Creativity - Resources

Finally, to inspire you to be creative about how you view things, here's a list from 'The Order of Things: an Archaeology of the Human Sciences' (1970, Tavistock Publications Ltd) by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. It is a scheme of classifying animals taken from a Chinese encyclopaedia.

A. Belonging to the Emperor

B. Embalmed

C. Tame

D. Sucking Pigs

E. Sirens

F. Fabulous

G. Stray Dogs

H. Included in the present classification

I. Frenzied

J. Innumerable

K. Drawn with a very fine camelhair brush

L. Et cetera

M. Having just broken the water pitcher

N. That from a way off look like flies

Foucault uses this to make an important point. The impossibility of the scheme comes not from any of the individual categories (some of the animals are fictitious but they are separately identified as such) what seems impossible to our way of thinking is simply that somebody put A, B, C down the side and linked them together. Why not try putting the administrator drawn with a fine camel-hair brush next to one that's just broken the water pitcher and see where it takes us?

A number of additional resources are listed below to get you started thinking creatively!:

The MindTools website gives resources that can be used for creative thinking at:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_09.htm

Creative thinking exercises can be found at:
http://www.brainstorming.co.uk/tutorials/creativethinkingcontents.html
This website demonstrates software available for purchase.

Lateral thinking - linking two unconnected thoughts together to form a new idea - is a prime facilitator for creativity. There are many examples of these to be found on the internet, some good ones are at:
http://www.mycoted.com/creativity/puzzles/puzzles.php

A whole raft of creative thinking techniques are available at:
http://www.mycoted.com/creativity/techniques/index.php