Creating the Context for Innovation

Multiple elements need to be aligned when we try to implement creative change in an organization. We need to focus on the interaction among people, process, products and environment in order to achieve successful results. Frequently misunderstood and often overlooked are the critical factors related to context, climate and culture. This session will explore the importance of climate and context in organizational transformation and the elements of climate that are critical for effective leadership, creativity and innovation. We will focus on how to understand and measure creative climate by using the Situational Outlook Questionnaire (SOQ) and discuss how climate data can be used to drive higher levels of performance, innovation and growth. We’ll have lots of interaction and a few case examples to discuss.

Participants will:

• Understand why climate is important and gain insight into the key dimensions of climate that are conducive to creativity and innovation.
• Learn how to assess and measure climate and to use the results within organizations, teams and in leadership development.
• Explore ways that leaders can influence positive climate change and leverage it to boost performance and promote creative thinking and action throughout an organization.

The Innovation Trap: Rethinking Senior Leader Responsibilities

Senior leaders know that to be successful and steadily differentiate, innovation is a must. The problem is, so does everyone else. So, how do you -- as a senior leader -- rethink your responsibilities to efficiently and sustainably include innovation so that you not only win the day but safely lead innovation culture efforts over the long term. False starts, dangerous obsessions, and ignoring key drivers will put you behind. The current global attention to innovation has created a lot of innovation ‘noise’ –untried approaches -, some of which while seemingly sensible are in fact dangerous traps. These traps can be avoided if you know what to look for, and how to move gracefully through the rocky innovation terrain. We’ll show you the innovation treasure map. This treasure is not buried anywhere exotic, and the barriers to access are simply based upon your true organizational resolve to innovate.

Participants will:

• Describe the 12 key strategic areas which need attention in building, and then sustaining an innovation culture.
• Describe the leader behaviors that most commonly impede or strengthen innovation culture.
• Describe the ancillary benefits of an innovation culture on brand, retention, and talent attraction.

Engaging Others in Co-creating Strategy with Consensus to Co-implement

Participants are involved in a highly interactive session  experience new  skills in involving  teams, including senior leadership teams, in  creating  strategy together with consensus and commitment to implement.  This has also been  called the “design process” and has been successfully applied with major and small corporations globally. The method helps groups think through, clarify and define any ambiguous or complex  situation  concretely. 

Participants will be  facilitated through  the creation of a visual  problem definition Challenge Map  based on their own challenges which they  brought to CPSI.  These skills are not yet  taught in school where students are totally immersed in solutions.  In real life, such solutions seldom match the ill-structured problems and opportunities that they encounter and many  organizations still flounder because they lack these strategic thinking skills. 

Participants will:

• Apply deferral of judgment and divergent thinking skills in fact finding and problem defining;
• Find hidden challenges in a complex situation using the “why-what’s stopping?” analysis to find hidden challenges in a complex situation;
• Think out-of-the-box early in the creative process.

Questions As Bridges

As creative professionals we get very excited about possibilities.  We’re curious, enthusiastic and can envision how things will evolve.  However not all our clients are ready to move toward the future we foresee.  They need encouragement and time to build trust. This session will focus on how to use questions to build that trust and form a bridge to invite our clients along on the creative journey.  What questions you ask and the order you ask them makes all the difference. 

Why? Vs How might we?  What have we learned? vs what don’t we know?  Is it necessary?  vs What do we want?   So many choices ….   Wrong question, wrong time – they’re floating downstream.  Right question, right time brings your client across the river.  Are you ready to build?

Participants will:

• Differentiate 7 primary types of questions.
• Analyze a  client’s readiness to move forward.
• Deconstruct the mental model needed to effectively master each question level.

Stimulus, Provocation & Strategic Play – Secret weapons for changing minds, increasing thinking performance and stimulating new solutions

Creativity is the ability to bring together disparate ideas in new and useful combinations. Ad agencies use consumer insights as stimulus and combine them with human truths to develop creative solutions. Artists often use everyday life as stimulus for their new creations. What sources of stimulus and provocation do you bring to your creative problem solving sessions? This 90 minute Forum will help push our understanding and use of stimulus further. We’ll explore Fun Theory, Biomimicry, Strategic Play, and the Weird and Whacky as provocations for great thinking. You’ll have a chance to understand how these can change the behavior of your audience and increase the productivity and performance of your creative problem solving team.

In this Forum you will:

•      Deliberately apply your imagination

•      Gain sources of stimulus and provocation for your next creative problem solving challenge.

•      Experience the effects of stimuli.

•      Apply stimulus and provocation to a real problem, challenge or opportunity.

Innovation Manifesto ... and beyond

“You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win!”

Relax. This is not about Marxist revolution. It is about moving from theory to action. We know innovation can bring significant value to organizations. We also know that innovation comes in many flavors and means different things to different organizations. It is therefore important for each organization to explore its own innovation in some depth.

When might organizations consciously choose not to innovate? When they do innovate what type of innovation should they opt for? Who should be involved? How much time should they devote? What system should they choose to make innovation happen? How should people be mobilized for innovation? There are choices to be made before actions are taken.

Participants will explore different types of innovation, and consider which is most appropriate for which type of organization and why. And they will write an Innovation Manifesto for an organization that is close to their hearts and so be poised for action.

For leaders and managers, trainers, consultants and people who recognize the need for organizations to reflect and make reasoned choices on the purpose and nature of their innovation.

I = C +C: Innovation = Creativity + Communication

Innovation is a complex process which requires  the total involvement of many “actors” of the system, both internal and external.

By presenting real cases, the workshop will describe the many obstacles on the road of innovation and we will propose tools and processes to overcome them.

Also to be presented is the PAPSA method (Perception Analysis Production Selection Action) with indications about communication techniques to use in each of the five steps, especially how to get the cooperation of people in the designed process. Some of the proposed techniques have their origin in the basic « laws of communication» edited in Pao Alto (Watzlawick & Cy) .

Bigger, Better Branding Boot Camp

Your clients have options, and lots of them. There are plenty of other companies, products or services out there that do what you do. If your business isn’t standing out from the competition, then your brand needs a kick in the butt. 

You call yourself a creative professional? So why just send an email, when you can send a C-mail? Why just a business card and a website, when you could provide a bigger, better brand experience? Get creative with your branding and get the attention you deserve.

This fun and interactive session will generate BIG ideas for your brand. Together, we will explore the possibilities of boosting your brand experience in ways that you’ve never thought of. So get creative and get more clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Generate a multitude of ideas to boost your brand experience.
• Determine the criteria for selecting the best BIG idea for your brand.
• Walk away with branding ideas you can implement right away.

Leading Innovation - Tools and Techniques for Maximizing Team Innovation Effectiveness

This presentation highlights best practices for leading innovation during all phases of new product development, as practiced by the world's most innovative companies.  These techniques have been battle tested in thousands of customized, focused, on-demand problem solving workshops at P&G and other high-tech product/service companies.   This presentation focuses on the human factors of innovation leadership, including the "Big 5" personality styles from the field of Cognitive Science.  Learn and practice specific techniques for keeping a team focused and engaged throughout the innovation process, while driving organizational alignment and commitment to action.  These best practices complement well known methodologies like Design Thinking, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), Laterial Thinking, and Strategic Visioning.  While developed for facilitated workshops, they are equally useful for traditional project team meetings and 1-on-1 interactions.    

Learning Objectives:

• Leadership principles for maintaining team focus and energy throughout the innovation process.
• Tools and Techniques that leverage the personality style diversity within a team to maximize collective creativity.
• Highly visual methods of Goal Setting and Action Planning that drive top-to-bottom clarity/alignment and proactively address barriers to implementation. 

Being a Creative Leader

Much is being written about creativity, leadership and creative leadership; less is written about the creative leader. What makes a leader creative?  What inspires a shared vision?  How do you know when you are a creative leader?  Explore how a creative leader might think, feel and act to introspectively consider your own needs in becoming a truly creative leader.

Objectives for this workshop include:

•       Explore how to enhance your leadership skills with creativity and problem solving skills.

•       Understand your role in leading for change, growth, and a well-envisioned future in organizations.

•       Create your personal hierarchy of cognitive, affective and behavioral leadership skills.

Deliberate Synergy™ - The Effectiveness Multiplier in Innovative Teams

Successfully innovative teams and organizations combine the right kind of Climate, Thinking, and methods for bringing new solutions into Action.  Of these, “Climate” is “first among equals”.  Deliberate Synergy is a deep-dive into creating and protecting the right Climate for creative and innovative work to take hold.  

In the words of George Prince (a founder of the firm Synectics, now known as Synecticsworld), “Synergy stands for that state of being when a person deals with him or herself and others in thoughtful, forsightful, considerate, and appreciative ways, and creates an interpersonal field that is supportive and helpful …and leads to the most collaborative actions.”  Deliberate Synergy is the conscious nourishment of such an interpersonal field even in the face of those inevitable disruptions.

Participants will: 

• Explore what a Deliberate Synergy group is, how it works, and how it can affect the larger organization. 

• Learn models that describe and illuminate human dynamics in creative and collaborative work. – e.g. Relationship Field Theory™ and The Journey to We™

• Work with tools that foster Deliberate Synergy – e.g. Appreciation Wheel, and the Positive Conflict Response Path™.

Transcending Hierarchies to Construct Creative Environments

In this session the difficulties of promoting creativity in high-context cultures will be explored and de-coded through a series of experiential exercises that will progress sequentially utilizing the International Center for Creative Studies' Thinking Skills Model.  Though basis of this experience of high-contextual culture will be based on research of the experience of introducing creative atmospheres to Korean and Military environment, the participants will be provided opportunities to make comparisons to their own work and personal lives.  In the final step of the session participants will have personal action plans that will help them work more globally when applying creativity principles.

In this session you'll:

• Identify and define hierarchical challenges in implementing creativity in high-context environments
• Associate high-context constructs in a way that makes sense from the individual participant's perspective.
• Learn from experiment with the Thinking Skills Model in a high-context construct.

What is it about Creativity and Buffalo? Fact-Finding the Past and Solution-Finding the Future

For some reason that has been sensed but never fully articulated, much of the growth of applied creative thinking has been linked to the Buffalo, NY region.  Hear brief fact-finding briefs on the history of the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI), the Creative Education Foundation (CEF), the Buffalo State International Center for Studies in Creativity (ICSC) by and about those who've lived it. Participants will then use an accelerated Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process to address the question: "How Might We leverage the roots, strengths and mysterious ties this region has to "The Creativity Movement" to help define the direction and stimulate growth of the field going forward?  Ideas generated and developed will then be provided to the three organizations and the Buffalo Niagara Enterprises, the region's private, non-profit, marketing, business and economic development organization.

Participants will:

• Gain a better understanding of where CPS, CPSI and CEF came from, in order to better understand where it all might be headed.
• Experience and apply the Osborn-Parnes CPS process to generate and prepare ideas for the future of "The Creativity Movement" and how Buffalo might guide it.
• A chance to hear, exchange thoughts, ask questions and experience many of those who have advanced the understanding and application of creative thinking through Buffalo-based efforts, including past CPSIs.

Mystic in the Marketplace

Participants will be able to: 

• Recall, examine and affirm their set of in-depth experiences 

* Compare their experiences to humankind's great psychological epics 

• Celebrate their depth or transpersonal experiences by amplifying them with descriptive language, imagery, drawings and movement

Adventures in Reflection: A Journey through Kaleidoscopic Photos

For most of us a brief pause to look in the mirror constitutes our time for reflection. The busy pace of our lives often keeps us from slowing down, considering our experiences and making the often unexpected connections. Change that pattern during this workshop as you visit Kitty's Kaleidoscopic Photo Gallery and use tools and activities for reflection. Experiment with creating images using a simple reflective tool (yours to keep!) 

Requirements: Bring a willingness to slow down for a little while and a sense of wonder.

Learning Objectives:

• Experience photographs in a new way by looking at reflected slices.
• Using the photos as stimulus, take time to reflect, dialogue and journal.
• Consider ways this tool and techniques might be used in your work and personal life.

Activating Innovation Through Surrealist Masterworks

Description: "The Edge" at the Salvador Dali museum (St. Petersburg, FL) houses the largest collection of Dali in North America, and this workshop will describe and demonstrate several techniques developed by the museum to activate the unique thinking patterns needed to instigate innovation.   Scientists, academics, businesses, and not-for-profits from a wide range of organizations have benefited from the innovation services crafted by the museum, and the expert forum session leaders, Dr. Hank Hine (Executive Director of the Dali Museum) and Nathan Schwagler (Creative-In-Residence and Instructor of Entrepreneurship at the USF St. Petersburg College of Business) will take you on a surrealist journey of mental calisthenics. Are you ready? 

Participants will leave with the following:

• A fresh understanding of Dali and his influence on a range of disciplines
• Exposure to novel techniques for utilizing surrealist masterworks to trigger unique thought patterns for everyday problem solving
• A novel energizer activity to reframe challenges

Creative Engagement for Health and Well-Being

Creative Engagement is the elicitation of active participation, self-expression and involvement. It is a goal for most facilitators. It is also a good general goal for all of us. 

In this session an experienced teaching artist will share principles and techniques that enhance the lives of participants in interactive programs for older adults, pediatric hospital patients, non-English speaking immigrants and other special populations. Research shows that Creative Engagement enhances our health. Fortunately this life enhancing medicine can be available to everyone.      

Participants will:

• Learn about beneficial value derived to older adults and others through professionally led creative engagement programs which develop mastery and foster social engagement  in the  participants.
• Participate in fun and accessible creative movement activities which provide creative engagement opportunities for you.
• Enhance your awareness and understanding of important elements in non-verbal communication.

Jazz Impact: Sustaining generative collaboration in an age of improvisation

Jazz, the infinite art of improvisation, is the musical embodiment of sustainable innovation. Jazz is a powerful experiential catalyst in the recognition and enhancement of intuitive skills of creative collaboration and the integration of diverse ideas.

This keynote combines speaking, performance and hands-on audience participation. It is designed to connect people with intuitive collaborative skills that promote creative ideation, agile modulation between leading and support, productive use of friction, learning from error, and the art of sustainable innovation.

The use of the jazz ensemble as a metaphor for generative team dynamics challenges participants to explore the limitations of habitual patterns of thinking, learning and behavior in relationships, teams and organizations.

Attention is paid to the unique capabilities needed to collaborate within with structures that are responsive and mutable. Direct engagement with the jazz ensemble builds an experiential understanding of cross-functionality and agility in leadership and support roles that promote transparent and generative development of relationships in environments that require:

• situated learning 
• reinventing core values in new context
• recognizing the difference between absolute error and contextual error 
• managing paradox and ambiguity
• the critical role of play in sustaining systemic passion

Learning Objectives:

• To deepen our understanding of the interdependent nature of leadership, collaboration and innovation.
• To gain an understanding of the iterative nature of sustainable innovation in collaborative contexts.
• To discover parallels in how to create environments that maximize creative and innovative potential .

Creativity in Education, a FRESH Approach

This session will present as a case study the approach used by Patricia in her college over the last six years, to reengineer currriculum fully integrating  creative thinking into all curriculum disciplines area. Key areas covered will include:

• How a new building was designed and furnished to create an environment suitable for creative thinking and how that space encourages and nurtures creative behavior.
• How this approach is being used to equip students with the higher level skills employers require, the experience of students from different disciplines working together , how students engage and challenge each other and the volume of innovative ideas that students are capable of generating in a limited period of time when they are given the tools and freedom to do it. 
• How FRESH has helped to develop an entrepreneurial mindset in staff and is empowering a new culture within BMC that will ensure outstanding progress for leaners and raise the aspirations of staff.
• How FRESH has been developed and is changing the lives of local school children, disadvantaged young people, unemployed, students with severe learning difficulties , small businesses from a wide range of sectors, local charities, statutory organisations and social innovators 

Teach Your Child How to Think

Dr Edward de Bono invented his legendary set of tools for school children and established the CoRT program. Based on  significant research and his work with education, one of his best sellers is TEACH YOUR CHILD TO THINK. This session will cover the need for teaching young minds thinking and creativity and a sampler of the 60 tools provided.

Participants will:

• Understand the need for creativity and thinking for youth.
• Sample the tools of CoRT.
• Practice the tools and experience the power.
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Creative Use of Energizers inManaging Attention Deficits in the 21st Century Classroom

The intention is to use energizers in a purposeful way to arrest the attention of children who get easily distracted during an active teaching-learning process.To learn how to use energizers creatively to tackle inattention among children or learners who pay little attention in class.

People will take part in demonstrations guided by the Presenters. They will also describe how they have always used energizers to get inattentive children interested in an activity.The Participants(in groups)  will also demonstrate energizers to be used (a) at the beginning of a lesson (b)in the middle of a lesson (c)when children sleep in class or are noticeably inattentive.

Participants will:

• Learn the traits or features of inattentive children.
• Be able to sustain the attention of children through the creative use of energizers.
• Experience the creative use of energizers.

Mindfulness Meditation and Creativity

During the Creative Problem Solving process there are times for divergent thinking and incubation.  Mindfulness Mediation is considered to be a tool for divergent thinking because it allows for the awareness and labeling of transient conditioned thoughts. The awareness and labeling of conditioned thoughts allows you not to be attached to them. As you observe your thoughts you see that they come and go. Between thoughts there is a gap in which a new and creative idea may appear.  

Mindfulness Meditation is also an incubation tool because it puts you in the present moment where you are not thinking about problems and solutions therefore, there is space for the creative idea to appear.            

As Eckart Tolle, (The Power of Now) states, “Present moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of mind but also in the past-future connection. Nothing truly new and creative can come into this world except through that gap, that clear space of infinite possibility.

Participants will:

1. Experience the “gap” between thoughts, feelings and perceptions and have the opportunity to respond out of present moment awareness rather than from habit formations. 
2. Practice mindfulness meditation to understand the comparison to the divergent thinking and incubation phases of CPSI 
3. Receive a bibliography of meditation resources.

Creative Journaling

Creative Journaling is a tool for personal growth that integrates writing and drawing, similar to a diary. At this workshop you will receive an explanation of the Creative Journaling process and you will engage in activities and follow prompts to get you started. Participants will combine easy drawing activities with writing and will have time for sharing and good conversation. All materials are included.

Participants will:

• Practice combining non-verbal and verbal creativity within a journaling process.
• Appreciate the work of others, both present and past. (there will be examples, and surprizes!)
• Have a good time.

LIFT – Inspiring Yourself and Others

In this experience you will explore becoming a positive force in any situation you choose. You will expand your creativity and capacity to express your values, talents and interests using Ryan and Robert Quinn’s LIFT framework.  You will learn to "lift"yourself and others toward what you truly care about.

Just like the Wright Brothers successfully combined science and practice to achieve their dream of flight, father and son Quinn combined research and experience to demonstrate how to elevate yourself and the situations and people around you to greater heights of integrity, openness, and achievement—a new and transformative embodied experience- the psychological equivalent of aerodynamic lift.

Exploring a variety of deep dive techniques to recognize and up-shift habitual body-mind patterns, you will learn to overcome your resistance and experience a new encounter with your own creative potential. Through a practical set of steps, you will learn how to LIFT yourself — to a creative state in which you learn to act with more purpose, internal direction, other focus, and external openness, lifting your Self and others to new creative possibilities.

Learning objectives …in this session YOU WILL

1. Engage in a deep dive creative inquiry about what ‘lifts’ you and others;
2. Explore body-mind patterns and practices to expand your awareness of yourself and your capacity to increase your influence in the world;
3. Create and demonstrate making an offer that ‘lifts’ you and others into an experience of increased creative connection with new potential (and have some fun doing so!).
4. Actively engage in learning through self-reflection experiences, small and large group conversations and gentle physical activity (embodiment practices).

A Slap in the Faith: Creative Ways to Wake Up Your Spiritual Life

This session is designed to introduce participants to ways they may apply the tools and techniques of creative thinking and creative problem solving to connect with and revitalize their spiritual lives. There are times when we would like to "connect" with the Big Guy but feel stuck or in a rut. While CPS is often used to solve business problems, it may be used to solve spiritual connectivity problems too!

During the session, participants will be introduced to a variety of creative thinking tools and techniques and will be led through a series of exercises where they will be encouraged to think about their spiritual lives, and relationship with the Big Guy, in new and engaging ways. 

After the session, participants will be able to continue to use what they've learned to continue exploring a more intimate and meaningful spiritual life.

In this session you'll:

• Participants will hug, and be hugged by, God
• Participants will use each of their five senses to connect with the Big Guy
• Participants will be given thinking tools to help wake up their spiritual lives

Developing Empathy through Creativity and Creativity through Empathy

“If you forget yourself, you become the universe.” Hakuin 

Being creative, often entails empathy, “becoming one with” something. Carl Rogers defined empathy as the ability “To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy. “ Empathy is one of the elements of imagination. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a creative act. How do we look at something from another view? And how can we use this ability to enhance our creativity? In creative problem solving, we often have to incorporate the “problem side” or the “down side” of a situation into our solution. Can the down side actually help us to come to a revelation not just a resolution to a problem? Come experience four tools which can stimulate both our creativity and our ability to empathize. 

Participants will:

• Learn tools to help you be more empathic.
• Practice combining empathy and creativity and enhance both.
• Learn the “Dialectic Paradox”, a powerful way to include the down side of a situation.

SURREALISTICS: Unlocking the Creative Subconscious

Surrealism was a social movement which had as its goal to reunite conscious and unconscious realms of experience so that the world of dream, imagination and creativity would be joined to the everyday rational world in an absolute reality, a “surreality". When we combine the two, we are bringing the intellect and the intuitive together in a powerfully creative way.  We will use surrealistic images as prompts for “automatic writing”.  You will then create your own surrealistic image through collage and discover its story, perhaps giving you a new insight. Tap into the creative subconscious to open up the unexpected, make up stories, shift perspectives and drift off into a more intuitive, open creative state of consciousness.  Bring a problem, issue or opportunity for which you would like to gain a new insight.

Participants will:

• Learn to tap into the creative subconscious.
• Practice automatic writing.
• Create a surrealistic collage which will contain new insights.

Spacetime for Creativity

When do you prefer to conform rather than create? Do you get your best ideas when you are alone or when you are with others? Even the most ardent evangelist of creativity will acknowledge that at times it is best to shun change and stick to the devil you know. And the jury is not yet out on the circumstances under which team ideation might be more effective than individual ideation.

This workshop is based on two premises. First, in our lives we all seek conformity as well as creativity. Second, we can seek to practice creativity in solitary as well as team mode. Participants will embark on a voyage of self-discovery to discover their own style – how they prefer to schedule their own journey through creative spacetime, when they will fly fast, when they will go slow, with whom they will fly, where they will pause and rest. There is no self-assessment questionnaire to divide people into A and B types, no profiles or boxes. There will be free artistic expression, where each participant paints a picture and tells the tale of his or her own personal travels through creative spacetime alone and with others.

Learning Objectives

• Explore the advantages and disadvantages of conformity vs creativity.
• Explore the advantages and disadvantages of individual vs group ideation.
• Discover your own personal creative styles.

Stress Management for the Creative Brain!

In maximizing our creative power, the affective factors of creativity play an important role (Torrance).  Specifically, our curiosity, resistance to judgment, and openness to experience help facilitate our creativity.  Part 1 of this session looks at the relationship among the affective factors of creativity, the brain and the emotions.  This experiential workshop focuses on the emotions and their impact on creativity.  The connection between emotions and behavior patterns, memory, stress management and creative performance is explored.  Part 2 facilitates strategies that help manage stress.  A stress inventory will help participants evaluate their own stress levels Relaxation skills, mindfulness, guided imagery and affirmations will be used to quiet as well as to invigorate and focus!  Subsequent use of this workshop can be on a personal or professional level.

Participants will:

• analyze the role and importance of the affective factors of creativity.
• evaluate the interrelationship of the brain, the emotions and affective factors of creativity.
• experience an array of stress management strategies.

Happiness!

Do you believe that you will be happier if you were more successful at work? Recent research shows that it works exactly the other way around: being happy fuels production, and happy people are more successful at their jobs, and get more promotions and better jobs. Would you like to be happier? Would you like to make your family, friends, and co-workers happier and more productive? Recent discoveries in neuroplasticity show that it is possible to upgrade your happiness levels through actions we will practice in this workshop, with rippling effects on everyone you interacts with: family, co-workers, friends. The goal of this workshop is to start you on the path to finding and setting your own personal goals, and increasing the quantity and quality of your personal happiness. General and specific techniques will be demonstrated. There WILL be homework.  1. The intention is to help participants creatively raise their happiness quotient.  2. Participants will experience and practice several specific techniques.

Participants will:

• Be happier on a day-to-day and lifetime basis.
• Work more productively and with greater success.
• Learn how to increase your family's and friends' happiness.

Navigating the Changes you Dare to Dream

Have a change you want to make in your life? What’s stopping you? Creative problem solving offers new and different ways to reframe challenges and choices. Based on the tools presented in the book Square One at 51, we will explore practical, easy to follow ways to deal with personal and/or organizational change. At completion of the program participants have a clearer sense of who they are, their strengths, a change they wish to make, and a plan to make it happen.

 Participants will:
• Examine who they are by looking at their personal strengths ‘
• Learn Creativity tools for changing negatives into positives. .
• Articulate and examine a dream/goal they wish to accomplish

Creating Time: How to Make Time for What Matters Most

What if you could create time? What would you do with it?

Time is the stuff your life is made of. It’s the most precious commodity you have, and the only one you can’t create more of. Or can you? In this session you will create time where there was no time, and then decide how to use that new time—in a way that matters.

Most books and courses on time management say essentially the same things and provide the same rigid structures. "Creating Time" is different. It's not about managing time, it's about making decisions, and how your decisions affect your time.

In this session, you will use six "macro" questions to examine your personal values, identifying the lens through which you will make decisions about tasks and time. Then, you will learn the six "micro" questions that should be asked about any task and responsibility. Combining these, you will—in the room, that very day—create time where you thought there was no time, which you can then use however you choose.

Underneath Creating Time's 12 crucial questions are creativity's core skills, which means it will feel like it's made just for you...finally, time management your way.

Learning Objectives:

• To answer six key (macro) questions about yourself, to create a lens for your decisions.
• To learn the six key (micro) questions to ask about any task or responsibility.
• To use the macro lens and micro tactics to create time where there was no time.

The Quantum Brain: Seducing the Creative Muse

This session offers participants an opportunity to utilize quantum brain theory in order to make sense of chaos and creativity,... with a distinct focus on intention as a life plan!  Intention will be defined within the context of the mind-brain connection. A brief, yet integral, view of the neuroscience will provide a foundation for setting intention and directing creative action.  The session unfolds to craft opportunities for self discovery, to embrace personal story, and to explore potential change in life course direction.  Take a close look at “your brain” and “your brain on creativity”. Through the use of reflective, interactive, and multi-arts strategies – all used to develop intention – the creative muse will be used to explore the seduction inherent to creative process. The focus? A  playful, yet meaningful, experience in which to create and cultivate a precious resource …you!

Participants will:

• learn about and evaluate the role the brain plays in creativity.
• experience activities designed to develop their intention within the creative process model (Wallas) including the phases of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.
• use mindfulness and guided imagery to facilitate an intrinsic perspective of their creative power.

A Picture Deck is Worth a 1000+ Creative Thinking

Creativity & innovation is about thinking different and using imagination, tapping different perspectives for fresh thinking. The humble picture deck is a catalyst for creative thinking; a simple and portable tool- and a must have in any facilitator's toolkit..... Pictures can represent endless possibilities and evoke a treasure trove of ideas, emotions, and attitudes across a broad spectrum of subject matter. Visual metaphor activities with a picture deck can be used in countless ways...at every stage of the creative process, as part of engaging ice breakers or closing activities, as debriefing tools for experiential learning, for team bonding, as stimulus for story writing, and for personal exploration. During this session you'll experience numerous activities that you can easily use in your own work, and we'll guide you to develop your own technique and talk about ways to develop your own custom picture deck.

Learning Objectives:

* Tons of new techniques for using a picture deck in all three phases of CPS

* New ice breaker and energizer activities

* Your own custom designed tool

Edible Creativity: Tasty Tools for Creative Problem Solving

Back by popular demand! If you missed this two years ago you’ll want to attend. Learn a flavorful approach to generating creative insights & new ideas via culinary experiences. This two hour interactive session uses edible concepts with multi-sensory exploration exercises to stimulate brainstorming in all categories (not just food!). Enjoy food and beverage samples and be inspired by layers of tastes, textures, sounds, and aromas to develop creative solutions for a variety of problems. This is a fun and delicious approach to brainstorming that will add an entirely new twist to participants' toolbox.

Learning Objectives:

* Experience how to use food and beverages as stimulus for brainstorming

* Use the profound physical and emotional power of the culinary arts to inspire creativity and problem solving

* Discover sensory-based tools and techniques for ideation and development

* Learn recipes to create their own new tools that leverage edible stimulus to spark big ideas in any category

Come and Play with TIM: Integrating Creativity into Your Content

Who has time to do creativity well? You do! By integrating creative thinking into the content area, adults learn both creativity and content in a deeper, more meaningful way. Join us for a Torrance Incubation Model (TIM) experience. We will model TIM (heighten anticipation), engage you in thoughtful reflection of your learners (deepen expectations), and send you out the door ready to engage in the integration of creativity into your content (extend the learning).

In this session you'll gain:

• A model to deliberately integrate creative thinking into any content
• A rich overview of creative thinking skills and why they are important
• A model to gain a deeper, more meaningful learning experience

Fostering Creativity by Looking In Unlikely Places

Relevant creative solutions often emerges from connecting concepts and ideas that on the surface seem disconnected.  To hone our creative thinking abilities we need to look for ideas to connect in the unlikely places our habits are not familiar with. In this workshop participants will learn some ways they can shake up habits, see with fresh eyes and see the value in intersecting ideas from diverse disciplines and domains. This is a fun, interactive workshop, where participants will walk away with tools they can apply in their work. An article on this workshop was written for the Creativity Post here: http://www.creativitypost.com/business/defeating_rigid_habits_to_spark_creativity 

In this session you'll:

• Learn tools to foster a creative perspective.
• See the value in combining disparate ideas and fields.
• See that creativity is part of everyones experience.
• Listen, laugh and engage in creativity exercises during the workshop. 

The System's BROKEN! Using Creative Destruction When Things Aren't Working

How do you feel, and what do you do, when you realize that the comfortable old patterns you have relied on forever are not working? You may get frustrated, angry, despondent, but perhaps the best thing to do is to get creative. In this session we will look at how systems work and how we can manage our thinking when they don't. By using feedback loops, we will see there are a range of options for dealing with a broken system. Sometimes it needs fixing, but other times it needs a complete redesign. That’s when we call for “Creative Destruction”. Remember; "There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in" (Leonard Cohen). In this session you will learn a new tool for finding the best way to think about a broken system in your daily life. You will peak through that crack and who knows what new light will shine in.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand systems thinking
• Building feedback loops
• Using the 'Option Continuum' for action planning

Simplexity Thinking ™: Real World Research and Successful Experience

Simplexity Thinking™ is an  advanced creative problem solving methodology, a never-ending, continuous process of creative behavior and the skills that make it work. It begins before a problem is formulated, continues until the action to implement a solution is taken, and restarts again. Modelling organizational adaptability directly, it is more consistent with what goes on in real world situations. The extensive field research and the successful global experience behind it are thoroughly shared from its beginnings with Sid Parnes’ pioneering work and mentoring. Min’s lifetime learnings in expert application and research are shared.  

Learning Objectives:

• How several corporations have engaged their employees in deliberate generation, conceptualization, optimization and implementation activity for measurable and strategic gains in profitability, adaptability and motivation. 
• Published field research from 1980 to 2013 proving the process works and how it works.
• How individual styles contribute differently to the  creative  process.

FU (Freedom University): A Course in Creative Empowerment

WTF is all this creativity fuss about? It’s pretty simple. Everyone has the capacity for breakthrough creative thinking and collaboration. Yes, everyone! FU is a simple approach to creative thinking and doing that unleashes your natural abilities to cut through the BS and brainstorm like a boss! Armed with an understanding of how the mind works (and a few F-bombs), you will be able to leverage your natural human potential for innovative thinking. Free yourself from traditional approaches to problems, (i.e., this is how it’s always been done) and step into the powerful realm of creating entirely new ways of addressing challenges, (i.e., what might be all the ways to do it?). FU empowers you to create your own unique opportunities and solutions. Caveat: attendees of this session will be using loads of F words! 

Participants will:

• Learn the FUndamentals of creative problem solving with a memorable mnemonic.
• Find their inner creative ninja as you practice creative freedom and build the creative confidence to master your FUture.
• Have FUn applying learning to a personal or professional challenge of their choice. 

INVENTIUM © - Creativity Card Game

You will learn and play the INVENTIUM Card Game and maybe get an answer to a “Back-Home” challenge or problem. Research into the nature of Innovations and Inventions has uncovered that there are  “40 Principals of Inventing” (TRIZ). You will master 3 of the most used Principles and then apply them.

We will break into small groups and identify a personal challenge that needs a creative solution - Personal, Professional or Organizational. We will then apply the Principals and generate new possibilities. You will definitely get some new insights and perspectives, and “If you play your cards right” you may even get an actual answer.

Participants will:

• Identify a personal challenge, needing a creative solution
• Learn and master 3 inventing principles.
• Gain new insights and maybe an answer.

TRIZ - The Science of Inventing

TRIZ means the “Theory and Practice of Inventing”. A group of Russian researchers analyzed hundreds of thousands of patents and identified “40 Principles of Inventing”. TRIZ is a Philosophy, Methodology and set of Tools to accelerate the inventing process. It can be defined in 10 words - “All systems Evolve towards Ideality, resolving Contradictions and utilizing Resources”.

You will gain an introduction to the “40 Principles of Inventing”, the “Contradiction Matrix” and “Evolutionary Trends”. You will learn the  3 most used Principles and apply them to a “Back-Home” problem. You will apply the TRIZ technology and invent a “New” product and use the Evolutionary Trends to predict the future.

Participants will:

• Learn the TRIZ Technology for Inventing.
• Apply the Principles to a “Back-Home” problem.
• Understand “Evolutionary Trends” and predict the future.

Priming the Conversation

Sometimes a good discussion, like a good paint job, needs a little primer.  Join me in exploring some quick tools I use to jumpstart discussions in my business, market research, but these tools are not limited to any one type of interaction.  I will demonstrate some hands-on exercises to put people in the proper mindset to step outside of themselves, observe how they behave in a particular situation, and think creatively about how they may solve or address any pain points.  And I promise we will have some fun along the way, using ourselves as guinea pigs.

Kinesthetic Mash-Ups for Breakthrough Problem Frames & Ideas

The intention of this session is to provide specific tools for creating breakthrough problem frames and subsequent ideas. Kinesthetic mash-ups, using trend-centric objects and products are ideal ways to scaffold analytic thinkers to more whole-brained, big picture, and strategic questions. Gregg Fraley will use objects curated by his innovation firm KILN and will lead participants through a hands-on mash-up experience. This technique has proven to be an effective way to get to "entirely new", bigger, braver, bolder questions to use in subsequent ideation. 

Participants will:

• Understand the value of conceptual blends, i.e. Mash-Ups.
• Learn how to conduct a kinesthetic mash-up problem framing session.
• Learn the value of thinking "scaffolding".

Teach Yourself How to Think

Breathing and thinking are supposedly normal and natural! To explode this misconception that thinking comes naturally we will explore that it must be done in a formal and deliberate manner. Built on research by Dr de Bono this workshop will teach people the TO-LO-PO-SO-GO  technique.

Participants will:

• Understand that thinking is a skill.
• Learn the TO LO PO SO GO model.
• Practice the tools.

Using Personal Memories and Artifacts to Create an Iconography for CPS

Keeping our past experiences fresh and relevant is a key for opening a personal creative problem solving system. In this session we will use guided imagery to recall artifacts from our memories as touchstones to our personal histories. We will then develop an iconography based on those artifacts to create a deck of cards (aka: Imagacards) as a device to spur ideation while using CPS-based creativity games. To create a personal resource we will extend our current journaling approaches for individual subjects of the iconography.

Learning Objectives

• Gain sensitivity to how everyday objects can become personal artifacts.
• Use the awareness of artifacts to trigger ideas.
• Have a personal system that is immediately available to access CPS .

A Brief Introduction to Visual Facilitation

Did you know that humans retain only 15% of what they HEAR, but can recall 60% of what they SEE?  Skillful facilitators use all six senses to stimulate individual and group engagement whether you are using CPS in a classroom or in a boardroom.

This workshop will introduce you to the power of harnessing a team’s sense of SIGHT, and inspire both novice and experienced facilitators to utilize Visual Facilitation techniques to record, communicate and emphasize information.

Perhaps you’ve read David Sibbet’s Visual Meetings or Robert Horn’s Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century.  You may have even tried a few of Dan Roam’s Back of the Napkin graphics yourself, but likely found it challenging to make the leap from reading about it to doing it yourself. 

Join Leanna Murphy for this brief – yet highly engaging – introduction to Visual Facilitation.  Leanna will sneak in a bit of theory amidst the live demonstration, plus she will share many Visual Facilitation examples from CPS sessions as well as corporate and classroom uses. Best of all, everyone will have a chance to pick up the marker and go to the easel to try a bit of Visual Facilitation for themselves.

Learning Objectives:

• How to use pre-created templates to encourage participation & make recording easier.
• 3 Lettering styles and 10 easy shapes that add graphic emphasis to your lists, diagrams and posters.
• Which tools every Visual Facilitator covets & how to create walls out of thin air!.

Good Leaders Copy, Great Leaders Steal

“It comes down  to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done – and then try to bring those things in to what you’re doing. Picasso had a saying: Good artists copy, Great artists steal – and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” – Steve Jobs

In today’s age, creativity and innovation are crucial. Moreover, innovation can no longer be outsourced, but has to become part of the DNA of every organization. We are taught to value creativity and to disdain copying or plagiarism. But what is creativity? In Shakespeare’s time, unlike ours, creativity was understood to be improvement rather than originality – in other words creative imitation. By the end of the Renaissance, there was great value placed on the original, and an artist’s signature became extremely important. Copying and plagiarism were now condemned. Today the cult, the illusion, of originality still creates a fog of misunderstanding that smothers creativity. So stealing in this context is an intellectual activity. You must be able to understand the principles why something works and then be able to apply this knowledge in original ways.

In this workshop you will learn:

• the way you define problems will determine how you solve them
• to steal from the ideas of others, but in such a way that new ideas, concepts, solutions arise
• a six-step business innovation model by building on the ideas of others (borrrowed from Borrowing Brilliance)

Visual Thinking: Drawing Out the Best In Your Brain

See how to picture your thoughts and double your thinking.  Go beyond words to the place from which words spring. Learn simple ways to tap the river of images flowing beneath verbal thought. Explore six levels of imagination. Discover rapid, “off-road” drawing techniques that mimic how your brain actually thinks. Learn how to draw “poorly” well and multiply the ideation power of any group.  See how to share the thinking behind your thoughts. Find how anyone may use drawing to speed, deepen, and clarify his or her thinking about anything. The techniques are fun, simple, and revolutionary. Thinking “harder and longer” only goes so far.  Find how to think “faster than you can think” and discover the blocks, beliefs, and blind spots that may have kept you thinking in circles for years.  It is said we think 10,000 times faster in images than words.  Discover this for yourself.  Bring more of your brain “on line” with just a pencil.  Learn a language for insights you never dreamed you had.  Find how anyone may use drawing to say unsayable things in unforgettable ways.

Participants will:

Discover a simple ideation tool that can more than double their idea output.

Explore “off-road” drawing techniques that speed, deepen, and clarify thinking.

Experience the exact place in their brains where images pop into ideas and ideas pop into images.

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho: Finding Diamonds in the Data Mine

The ever-growing avalanche of data now available about customers seems like a boon to business, but too often, it creates analysis paralysis and an overemphasis on measurable minutiae   This session will focus on using hands-on exercises with customer data and consumer insight to cultivate and enhance the creative process. 

Participants will:

• Hear real-life case studies on how rigorous consumer analysis can enrich—or limit—creativity.
• Learn practical methods for fusing consumer research with creative development.
• Focus time learning how to attach the 'so what, now what' to the WHAT

Humor: The Art of Natural Genius

Humor sells.  Humor teaches.  Humor connects us, frees us, and keeps us young.  Humor makes us happy, human, and productive.  In a troubled world, humor is practically oxygen. Humor creates perspective, resilience, and breakthrough thinking.  In this session you will learn the nuts and bolts of one of life’s most loving “secret weapons”--- humor.  You will discover the six principles of nearly all things funny. But more than that, you will see how humor is a profound and practical source of joy, any time, any place.  You will discover that inside you there is not only an “inner critic” but also an “inner imp”--- a playful, often hidden part of you that refuses to live in a world of fear, anger, or despair.  This part of you is a source of hope, genius, and permanent well-being. Imagine living a life without any sense of dread, burden or regret.  Imagine firing your inner critic for good. Well, that is what this workshop is about: living a life of courage, creativity, and humor that comes from inner joy not inner criticism. 

Participants will:

Discover the “nuts and bolts” of nearly all things funny.

Learn how to detect and delete their “inner critic” for a more joyous creative life.

Find practical keys to a permanent source of courage, caring, and creativity. 

Creative Genuises: Their Make-up, Tools and Impact

Based on over ten years' research and a just published book, Cecilia will facilitate an interactive discussion on: 

-shared personality characteristics and incredible sacrifices made by creative geniuses; 

-the source/inspiration for their creative breakthroughs; 

-the torturous struggles and unique pathways to discover original creative methodologies and processes; 

-their impact in orienting totally their specific field

Participants will:

* Grasp the personality traits and immense sacrifices made by creative geniuses

* Trace the inspiration/sources for transformative creative ideas

* Learn about the torturous struggles and unique pathways to discover original creative methodologies and processes

Motivating Audiences: Creating Exciting Presentations & Training with Humor, Creativity & Magic

The intent of this session is to help participants create lessons, presentations, speeches, workshops, instruction and training that connect with learners and create educational experiences that are meaningful and useful. Key ingredients of a successful presentation will be reviewed with emphasis on accomplishing educational and training objectives rather than just making training interesting and enjoyable. Over twenty activities and magic tricks will be conducted, demonstrated and debriefed with an analysis of how they can be adapted with different audiences and situations and the importance of debriefing all activities. Guidelines will be reviewed for infusing humor in training and conducting interactive exercises with stress on clarity of purpose for activities, safety and empowerment. Strategies for dealing with difficult participants will be reviewed. The use of media will be discussed including ways to make presentations that use PowerPoint, Keynote or Prezi more relevant and engaging. Participants will be challenged to identify how they will apply content and activities covered in the workshop to their own work environments. Handouts will describe several activities and will include resources for locating activities and improving presentations.

In this session you'll learn:

* The importance of developing clear goals and objectives for training as a basis for selecting activities, humor, or magic to help achieve those goals and objectives.

* Strategies for making presentations and training more exciting, humorous, engaging and meaningful.

* The importance of debriefing activities and ideas for dealing with difficult participants.

The Art of Unforgettable Communication

Learn the fine art of connecting with anyone. Explore the heart and soul of unforgettable communication. See how to turn your voice into vision and that vision into action. Find how to connect more fully with yourself, your material, and your listeners. Discover secrets of public speaking and storytelling that work like magic. Learn the three-part rhythm of powerful presentations and how to never be afraid in front of groups or boring in the midst of facts. See how to turn information into inspiration and inspiration into living, breathing stories that connect, console, and compel us. Discover how memory, meaning, and motivation all come from stories and how some stories can trap us while others can move mountains. See how to speak from more of yourself for purposes larger than yourself. The workshop, though, is about more than bringing passion and precision into whatever you say. It’s about leading a more profound life through creativity and conviction and realizing that nothing is boring, if you aren’t. 

Participants will: 

• Learn hidden keys to unforgettable storytelling and public speaking. 
• Explore the three-part rhythm of nearly all effective presentations. 
• Discover reality-tested ways to overcome fear of speaking and energize even the most dreary material.

Wild, Whacky, Weird, Off-the-Wall Ways for Creative Thinking On Demand

When we walk into meetings we seldom are ready to be INSTANTLY CREATIVE.

There are many things that can or need to be done before a meeting, during a meeting and after a meeting to increase the propensity and potentiality that creative ideas will be generated.  These things can be wild, whacky, weird, off-the-wall and they can be logical, rational or purely fun.  When we lead idea generating meetings we need to bring many tools with us.

Participants will:

• explore some wild, whacky weird ways of sparking creative thinking
• experiment with ways to take people from normal to highly creative on demand and
• examine ways to spark higher levels of creativeness and creative thinking in meetings and teams

Ignite the Heart / Engage the Brain: The Power and Passion of Connected Communication

Audiences have a desire to belong to something greater than themselves, and they crave a reason to believe. Speakers – whether a corporate executive, PTA Mom, or a Dad talking to his teenage son – who connect with their audience from a place of “resonance”, can move mountains. In this workshop, participants will examine how tapping into personal beliefs is foundational to creating compelling communication. Using the CPS model, and the power and the passion of their own “what matters most”, participants will step through a generative process as they build a talk for an audience of their choosing. Participants will learn fast, fun, dynamic techniques to move through objectives, key messages, theme and call to action. They will learn to draw on both the right brain and the left brain to make the case and bring it to life. Each participant will have an opportunity to test drive their creation, delivering to a small group where they will get and give feedback that comes from the heart. All participants are invited to take home a videotape of their talk.

• Participants will deepen their capability to engage in compelling communication by harnessing the power of “resonance”
• Participants will learn simple, yet powerful creativity tools to develop a talk that can impact an audience, and stir them into action
• Participants will practice clear, authentic communication through the process of giving and receiving genuinely constructive feedback

Letting Go and Letting Come: The Latest (Oldest) Creativity Tools

Letting go of stories, assumptions and expectations is critical to creativity and innovation as this opens the world of possibility. In this workshop, participants will explore context and perspective as powerful, pliable creative tools, through a process that invites expression with both words and images. They will also explore how rules and boundaries inhibit, and / or disinhibit the free-flow of imagination and creativity. Working in small groups, participants will be given materials from which they will create a photo collage, based on the following criteria: All images must be used Each image must be manipulated (cut, torn, drawn on, etc.) The images must be in relationship to each other The finished piece must tell a “story” Participants will be encouraged to spend time exploring the impact of particular images and to dialogue, about the story they are creating and their experience of the process. Storytelling creates a sense of time and place, giving life to the characters. Group members will be encouraged to use their curiosity to help the storyteller create a rich narrative. Each participant will have a finished work product to take away from the workshop.

• Participants will use multiple expressive forms to (1) exercise their imaginations and (2) develop their understanding of “letting go” and “letting come” as key components of the creative process.
• Using a powerful process of deconstruction and reconstruction, participants will experience the creative possibilities that open up when context and perspective shift.
• Participants will explore how rules, boundaries and structures may limit – or expand –creative output.

Hey, Baby, Do You Wanna Dance?

Intention: to introduce and practice a variety of engaging, and effective Ice Breaker (AKA "Warm Up") exercises which can be used in a range of meeting and learning situations. These activities are designed to help participants relax, get comfortable expressing themselves, and, in the doing, provide valuable clues to the meeting facilitator about getting the best participation in the work to come. Ice Breakers set the tone and expectations for just about any kind of group discussion or idea session. Yet, in time pressured work environments, some facilitators and market researchers omit this critical step because they think it’s a waste of time. More than setting a warm and friendly tone, the right Ice Breaker will jumpstart the conversation or brainstorming session and will help a group of individuals coalesce into a team. And the facilitator will derive insights about participants’ attitudes and behaviors, even before getting to the heart of the topic for which the group has been assembled. What people will be doing: In this workshop/presentation, participants will actively experiment with the exercises and their discoveries, explore how they might fit within their facilitation responsibilities, and use these examples as springboard for their own creations.

Learning Objectives:

• Directions, practice and ways to utilize a variety of Ice Breakers-- from easy to more difficult
• 5 essential tips for using Ice Breakers to maximize success
• Developing the right attitudes for “Dancing” with participants