together now you might say okay Tina
that's really interesting but how come
you have this fancy mobius strip here
you could have just had an inside and
outside but it's a mobius strip because
the inside of the outside are completely
woven together and nothing can be looked
at in isolation let me show you how
imagination and habitat are parallel
here because the habitats we build are
the external manifestation of our
imagination if you can imagine it you
can't build it and in addition the
habitats we build directly affect our
imagination the way we think the way we
feel the way we act this is also true
with knowledge and resources the more we
know the more resources we can unlock
and the more we restored the type of
resources we have determined what we
know right the more we know about
fishing the more fish we're going to
catch the more fish we have in our
environment the more likely we know
about fishing this is also true with
attitude and culture
culture is a collective attitudes of the
community and the culture clearly
affects how each of us thinks the
wonderful thing though is this mobius
strip of the innovation engine is so
powerful that you can start anywhere if
you're the manager of an organization
you can set up you can think about the
culture and set the culture you can
build habitats that stimulate the
imagination if you're an individual you
can start by building your base of
knowledge you can start with a passion
and attitude that you're going to solve
a problem you can start anywhere to get
this innovation going the most important
thing is that everyone everyone has the
key to their innovation engine it's up
to them to turn it thank you