This lecture is about creativity and design thinking. It provides you creative challenges and exercises you can choose from and apply in your life and career.
Creative Challenges
Inspiring Innovative Ideas
Creativity Workshop: Combining Ideas
Design Thinking Workshop
Resources for Career Success – study@home
Lecture 7 and 8 Employability Creativity and Personal Development 23 october 2020 internet sharing
1. University of East Anglia
Norwich Business School
Employability, Creativity and
Personal Development
NBS-5915A
Self-Making Studio
Lectures 7-8
23 October, 2020
Dr. Fahri Karakas
F.Karakas@uea.ac.uk
4. Slide 1.4
Please choose 2 of these 11 challenges
Please complete your selected challenges.
You will attach them in your individual coursework due
on Nov. 12
5. Slide 1.5
A) Please write a story using the following words:
◦ Pepper
◦ Fashion
◦ Journey
◦ Chaos
◦ Lawyer
◦ Bird
◦ Disgust
◦ Dancing
B) Please illustrate this story. You can doodle or
draw in any way that you like. You can create a
storyboard or a comic story. Do as you wish!
6. Slide 1.6
Imagine that you are given an 8th day every week. This day
will be your secret gift. However, this cannot be just another
day. You have to do something unusual or remarkable on
this day.
A) Please design this day as your ideal day. How would you
make these 8th days memorable, creative, and full of
adventure? You can write or draw or doodle on this as you
wish.
B) This will also be a day where you have an artist's date with
yourself (See Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" to learn more
about this method). Fill your day with lots of inspiration. Get
inspiration from lots of sources. What could be some of
these sources? Brainstorm below. You can consider places,
people, films, books, artwork, travel, hobbies, theatre,
museums, cafes, nature, and more.
7. Slide 1.7
Walk around the city of Norwich. You need your cell phone and
an attentive eye for this project. Pay attention to the windows of
Norwich. This project is all about windows:) Please find at least
12 different doors (of different styles, periods, colours etc.).
Take their photographs. Tag each or give each a creative title.
Did you learn new things that you have not realised before?
What are they? Provide a multidisciplinary perspective on
windows.
8. Slide 1.8
Please respond to the following questions:
1. When did you last feel curious, playful, and excited?
2. How can you increase these ‘magical moments’ in your daily
life?
3. If money was not a factor, how would you spend your life?
4. If you were able to take one year out to learn a new skill, what
would you learn? Why?
5. If your life were 120 years long and you would choose four
different careers, what would you like to do? Imagine four scenarios
(think of lives or jobs that would be fun and exciting to have).
6. If you do not worry about failure or self-image, what might
you try doing?
7. If you could only work 1 hour for your creative project on one
day; what would you do during that hour?
9. Slide 1.9
You will revisit your failures in various aspects of your life. You need to be
very honest with yourself about failures. If you want to lead an interesting
life, you will be taking risks and face failure all the time. Failures can be
viewed as stepping stones - they can be turned into learning.
Find and revisit these failures or U TURNS in your life: Something happened
or it did not work. You changed approach, pivoted, or dropped it entirely
perhaps? What happened?
A) Entrepreneurship or Professional Work
or Career
What were the challenges?
How did you resolve (or fail to resolve) the challenges?
What did or did not work?
How would you do it differently next time?
Going Forward: Identify one small action in each domain that you can
implement in your life. How will you go forward? Identify your action plan
and write down an action for each domain above.
10. Slide 1.10
You will revisit your failures in various aspects of your life. You need to be very
honest with yourself about failures. If you want to lead an interesting life, you will be
taking risks and face failure all the time. Failures can be viewed as stepping stones -
they can be turned into learning.
Find and revisit these failures or U TURNS in your life: Something happened or it did
not work. You changed approach, pivoted, or dropped it entirely perhaps? What
happened?
B) Creativity and Arts (music, visual arts, film,
theatre, crafts, dance, writing, and design)
Please re-visit each area above - one by one.
What were the challenges?
How did you resolve (or fail to resolve) the challenges?
What did or did not work?
How would you do it differently next time?
Share your reflections.
Going Forward: Identify one small action in each domain that you can
implement in your life. How will you go forward? Identify your action plan and
write down an action for each domain above.
11. Slide 1.11
There are 36 fantasy challenges below (6*6). You can choose 6 of the 36 mini fantasy
challenges below and implement them. You can also choose any mix you prefer. For example, you
can go on 1 fantasy adventure from each link below. In total, you will go on 6 adventures/fantasies.
1. Create six fantastic adventures set in virtual reality
https://medium.com/the-innovation/create-six-fantastic-adventures-set-in-virtual-reality-
c5a89d0eaa8e?source=friends_link&sk=7a2f0ffed0901fa6021b586351b14f6b
2. Create six epic adventures set in outer space
https://medium.com/the-innovation/create-six-epic-adventures-set-in-outer-space-
c903c471799?source=friends_link&sk=013d0a3074417338c022237b63ba7469
3. Imagine you can be part of any fantasy universe
https://medium.com/the-innovation/imagine-you-can-be-part-of-any-fantasy-universe-
ee9d5a4c7c66?source=friends_link&sk=629595f0d3675efe998080dc5f98163c
4. Imagine you can travel back to any period in world history
https://medium.com/the-innovation/imagine-you-can-travel-back-to-any-period-in-world-
history-5fda34e8326a?source=friends_link&sk=ff1fef995d1a5500b37c51739e1671c9
5. Imagine you can travel to the future (any future period and location)
https://medium.com/the-innovation/imagine-you-can-travel-to-the-future-any-future-period-
and-location-10334bcf61f3?source=friends_link&sk=d16706bedd31a8008f5993d0f9b179a2
6. Imagine you will go on six adventures in six countries
https://medium.com/the-innovation/imagine-you-will-go-on-six-adventures-in-six-countries-
43d53675a947?source=friends_link&sk=331356c413d1d354f5280b7b9a9753c1
12. Slide 1.12
Please choose 2 of these 11 challenges
Please complete your selected challenges.
You will attach them in your individual coursework due
on Nov. 12
13. Slide 1.13
Take notes and do brainstorming – capture your ideas on
your creative challenges in 3 minutes
Please discuss & share your initial ideas & choices in
teams (4 minutes).
19. HOLY CRAP
• ORIGINALLY CALLED
HAPI FOOD, ONE OF
THEIR FIRST
CUSTOMERS
EXCLAIMED “HOLY
CRAP… THIS IS
AMAZING!”
• SALES INCREASED BY
1000% AFTER
CHANGING THEY
CHANGED THEIR
NAME TO HOLY CRAP
CEREAL.
51. Slide 1.51
Problem
identification,
reframing and sense-
making
Visualisation,
ideation and
brainstorming
Iteration, prototyping
and building
solutions
Involving
stakeholders, getting
and incorporating
feedback
Refinement of
solutions, assessing
feasibility and
viability
Piloting. launching,
financing, and
implementing
solutions
Immersion in the
field, observation,
and listening
Cycle of Design
Thinking
HEAR
CREATE
DELIVER
56. Resources for Career Success
Workshop@Home
Please go over these slides at home. Reflect and brainstorm ways of how you can use
these resources for your career.
70. Slide 1.70
Your brain loves humour and surprises. Try to engineer
humour and surprise.
Discover inspiring innovative ideas around you. These
might come from all walks of life. Be alert and open to
learning.
Creativity, at its core, is connecting unrelated things
together.
71. Slide 1.71
You can easily master and use principles and processes of
design thinking if you want to innovate.
It starts with immersing yourself into the field and
observing your clients in everyday life. How do they use
the product or service? What are the bigger
issues/problems here? How can you re-frame and re-
define the problem?
You first apply divergent thinking (find lots of ideas
through brainstorming – no judgements). Then apply
convergent thinking (turn most promising ideas into a
prototype and build it soon.
73. Slide 1.73
Explore Journeys in Self-Making Studio
Review lecture and seminar materials
◦ It is your responsibility to learn module skills/knowledge and
make them useful for yourself and your career
Complete the exercises on the slides
Keep a diary to document your learning, progress, and reflections
Document/gather evidence on your personal development, learning, and skill
development to make progress on your portfolio
Finish your 3 paragraphs on Lectures 1&2, 3&4, 5&6
Finish your Seminar Activities: 1-6
Choose and apply two (2) of the creative
challenges/imagination experiments