IMAGINE HOW CREATIVITY WORKS

I bought "Imagine" first in Kindle, and loved it so much I bought a hard copy so my second reading could be with pen and sticky notes in hand. I often help friends with creative edits of their currents projects, whether writing or painting or brainstorming a conference theme. This book gives me a lot of ideas and perspective, not only on the process of past inventors and creative geniuses, but ideas for how the next wave of creative invention and innovation may arise, and how to stay alert to enjoy and maximize the ride for myself and those I come along side.I did have one creative friend, to whom I lent a copy of Imagine, tell me that she didnt read more than a skimming. She said that she just wants to enjoy the magic of her imagination, not think about how it works. So beware if you just like to be the magic. But if you like to feel the ripple of the tiger's stride as you ride along, and understand not only how to hold on, but how to accelerate the thrill, pick up a copy of Imagine.

The sub-title of Lehrer’s book is “How creativity works.” Creativity has always been somewhat of a mystery, something that comes down from somewhere or out of somewhere, randomly and unexpectedly. Lehrer explains the creative process based on quality scientific research which means that we are now able to understand the process of creativity and repeat it.The creative process always starts with an impasse, a problem that seems insoluble. This is the phase of the creative process that is most often glossed over, but is central to the way the brain produces creative insights.The first chapter of the book is a description of this process using Bob Dylan as a focal point. The year is 1965 and Dylan is in the last week of a gruelling tour schedule. He is constantly bombarded by fans, thin from drugs and insomnia, and playing music almost mechanically. It was there that Dylan made the decision to quit music forever. When he turned to America, he rode off on his Triumph to a cabin in Woodstock, not even taking a guitar. He no longer wanted to be part of music making that was formulaic and predictable and commercial.Dylan describes how the hit song, “Like a Rolling Stone” seemed to force its way out of him. It has no logic, it had no meaning - it was simply a pure outpouring of associative ideas.In the nineties, Mark Beeman, a researcher at the National Institute of Health was studying patients with brain damage to their right hemisphere. At the time the importance of the right hemisphere was underestimated. The left hemisphere is where speech ability is located, where the meaning of words is understood, but the right hemisphere was vaguely associated with creativity. Beeman identified the role of the right hemisphere as the seat of connotations of words, of metaphors. It was not a question of left or right brain thinking, as described by the pop-psychologist, but how the two hemispheres build on each other and relate.Brain researchers have been able to identify how the brain works because active brain cells consume more energy and oxygen and so they trigger a rush of blood to those areas. Using FMRI and EEG technologies, researchers can monitor what is going on in the brain as subjects are solving puzzles. They have been able to identify what parts are active before creative insights and even when a creative insight is about to happen.The process begins with an intense search of left hemisphere and when this is exhausted (and so is the person,) it will shift to the right hemisphere if given the appropriate conditions. There will be a visible gamma wave rhythm before the answer erupts, the highest electrical frequency in the brain. The anterior superior temporal gyrus, a small lobe just above the ear on the outer side of the right hemisphere is the area where insight actually occurs.Dylan’s breakthrough came when he could find no solution to his musical dilemma and had given up. His insights were to create from an uninhibited expression of the right hemisphere. All the music that came to define Dylan was this outpouring beginning with ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ itself a major musical achievement.Imagine goes beyond simply describing the processes to describing how they have been applied in business. The fact that our brains work very differently when we are daydreaming, they are anything but idle, has been harnessed by the astonishingly creative 3M Company, producer of some fifty five thousand different products.In the 1990’s, Eli Lily’s VP of research, Alpheus Bingham, was frustrated by the unpredictability of the drug development model in use in the company and the industry. Research was done in secret so competitors would be given no advantages, but Bingham decided to break with this by posting the hardest problems they faced on the internet in a system call Innocentive. A reward was offered to anyone who solved the posted problem. Answers poured in and 40% of problems were solved in six months and some in days.The common premise has been that the hardest problems would only be solved by people with deep technical expertise. The Innocentive program proved the value of the insights of people on the edges of the discipline where perspectives are informed by other, very different areas of expertise. Functional fixedness caused by well-worn neural pathways is bypassed.A problem that was posted concerned a polymer with unique and perplexing chemical properties. Five solutions were found and five prizes paid for a problem thought to be insurmountable. The importance of this example lies in the skillsets of the people who solved the problem: A researcher studying carbohydrates in Sweden, a small agribusiness, a retired aerospace engineer, a vet, and a transdermal drug delivery systems specialist. You will never find this group inside any company.The book is a treasure trove of ideas that can be used in business as well as a well crafted review of the state of knowledge of creativity from various sciences, from neurology to sociology.Readability Light ---+- SeriousInsights High +---- LowPractical High -+--- Low Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

It's too bad you can't get this book anymore because the publisher pulled it. I guess that's because of some miss-quotes by the author, who should have known better. Of course this has sent the price for the book through the roof, because it's a very good book.So, I have to ask why? Politicians literally have a license to lie(political ads don't have to be truthful) yet an author writes a great book about how our creativity works, and his book is pulled. What???? Did I miss something? What about A Thousand Pieces, or whatever that book was written by the guy who lied to Oprah? His career is still rolling along, and you can find his book all over bookstores.If I were a conspiracy-minded person, I'd think that there was something was something foul going on here. Creativity is how we connect to God. Now here's a well-written book that tells us what a creativity is, and how to connect with it.It tells us how certain schools have used creativity to get kids not only interested in school, but exceeding beyond anyone's expectations.It tells us how being an outsider can help you come up with solutions that the in-crowd might never come to.It tells us that people who live in cities are more creative, almost as if we share information, just by being around each other.It tells us how genius is more common than we think, but it only manifests if it's nurtured from a young age. I mean, you can't be a great artist if you don't have crayons/paint/teachers, at a young enough age to put in the 10,000 hours it takes to master something.It tells us that we need to let go of the left side of the brain, the thinking brain, and just relax.It tells us that kids learn better when they're playing, or building something, rather than stuck at a desk listening to someone drone facts at them.How is any of this not of vital importance? So the author got some quotes wrong. I have been a quote fan for as long as I can remember, and I know that quotes are assigned to different famous people all the time. This certainly doesn't make the important information on imagination any less valid.I hope that all this gets resolved, and the book is put back out there for sale, but not before I sell my copy for a hundred-million dollars.

Good book

This book is interesting because it gives results of activities in companies actually doing research for new products. I find generally that psychological evidence from sources such as this are more appropriate to practical,normal, life than that that from those dealing with sick or disturbed people, or dream interpretation. The book is relatively short because it focuses on giving evidence for just a few basic principles. Having read it I will not need to refer to it again, but will pass it on to someone else in the family. It is interesting and simple enough to follow for anyone with no knowledge of Psychology.If you find this interesting you will also be interested in the older books by Edward de Bono concerned with "Lateral Thinking".

This is one of the questions I repeatedly ask myself and this book helps answer it. Not only, what makes you tick, but how you get to that point and where to go from there. I found this very interesting, very easy to read and feel I have learnt a lot from it about myself and dealing with others in general.

Great book for any creative at any level. It also applies to all aspects of life and dives into the lives of some of the world's most creative minds!

Disapointing read after having read all of Lehrers previous books. Fails to deliver. Creativity (as a professional photographer clients include :Cosmopolitan and Menshealth) is a very personal thing. I get inspired by movies, books, the combination of those. Heck, even certain lighting inspires me, music anything really. This book supposes that allot of creativity comes from places, people, and well things extroverts enjoy the most. I do not need a open floorplan to get the "best" creative ideas. Im sure that rembrand, Picasso, Plato, Lao tsu, Chuang tsu, Miyamoto musashi, Darwin, All got their best ideas in perfect solitude or well their introverted selves.Anyway throughout this book i tried to think up of the one thing that made this book so, well lack luster.At the end of the book i read the following sentence which basically tells me all i needed to know."Nevertheless, this sense of magic shouldn`t prevent us from trying to become more creative."Now what in gods name is that even supposed to mean? Am i supposed to be afraid of my own creative magic, sense of wonder? Embodiment of the word anomaly, is what i make of it.I have been extremely disapointed in this book and all of its nonsensical conclusions.Falls short compared to previous works.