Creativity and

New way of
thinking
A modern class about
your brain

Slides produced by Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept.

UCL Engineering Mission

“To change the world you

need to be taught differently”

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 2

Why we are teaching
creativity?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 3

Why we are teaching
creativity?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 4

What do we mean by
“Creativity?”

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 5

Creativity: definition

Creativity:
[kree-ey-tiv-i-tee,]
The ability to transcend traditional ideal, rules, patterns,
relationships. Create meaningful new ideas, forms,
methods, interpretation, etc.
Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2016.

Wait, WHAT?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 6

Creativity: definition

“Creativity” vs “Imagination”

Imagination: the faculty or action of forming new

ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not
present to the senses.
1.1 The ability of the mind to be creative or
resourceful
en.oxforddictionaries.com

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 7

Creativity
Should we all be creative?

Hands up if you think you are a

naturally smart person..

Hands up if you think you are a

naturally creative person..

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 8

Dimensions of Creativity
Expressive creativity This is where
• – Lots of idea (but not really useful) education
usually stops
Technical creativity
• - Production based on emulation (Low Originality)
Inventive creativity
• - Seeing new possibilities and/or functions /
combination
Innovative creativity
• - Thinking outside the box, challenging the school
of thought
Emergent creativity
• - Incorporate abstract concepts – EUREKA!
This is the
common idea of
Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. creativity 9
Our idea of creativity
Why are we using the term “Creativity”
wrongly?
- We assume that creativity means art
- We also assume that a creative person is able to
see multiple point of views….
- …but, maybe, they can see only a different one
(rigidity vs flexibility)

Creativity is not for artists only and a

creative person can have just ONE
different point of view. – Common Idea

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 10

Our idea of creativity
• Naïve perspective of creativity – only few
outstanding individuals are “gifted”
• Mad Genius (Vincent Van Gogh)
• Genius (Leonardo Da Vinci)
• Scientific Analysis shows how creativity is an
inherent trait of the human brain (ability to
adapt)
• People are creative in different ways
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to
climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
– A. Einstein

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 11

Creativity

Were you more creative when you were a

child than now?

Why?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 12

Inhibiting factors
How many of these are natural?
How many of these are due to education? Pre-
Conception

Impoverished Fear of
emotional life Failure

Fear of
the
unknown Over
Certainty Reluctance
Reluctance to take Risks
to Play
Reluctance to
exert
influence
Frustration Custom-bound
avoidance
Resource
Myopia

Cognitive
Automated Judgement of
Systems Judgement of Mentors
Peers

Narrow view
Internal
External

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 13

Warm up Exercise:
Let’s try to relieve the fear or being judged by
others..

Take a sheet of paper and a PEN (no pencil)

Spend 1 minute sketching a portrait of the person

next to you (right or left). – On my mark….
1 min

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 14

What are the main elements?
Education is the main suspect for the murder of your
creativity:
Custom Bound – The teacher point of view is the only way to
solve the problem. (see point D)
Reluctance to play – Time spent to play is “not productive”
(Playfulness as direct competitor of professionalism)

Pre-conception – Idea transfer from the educator to the

students. Students live experiences vicariously through the
educator.
Only one good answer / Closed ended problems
- Fear of failure
The current education system could,
- Reluctance to take risks potentially, undermine our confidence
- Fear of Judgement peers/ mentors and, as a consequence, we tend to
- Resource Myopia explore less

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 15

 No mistakes are allowed
No errors are allowed “Victims of excellence”
Therefore all the problems are approached using a
“similarity” pattern to reach the solution.

But….
How do you call mistakes in Science?

Data
(Aka “ That’s not what we had in mind, but it’s
helpful” )

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
- T. Edison
Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 16
Remarkable mistakes in the
history of science:
• Penicillin – by Sir A. Fleming

He was searching for a "wonder drug" and

noticed that a contaminated Petri dish he had
discarded contained a mould that was
dissolving all the bacteria around it.
When he grew the mould by itself, he learned
that it contained a powerful antibiotic,
penicillin.

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 17

Remarkable mistakes in the
history of science:
• Penicillin – by Sir A. Fleming
• Pacemaker – by J. Hopps
• Microwaves ovens – by P. Spencer
• Post-it notes – by S. Silver
• Superglue – by H. Coover
• Saccharin (Synthetic sweetener) – by
Constantine Fahlberg
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Etc.

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 18

Where the actual education
model came from?
Industrial revolution (Enlightenment)
• Able to create the workforce needed
• Based on natural selection
(Less people on the top of the education ladder)
It is constructed as an assembly line:
• Each individual has been educated against same
standard.

• Subject are separated in boxes

• Education is based on batches of students

(Classified according to their age)

Education is one of the biggest stepping stone for the

economy of a country.
Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 19
 Let’s try again….
Spend one minute sketching the outline of a
house with as many little details as possible,
using your non-dominant hand.

Show the result at the person next to you.

1 MIN

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 20

Analytical/ Convergent Thinking
Judgment

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

• Judgment is not made for collaboration

• Judgement creates a box effect
• Conflictual
Removing what is not good is not enough to
be innovative!
How can we remove the use of judgment
from the process??
Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 22
What else affects your creativity?
Do you think
The working that thecanenvironment
environment positively affectcan affect
several inhibiting
aspects
your creativity or ability to have new ideas?
• Unfamiliar environment question continuously your
Why? brain (see World Coolest Office Award)
• It can limit the audience for an hypothetical question
• Defuse the fear of mentors

Pixar – Emeryville (California, USA)

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 23
Let’s try something else..
Let’s be provocative:
How would you design a lecture without the
lecturer?
Or

How would you deliver the knowledge

avoiding the fear of being judged?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 24

Some elements of Creativity
There are several processes associated with creativity:
Convergent Thinking – Analytical, (Re)search, Sequential
Divergent Thinking (Or Parallel Thinking) – Not methodical (Chaos)

Feedback & Goal

Start Feedback & Judgment
Judgment

Both are needed to be creative (And effective)

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 25
Divergent Thinking
What was the Title of the last slide?
The main elements associated with the divergent
thinking are:
Divergent Thinking
• Generate multiple answers to a single question
• Do you remember
Movement insteadany
of Judgment
of the bold yellow words?
• Reframe the question/ problem in a different way(s)
Hold Judgment
Andmultiple
what elseanswers
do we need to use ?
Reframe
• Collaboration Brainstorming is
Movement not just: “take a
• Hold Judgment Collaboration
bunch of people
and talk”
Anything else?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 27

Are you paying attention?
Everything is ripe for innovation, but you need to
pay attention to the information available
Let’s see if you have payed attention:
Work in pairs, and seat in front of each other.
One of the two has to close their eyes and
answer the following questions posed to the
other one:
A) What is the colour of the my eyes?
B) What is the colour of my hair?
C) Do I have a jumper?
D) How many colours there are in this slide?
E) What time is it?
Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 28
Paying Attention
“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen
to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them
and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young
fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over
at the other and goes "What the hell is water?”
–D. F. Wallace

• Your brain tries to limit the amount of information it

receives
• Most of the information are “for granted” to be more
efficient
• Multiple input era
Focus our attention on what we would like to improve
means changing the paradigm about it. – Creativity is
possibility! Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 29
Reframing - Education
(Thinking Outside the box)

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depend on the

solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper
question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the
problem in less than 5 minutes”
– A. Einstein

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 30

 Think out of the box!

Connect all the dots drawing 4 straight continuous lines, never lifting the
pen from the paper.

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 31

Reframing
• Kids ask what it is but
Reframing = space of Imanoeuvre
do not fix their
frame around it
• Thinking Horizontally vs Thinking Vertically
• Discovery vs Creation • Education, especially
• Opportunity during the firstisyears
What it?
allows “Space of
What is used
manoeuvre”
for?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 32

Correct Answers

5+5=?

From Tina Seelig 99U Talk Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 33
Correct Answers

? + ? = 10

From Tina Seelig 99U Talk Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 34
Exercise 2
Creative Management
• How do you put a giraffe into a fridge?
• How do you put an elephant into a fridge?
• The King of the Jungle is holding a meeting
for all of the animals. One of them is not
there. Which one?
• You are standing on the bank of an alligator
infested river and have to get to the other
side. What do you do?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 35

Exercise 3 – Google Interview
“You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and
your mass is proportionally reduced so as to
maintain your original density.
You are then thrown into an empty glass
blender. The blades will start moving in 60
seconds. What do you do?“

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 36

Reframing - Brain
• The brain has its own mechanism of “self-
judgment” (see C. Limbs Studies)
• We do to ourselves what we do to others
• Your (wonderful) brain is also hardwired with
mental shortcuts to optimise its work:
• Prototypes.
• Concepts.
• Natural problem-solving approach
(Trial & Error, Algorithm, Heuristics)

…But these connections limit your ability to

escape from the obvious thinking pattern

How to trick your brain?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 37
If you can’t win, confuse it
• Betty Edwards
(“Drawing with the
right side of the brain”)
suggests an interesting
approach…

• Take, for example, this

Picasso Sketch
(“Portrait of Igor
Stravinsky”, 1920)…

What we should do, is

to “confuse” your
brain and break the
associations it creates

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 38

 Tricking your brain

Another way to trick

you brain is to focus
on the negative
volumes… What
does it mean?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 39

Tricking your brain
Enough art…what about numbers?
Problem 1:
Try to sum up all the numbers between 1 and 10.
What is the total? 55

Problem 2:
Try to sum up all the numbers between 1 and 100.
What is the total?
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ………………………………. + 50

100 + 99 + 98 + 97 + ……………………….. + 51

101 +101 + 101 + 101 + …………………… + 101

50 times 101 = 5050

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 40
Paying Attention
• Paying attention is one of the most difficult
thing to do
• Artists are usually advantaged because they
HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION to make their job
• ….but it does not mean that we cannot do
the same.
• The important thing is how we collect, in our
mind, what we see.

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 41

Movement vs judgment
• Judgement (self judgment / against others)
is currently abused
• It tends to kill ideas
• It can create pre-conception
• ….but it is still useful if properly adopted

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 42

Idea “Movement”
Generate new wild ideas and use the concept
behind them to improve our initial design
concept.
Feasible
elements
Re-design
Lateral Thinking
Starting
Design Lateral Thinking

Divergent
Thinking
Crazy
Idea
Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 43
How do we enable
movement?
• Forced Connection / Random Starting Point
• Limited Resources
• Subtraction
• Provocation

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 44

Exercise 4 -Forced Connections
Divergent thinking can be improved also starting from
a random point:

Imagine than you have to design a candy bar.

Let’s pick a random word from the vocabulary:

We need a number between 1 – 482 (page)

We need a number between 1 – 40 (word)

Apply the random word meaning to the design.

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 45

Chindogu
Chindōgu (珍道具) is the
Japanese art of inventing
ingenious everyday gadgets that,
on the surface, seem like an ideal
solution to a particular problem.
However, chindōgu has a
distinctive feature: anyone
actually attempting to use one of
these inventions would find that it
causes so many new problems, or
such significant social
embarrassment, that effectively it
has no utility whatsoever. Thus,
chindōgu are sometimes
described as "unuseless"

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 46

Exercise 5 – Forced Connections
A London marketing company wants to
create a new way of dating without using any
app or remote device for promotional goals.

Your agency has chosen to focus on the

following aspects:
• Commuting
• Diary availability
• City
Find a connection between Dating and one of
the aspects identified by your company.
Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 47
Example Thomas C. Knox (NY, US)

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 48

Limited Resources & Subtraction

“Creativity is subtraction”
- Austin Kleton

• Creativity is often more “what to leave outside”

than “what to include”

• If we exclude the obvious pattern, what’s left?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 49

Lateral Thinking:
Example:
If I have 133 players for Wimbledon, what is
the minimum number of matches that I need
to organise to have the winner?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 50

 Exercise 3 – Blackout Poems
Force connections & Limited resources:

• Carefully select
some words from a
newspaper scrap
creating a sentence
• Black out the rest of
the article.

From Austin Kleon TEDx Talk – Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 51
“Blackout Poems”
Exercise 4 - Provocation
“I want to create a profitable business with a
restaurant that does not have a kitchen”
What should I do?

• Provocation are useful to understand what is

given for granted
• It does not matter how crazy the starting
point is

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 53

Conclusions
• Creativity turns problem into opportunities
• Convergent thinking is useful but now
abused
• Framing thing to tightly narrows down our
space of manoeuvre
• There are several techniques to increase our
creativity, but you need to work it out on
daily basis
• Divergent Thinking is not a creativity
synonym

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 54

Summary
• What is Convergent / Divergent Thinking?
• Are creativity and Lateral thinking
Synonymous?
• What are the factors that improve the
lateral thinking?
• What are the factors that reduce our lateral
thinking skill?
• What is Divergent thinking?

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 56

 Want more?
“Steal like an Artist” by Austin Kleon (2012) - Austin Kleon – TEDx Talk
“Does school kill creativity?” by Sir Ken Robinson (2011) - Sir Ken Robinson – TED Talk
“Thinking is a skill” by Edward De Bono (1984) - E. De Bono BBC Thinking Lecture
“Drawing with the right side of the brain” (1979) by Betty Edwards
“Parallel Thinking: From Socratic Thinking to De Bono Thinking” (1995) by Edward De Bono
“Six Thinking hats” (1979) by Edward De Bono
“The Divided Brain” (2011) – RSA Animated by Mc Gilchrist
“InGenius” (2012) – by Tina Seeling
“The 6 Characteristics of Truly Creative People” – 99U Talk by Tina Seeling
“Tales of Creativity and Play” (2008) by Tim Brown

Daniele Pacifici | UCL Engineering Dept. 57