 Morning everybody. I think they're going to get me a microphone so I can walk around because I am not a stand-behind-the-lector type of speaker. It's so great to see all you people here. So this is great. I'm not going to give any spoilers. I'm just going to start talking. So I want to talk about creating together because a lot of times when we think about creativity, we kind of think about it in our own little realm, right? What we can do by ourselves, what we can create by ourselves, but what we can create with other people is actually far more powerful in a lot of ways. And here we go with the mic switch. Okay, yes. Good. Let's get this out of the way because I got like, I need space. So you know where you are and we know what the date is so that's good. And just in case you don't know what my Twitter handle is, it's Denise Jacobs. You know we're at UXLX, et cetera. And if you want to get fancy and use the hashtag for the presentation, it's create together. And also, if you want the slides, the slides are at this URL here and I'll also have a slide that has the slide URL at the end and it's also going to be tweeted out at the end of the presentation. So if you miss it, you will still be able to get it. So just a little bit of background about me, Bruno gave a little bit. I used to be a front end designer, front end developer and I wrote the book, The CSS Detective Guide, but kind of during that process, I had this major epiphany about how important creativity was and how I actually realized that I don't really care what people produce. I just want people to produce something and I want the process to be enjoyable. And that's why I ended up actually founding my company, The Creative Dose, where I actually go and do trainings and come and do toxic companies and help people kind of build a culture of creativity and innovation so that they can create better and make more. So that's great. So let's start with this thing. So let's kind of talk about creating and like the importance of it just kind of as a thing. So creativity, I don't know if you guys have noticed, but it seems like, at least I've noticed this in the past several years, that creativity is kind of like the new black. It's like the new popular thing, thing to reference, something that they say it's important in companies, although a lot of times it's really just lip service. It's not really something that they support. But it has been come up in a lot of the important studies and polls. So IBM did a study back in 2010 and asked a bunch of people, a bunch of CEOs, what they felt like the most important quality and the most important skill that CEOs needed over the next five to ten years. And overwhelmingly it was creativity. In 2013, Time Magazine did a poll and they polled people and they asked them what they valued the most, the skill they valued the most in their coworkers. And over intelligence or compassion or humor and thankfully over beauty, because that would be kind of, that would be like shallow, right? Over all of those qualities, creativity was 94% of people value creativity in other people. And so the way I think about it is that it's not so much that creativity is a good idea. We actually must create. We're actually kind of hard wired to create and it's part of what's at our core and it's part of what kind of drives us forward I think through life. And then that therefore becomes somewhat of a business imperative. It's not just a good idea in business, but it's actually really important. It's necessary. It's required. Adobe actually did a study. I can't remember which year. I think it was 2012 or 2013 called the state of the create. And they felt that all the people that they surveyed and it was international, all over the place, United States, France, Germany, Japan, all over the place, 80% fell in that creativity. Unlocking creativity was critical to economic growth. So I'm not just, you know, it's not just like, oh my God, creativity is like a really good idea. Creativity is really important. The problem is, is that we've got this myth. This myth of the lone creative genius, right? There's somebody in their garage sitting there, you know, creating something or in their basement or at their desk and it's the single person who is like this fount of amazing ideas that they just generate over and over and that's the person who's creative, right? And that idea is problematic because it actually keeps us isolated and it keeps us in silos, right? And doing that is this kind of like supports this hierarchy, the separation within teams and it actually slows the passage of information from one person to another. When you feel like you're supposed to be this really smart, really creative person who's just supposed to generate stuff automatically without any help, then that means you won't go out and actually ask for help and you won't go and share your ideas with other people and that poses a problem because really great ideas come from people taking two kind of disparate things and putting them together. There's a guy who was the co-founder of fashion.me and he says that creativity happens when you get two people together or two things that don't seem connected and you find a way to connect them and that's when most of our great ideas, that's what they're born from, right? And so what we need to focus on for creativity in a lot of ways is not being by ourselves and not being siloed and isolated but actually finding other people that we can work in concert with and that we can work together towards a common goal. So there are several steps to this and the first step I believe is to unblock your creativity and to get creatively unblocked. So great quote here that the creative process is basically one that involves conversations but most importantly and first of all primarily conversations with oneself. So question for you and you can actually answer this. I know it's early in the morning and you may not have had your cafe but just work with me here. What do you feel like is like the major block, one of the major blocks for creativity both individually and within teams? Get it girl. What did she say? She said fear. What? Yes. I love it. She was like spoiler alert. I know the answer. So fears. So there's the fear of being judged, right? The fear that you're going to say something and people are going to be like well that's stupid. The fear of being criticized. That's bad. That's a stupid idea. That person's a stupid person. Why did they even become on this team? Why did they get hired? It's crazy. Also the fear of not being perfect and making mistakes, right? So if you're going to say something, if you're going to share an idea then by golly it's got to be spot on. If you've got like a concept and everything you've got to have it completely thought out and you have to know all of the answers, right? The fear of not being enough. I don't know enough. I haven't gotten enough education. I'm not smart enough. I'm not talented enough. I'm not creative enough. I hear this all the time in my workshops. I hear them all the time in my talks. I hear them all the time when people come and talk to me and they kind of give me their creativity confessions, right? I should do that. That would be a great idea honestly. Like at a conference to have like a booth in the back and come and like do like a confession and I'll be like people can come in and I'll be like speak my child. Tell me your creativity confessions. They'll be like well I'm going to try that one day. I'm going to propose it. So fears of not being enough and then even worse I think is the fear of having your ideas be too unique and too crazy and too off the wall and therefore not being supported, right? So then you don't want to share anything because like I said companies often have this policy that they're going to support creativity and they want to be innovative and stuff and then what happens is okay great you come up with an idea and they're like oh I don't think that's going to work. You're like I didn't even finish my sentence, right? Like it's not going to work and then managers actually end up suppressing and like and owners end up suppressing and creating this culture where there's a fear of rejection so that nobody really actually wants to share anything that they came up with whether it's a good idea or not, right? So all of these fears are actually forms of the inner critic and as Bruno said and I will say it again at the end of the presentation I haven't actually it's not published yet but I am working on a book called Bannisher Inner Critic because I feel like the inner critic is like the main block, right? The many forms is the main block to letting creativity flow. Fear by the way just in case you've never heard this there's a great acronym for fear the well-known one which is false evidence appearing real which I feel like is a really great way of looking at fear because that actually means that when you're afraid of something you're not actually dealing with de facto danger. You're actually dealing with the concept that there might be danger sometime in the future that you need to protect yourself from right? So whenever you're kind of in a fear mode it's really good to kind of know that and it's also good to have some ways to deal with it one of the best ways that I've seen to deal with it is what I like to think of as a mind body hack. So has anybody seen the TED talk by Amy Cuddy can I see a show of hands? Okay so for the people who haven't seen Amy Cuddy's TED talk she talks about how our bodies our minds are intricately very well connected I can't say the word that I want so I'm like let's just choose another one so that they're extremely strongly connected and that she actually says and I love this quote that our bodies change our minds, our minds change our behavior and our behavior changes our outcomes. Deep right? You're just like what? And so if you ever find yourself in a position literally in a position where you're in what she likes to call what she kind of refers to as like a one down position a position where you're actually obviously protecting yourself somehow because you don't feel safe right? And you're in this is a lot of times you get like this in meetings you're sitting there you do this or you do that or whatever right? And it's because there's probably somebody in there who's doing this, who's doing this, who's leaning on a desk right? And they're actually showing a power position. So let's try it. I'd like everybody to stand up please. You guys thought you were going to sit here and listen all morning didn't you? Oh no. So just in case you're worried about anybody watching you I want everybody to close your eyes I will close my eyes too so that you can trust that I'm not going to be I can see that your eyes aren't closed by the way if your eyes aren't closed right now I'm looking but close your eyes I'm going to do it too so close your eyes everybody's got their eyes closed so I want you to put yourself in like the most like one down pathetic like I can't do it they're going to not like my ideas I'm not smart enough I don't know enough stuff they're going to criticize me I'm going to be judged it's going to be horrible nobody listens to my ideas whatever just get into the whole thing and then when you feel like you're kind of at the lowest trough of your pathetic wave there shake it off and then I want you to adopt your best superhero pose Wonder Woman, Superman, Deadpool I don't care who it is Thor Supreme, Storm, me and storm yes and just hold the pose now this is what Amy and I keep holding pose don't let it go Amy says that you need to hold the pose for about two minutes now I'm thinking 30 seconds is probably pretty good so keep holding the pose okay shake it off alright let's try it one more time so pathetic awful I can't do anything oh my god and they should have gone back to school to be a lawyer and I'm never going to make it and why am I doing UX and it's just a bad idea and I can't share stuff okay shake it off okay you guys ready one, two, three boom boom boom boom nice superhero music in your background too so if you're in a hold it keep holding it if you're going to a meeting and you feel like you need some more confidence you're going to go on a date which I'm always like who doesn't need confidence for that right that might have been like a nice you know match on okcupid or match.com but still you might need a little extra confidence if you are going to go and propose something you're going to go and talk to a client and you're going to pitch something right do this for as long as you can hold it stand a little timer stand for two minutes okay you can sit down so you hold this position it starts to tell your body your body starts to tell your mind it's okay I'm safe and I'm empowered and I can handle this and it actually effectively changes you and tries to switch you out of a one down position you also end up experiencing to some degree something that Jane McGonagall I got this from reality is broken her book reality is broken which is a fantastic book something called fiero which is this emotional high that you get when you triumph over adversity and the sense of accomplishment that you get when you worked through your fears so you get this as a matter of fact actually another really interesting thing from the Amy Cuddy talk is that she says that this position here like this is something that congenitally blind people do when they feel triumphant so people who have never seen anything ever before ever in their lives when they are feeling like accomplished and they're feeling proud of themselves and they're feeling happy they do this so I kind of feel like that means that we're hardwired for success in a lot of ways and the other thing too is that when you start to work through these blocks and you start to actually kind of clear that space it makes space for inspiration which is really important another thing you can do to kind of work through these blocks and everything is to adopt what's called an experimentation mindset so an experimental mindset kind of I got this really great quote it expands the network of possible wanderings just love the way that sounds and it actually expands the intellectual space that we have to explore and solve problems so what happens is a lot of times is that we are in an implementation mindset that means that you've got to do it and you've got to get it right the first time whereas an experimentation mindset is more of going at things and exploring different ways of solving problems and so when you go into something and you kind of maybe you even get buy in from your company or wherever you are that you're working and say look let's try to adopt this experimentation mindset let's set out the time that we have that we can explore different possibilities there's no right or there's no wrong we're just learning and that will actually help and also start to help like an acceptance towards failure and learning from failure and then actually using that to iterate and to grow and expand doing this will actually start to help the flow of ideas for you individually and that will be helpful for when you go on and start to work with other people so the next part of it is connecting so another really great quote here is that creativity is social and instead of brainstorming you need magic circles small teams of people who trust each other are familiar with each other and who play together right this is how we actually get to ideas another really cool concept is that creativity is something called super linear which means the more people you have the more creativity you have and the more ideas that you have of people bouncing off of things and that you come to things more quickly in a lot of ways than you would trying to just sit there and think on it on your own great another great quote none of us is as smart as all of us and that's really true so what you want to do is you want to make sure that you actually share your ideas keeping your ideas to yourself and being like a carmudian with your ideas is detrimental I don't know if you guys have seen this movie Lucy has anybody seen Lucy I actually just watched it like recently I was like oh yeah that's right I can love that movie Scarlett Johansson what she's such a badass but one of the thing that the one of the concepts that was actually really important in Lucy was this idea of survival and what cells do to survive and so if a cell is in an environment where it feels like it's threatened and it doesn't have a lot of options it will just try to self preserve it will just try to keep itself intact and try to like maintain so that it can keep living whereas when a cell is in an environment that's like accommodating and that seems like it's going to be good then it tries to pass on itself knowledge by reproducing and so the way I like to think about it is are you going to self preserve are you that threatened are you going to try to reproduce are you going to try to share your knowledge and pass it on so that it goes beyond yourself so one of the things you have to do is you have to be generous right and share your ideas share them with people share your inspiration share the things that you don't quite understand or you don't get or the things that are problems are hard you have to do that there is a little bit of a flip side to this though in order to be able to share your ideas and actually get something from this process you also have to listen and a lot of times what ends up happening is we think we're sharing stuff but what we're doing is we're over talking people right and when we're over talking people we're actually muting them and then we can't let in anything and if we can't let anything then we can't have anything to mix and to change and to grow our ideas from so some tips three tips for becoming an adept listener number one be present right so be really present to the conversation actually be there and listen don't be there trying to like put something forward pay attention to what the person is saying actually have an active interest and then the really important one is to relax your own agenda if you've ever been in a conversation where you catch yourself listening so that you can say the next clever thing right and then you're like I didn't actually listen to them I like heard one thing and I'm formulating what I'm gonna say and I didn't hear anything that came afterwards and that stuff that came afterwards might have been the really interesting stuff so I want let's try this okay I want you to choose somebody that you're gonna talk to a person one person okay seriously I really want you to choose one person behind you in front of you next to you whatever you're gonna choose one person and this is what we're gonna do everybody's like what I'm dead serious this is what I want you guys to do okay the first think of something think of something that you're really really interested in doing maybe you're gonna train for a triathlon maybe you're gonna go and see like castles in Austria maybe I don't know what it is something just something that you're really really interested in doing okay the first time you talk tell this to each other I want you both are seeing this you're going to tell each other about what you're interested in doing with a lot of energy and a lot of emotion at the same time ready go same time lots of energy lots of energy lots of energy oh my god it's so interesting tell me okay okay stop now I want you to do it again except for this time one person talks and the person who's listening I want you to be super encouraging and super supportive and everything they say uh huh really uh huh wow uh huh really okay so whoever you decide whoever's gonna talk the other person be really supportive go okay switch switch tell me you guys how was that was great what I know right what is she doing here we don't need her anymore how was it with the first one who's weird why was it weird what was hard about it they're not used to it and could you did anybody have the moment where they stopped listening and they stopped talking they were listening and they're like oh wait I'm supposed to be talking right yeah so it's like you get off track so you can see how hard it is for two people to be like super excited about something and try to tell each other and then the other thing how did it feel when the other person was listening and they were really into it right besides that fake he says he's fake but did it feel like oh like this person's actually like listening to me like you know how they say like there's some people who are really really great at making friends and the reason is that you're like when I talk to them they just seem like really interested in me right like that is kind of the gift that you give when you listen with full attention like that and it builds the sense of trust and it builds the sense of safety so let's move on to the next thing we've connected we've unblocked it we've connected and now we need to work on combining ideas so a diversity of people equals a diversity of ideas right and you have to have these kind of differing skills and abilities and backgrounds and everything the more of that you have the more kind of ideas you're going to have and the better you're going to be able to solve problems and come up and generate with solutions creativity thrives on diversity tension sharing and collaboration very important so you need everyone you need all kinds of minds you need introverts and extroverts you need big picture and analytical thinkers you need generators and synthesizers men women different ages you also need communication outside of meetings and you need all of this because diversity of backgrounds and minds and thinking styles is a huge competitive advantage the other thing that's really important to have is to make sure that you have these kind of complementary roles and responsibilities when people are doing too much of a similar thing then they start to compete with each other but when they are everybody's got something that they're really good at and you know that this is the thing that you're going to be able to do and take care of and handle for the team and that somebody else has got your back and something that you're not really that great at but that they're awesome at and been watching the show lately that used to play it was played in the United States and it was on for like five years it's called leverage and it's this team of like a guy who can like beat people up really well and a woman who's a grifter who can like you know talk anybody into doing anything and then who's really good at stealing and then a guy who's like a hacker and then there's a guy who's a mastermind who like kind of manages them with all of their talents and it's really cool to see how well they work together and how well they fit as a team so another thing that's also really important with combining ideas is being responsive and adaptive to the environment that you're in and what happens a lot of times is that we're thrown different things from different places all the time but we don't really have the agility the kind of mental agility to figure out how to actually use those and incorporate those into what we're doing so we're going to try another exercise this one again a partner tried to use another person if you can like turn around or person next to you behind you or whatever so I'm sure how to use another person this one we're going to tell a story and the story is going to go like this you both of you are going to be storytellers one of you is going to be the storyteller A and one of you is going to be storyteller B the first person who's telling the story is going to need to have their back to the screen okay so you guys are going to have to figure it get that sorted and I'm not going to change the slide until you guys get that sorted so there's that then what's going to happen is the person who's telling the story is going to have to make spaces in the story for the listener to give a word to give either a noun a thing or to give a verb like some kind of action right so let's do this James so I'm telling a story so I was going down to the store and I was going to buy a loaf of bread a loaf of bread but I went there to the store and I tried to find my wallet and I couldn't find my wallet and so I asked them do you take instead cards and they said yes we take cards but first you have to run home quickly so I ran home and I got the card and then I came back and I did it so do you see how you have to leave the space okay this one's funner than the last one trust me you guys are going to be like I don't even know why she's going to talk anymore after this okay so get your partner get yourself situated you don't start yet don't start yet two more things listener I'm going to have a list of words on the screen you don't have to come up with the words as a matter of fact don't try to help the storyteller by putting in a word that makes sense just read down the list okay number one number two storytellers I am going to give you a premise for the story so you don't have to try to think of one the premise for the story is this you won a trip to Brazil to go to the Amazon and you are sharing your experience of going on this trip to the Amazon with your listener are you guys ready listeners here your words storytellers go I know so quick no way we have to give the listener a chance to be the storyteller so you guys are going to switch the listeners now the storyteller guess what different premise different set of words haha you were like oh I know how to make this work oh no you don't so the story for the new storyteller is this you are absolutely fascinated by the fact that they went to Brazil because you also went to Brazil but you went for a totally different reason you went to go and have a spiritual experience with ayahuasca now if you're not familiar with ayahuasca ayahuasca is like jungle lsd so listener number two you have a spiritual experience and I'm sorry storyteller number two you got your spiritual experience and listener number two you have this set of words so you got a couple of minutes go read it in the order that is there this was the we were going to do this yesterday but I decided to like save for today right you just have to dust right alright you guys wrap up your story she's like I'm not done yet there's always more to tell you guys going to take a seat but we're not done yet you can continue your story during the coffee break amazonian women and snakes and colorful birds and a kitten why was it fun unexpected what else surreal what else interactive yeah creative right it really forced you to have to like change and move and stuff like that and did it feel like it was this kind of interactive this exchange right that you were getting something from the person and you're kind of going back and forth that's what I'm talking about so that brings us to the next little bit of this which is play now great you guys are probably all heard of Josh Clark he says that play is how we invent and experiment and I love that and so what we have just done actually in all of these instances is we have actually used improv techniques and improv can really really help improve what I think is one of the best stimulators of the creative process instead of saying things like yes but which is what happens a lot of times in meetings that you actually work to amplify the ideas of other people and support their creativity by doing something called which is essentially using yes and so with improv some of the most important things to remember are you have to start where you are whatever you've got if you're in a meeting or whatever and you're doing a brainstorming session quote unquote if somebody comes up with an idea and it's not like the most awesome idea you've heard you go great this is where we have to start and then you add on to that yeah that's a great idea and then we can do this accept the offer so realize that when people come up with ideas and they share ideas they're putting themselves out there right and by you accepting the offer you have this in your stories and everything as soon as you started saying yes right it changes the dynamic if I had it I have another exercise where I have you say you know you're planning to go on a picnic and the other person says no to every suggestion well why don't we do this no I really I don't really want to do that well why don't we have like cucumber sandwiches I don't really like cucumber you know and then it just never goes anywhere and then the same thing if you're like well why don't we go we can go down to the river yeah we can do that but it might be smelly down there okay well why don't we go to the ferris wheel yeah we can do that but I'm not really a fan of ferris wheels ah it never goes anywhere if you say yes and yeah we can do the ferris wheel and then we can go to the bookstore underneath the bridge afterwards and then and then and then and it just keeps going accept the offer fully commit so I don't know if you guys have ever seen like an improv performance or even just and bad like acting like theater if somebody is only half way in their character is it any good if anybody's just half way or half asked about anything is it ever any good no but when somebody's really into it and they're just like yeah and they're just giving it their all it makes you it's infectious it pushes you to do that too and then the response is always man and then the most important thing is that you want to make your teammate you want to look make the other people look good I need six people six people to get up here on the stage with me six chop chop yes one two don't make me call people because I will Sophia get up here three four to see three for the one two three four can I is that six what do we got no we need one more person yes yes Adam yes so one two three four six that's five six my god that was hard okay this is what I want you guys to do you guys are going to create a sentence together you're going to put just support just give a word one of you you're going to step forward and give a word and the next person's going to step forward and give a word and next person so whenever you want to start as you feel moved you don't have to do it in order elephant ghost soap airplane airplane train aliens elephant ghost soap airplane train aliens how about that for a sentence alright little little more like a laundry list like this is what I'm going to get at the grocery store today alright let's try it again let's make it a sentence and I want you to make it a sentence and make it so that you choose a word that is going to be easy for the other person to make another word after right so if I say the that is a really easy word for somebody to add something to etc etc etc we're making a sentence that makes sense whoever wants to start start when we go to Saturn take it home madam tomorrow go to Saturn tomorrow full sentence totally makes sense for the most part it's kind of like a phrase it's kind of like you know but still but this way knowing that you need to make it good for the next person changes how you make a choice right but when you know that it's all of you making it together it changes it right instead of you just coming up and saying one word oh I'm good I don't have to worry about anybody else ok thank you you guys you did great so I've gone over time I apologize for this let me wrap this up for Bruno's poor man's like sweating bullets like we're off schedule so this develops possibilities last little bit you also want to construct you also want to build an environment for creativity so you want to design an environment for co-creation you want to provide the proper outlets for people again if people have their ideas but they don't have any way to share them it's really a problem so a lot of times companies are now doing things where they have whiteboard space just whole walls with whiteboards and whiteboard markers so people can just come up and put their ideas up there and then other people can actually add on to them co-creation needs externalized materials sharing the fuzzy raw concept gives your team material to work with respond to and evolve so the other thing is too is to encourage stupid ideas sometimes they don't seem like they make a lot of sense on the outset but actually stupid ideas may be some of the best ones you just have to give them the space to grow and develop with other people's input you got to let people be able to post their ideas so that they can have them around to spark other ideas and just share and grow and in terms of spaces you want to have the kind of space that encourages people to do what you want them to do so for example sitting spaces are for conversation and standing spaces are for action you also want to have we spaces that are there for people to work with collectively and then me spaces for people to work on stuff individually and you also want to have this time for individual thinking and group thinking and also this was really really successful at Pixar Steve Jobs actually designed the building so that there would be this big central point where people from different parts of the company would have to cross paths and that crossing paths caused the spark of ideas and different things and different kinds of input and it was a really successful thing so you can think about that and creativity of creativity collaboration is important at every stage of the process it's not an add-on it's something that needs to be worked in from the very beginning so this co-creation that we're going to is a bit of a new paradigm right it is this time that we need to usher in this way of working together like supporting the business imperative of creativity and giving people this opportunity in this environment and able to flourish because we've already done it where we tried to do it all ourselves right we've already done it where we like did all the heavy lifting and tried to do all the like thinking and being clever and all that stuff and so now it's time for us to actually up level our creativity take it to a whole new place and I believe that we can do that through creative collaboration and the thing is that when we think about what we're ultimately shooting for what our actual goal is I don't think it's of more stuff you know it's not like we want to acquire more objects and more things we actually I think as humans we actually want to self-actualize and realize our potential and make things better and this is a concept that I got from my thought leader crush Umar Haik who wrote a book who said that right isn't he awesome you got to look him up you guys he was like just the deepest of deep just amazing he wrote a book called betterness economics for humans and in this in this book he talks about how contributing to a greater good is actually what substantiates us what's what makes us fills us up and what makes us feel better and that the sum total human effort can add up to not merely more but better ah so we need to develop this openness to differences this awareness this building teams where they're diverse and they have a lot of people coming in doing that will build these strong bonds amongst the groups and they'll have these better decisions these ideas but the thing is is that it starts with you right collaboration flourishes when there's a willingness to embrace new practices and new thinking so we need to do all this tap into the collective brilliance and we need to co-create to make things better and also to make better things excuse me but also to make things better and we do that by working together so that is everything Bruno I apologize so if you want the slides you can get the slides here and most importantly in my mind please go if you're interested in the banishing or critic please go and sign up on my mailing list for that and thank you very much you guys are awesome you can get in touch with that thank you