Bruce Nussbaum is a professor of innovation and design at
Parsons School of design. Among many
other things, Bruce is an award-winning writer and former assistant managing
editor for Business Week. He is an expert in innovation and
creativity. In his book he coins
the phrase creative intelligence (CQ) which he describes as a cultural
literacy. CQ is what is needed to solve problems
in the modern, rapid changing, world that traditional methods have failed.
Bruce shines a light on creativity and how it occurs. He states that the brain functions in a distinct state when a
person is creating. Some have said the zone they are in while creating is "like leaving the planet". Creativity is not just right-brained it is whole
brained. Creativity is something that
can be cultivated and it is social. He
breaks down creativity into 5 competencies: Knowledge Mining – connecting information from various sources in
new ways. Framing – Seeing the world
through different lenses and adapting from points of view. Playing – The social structure of play. Environments where failure and risk taking
are promoted and where winning occurs. Making
– Creating something or the “doing” part of creativity. Pivoting – Moving
from an idea to actual production. The
five competencies build a foundation for a new kind of economic system he calls
Indie Capitalism.
In this book Bruce argues that creativity needs to be recognized as a skill that benefits the economy and there should be policy that promotes
it in schools. Analytical abilities used to be what CEO's looked for in employees. Now those skills must be accompanied by creative skills to be successful. He says creativity is something that should be fluid and done
every day. Asian counties a studding
creativity, promoting it in schools, and practicing it to boost
industry. We are not.
I though this book made really good points and I found many parallels
form this book to Daniel Pink’s A Whole
New Mind. The industrialization of education with the emphasis of
standardized testing is killing creativity.
Creativity is hard to measure but is an extremely important literacy
that isn’t being recognized in schools.
Business leaders understand this so should educators.
