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You Can Manage and Program Creativity

By Thomas Eklund

For years I have felt that I can be more creative when using a computer than in any other way. Years ago I searched for, but did not find any good explanations on why this is the case. I was also looking for a sufficiently comprehensive method that I could use for managing my creative thinking processes.

As an IT business analyst, I have documented some very complex information flows and workflows, and also built computer applications based on these documents.

So, I was wondering, if it is also possible to document human creativity similarly to documenting business transactions related subject matters and information flows and workflows?

Can the outcome also be rendered programmable?

I decided to document creative thinking processes, both my own and these, for which I could find sources that allow me to observe the creative processes (documentaries, for example). I listed some of the sources that I used in the end of the CreativityModel Method Development Background article.

The approach that I used is somewhat similar to documenting IT business analysis cases for complex applications, except that for project specific rules used US patent application filing guidelines.

The end result is CreativityModel Method creative thinking skills management method that addresses goal oriented business creativity and self-expressive artistic creativity usage, so that both types of creative thinking skills can be combined as necessary.

I considered patenting the work that I did, but decided for proceeding in open source environment instead. The idea was to put together the first version of CreativityModel Method, so that it can be analyzed and developed further in versions, in open source like environment, using community input and making the results available to all the interested users, free of charge.

Whether or not this open source approach will work remains to be seen. If it doesn't work, I will have to figure out other means and ways for CreativityModel Method further development and usage.

Summary of Conclusions

When I describe CreativityModel Method initial versions I try to avoid drawing or implying any firm conclusions. The approach that I used for putting together these CreativityModel Method versions was based on observations that were not scientific. For this reason, below I'm using the phrase "it is likely" a lot.

  • It is likely that you do manage your creative thinking skills daily, even though you may not give these processes much thought during your everyday life.
  • It is also likely that in addition to doing so subconsciously, you can also manage your creative thinking skills by knowingly, consciously controlling, arranging and directing usage of your goal oriented and self-expressive thoughts. These processes are not very complicated. The catch is, that you can do this within your abilities, expertise and experience levels.
  • It is also likely that you can learn to manage your goal oriented and self-expressive creativity and train yourself in the relevant areas, and probably other people as well, if you want to do so.
  • The above is related to CreativityModel Method usage. It is also likely that CreativityModel Method principles can be programmed into computer applications, so that intelligently behaving computer application functionality can be created with less resources than artificial intelligence engineering and expert systems require.

I have done years of work on the above areas, as a hobby. So, here, in this section, are some of my insights.

This website contains CreativityModel Method's full formal version and some explanatory articles that I wrote back in 2009.

I will post the newer articles on Creativity Management Network. On that website, below the articles, in the right hand side, are tags. Follow the CreativityModel Method tags, like this article has, and you will find a growing number of articles that are related to this topic. Other creativity management areas will be addressed as well.

If you are interested in these subject matters and, perhaps, in further development of CreativityModel Method, please contact me on Creativity Management Network.