2011 Recapped: Inspiring Articles

Last week we brought you our favorite picks produced by our CLA Provocateurs during 2011. This week, let’s open it up a little and look to the wider web. 2011 was a great year for creative inspiration and innovation, so read on for our favorites.

Any round up of articles that inspired the CLA would be incomplete without a reference to the “IBM 2010 Global CEO Study” wherein “Creativity”  was selected as the most crucial factor for success

It’s from 2010, but this study of 1,500 Chief Executive Officers from 60 countries and 33 industries worldwide, where chief executives identified creativity as a more important trait than rigor, management discipline, integrity or even vision for successfully navigating an increasing complex world has kept us inspired for all of 2011.

Moving on through the year we saw enormous amounts of writing on creativity. Here are our 10 favorites from the beginning of 2011 to the present day:

1. Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So What’s Next? April 2011

2. Can Creativity Be Taught? May 2011

3. Find Your Creative Groove July 2011

4. Ken Robinson On The Principles Of Creative Leadership July 2011

5. How to Thrive in a World of Elusive Creativity, August 2011

6. How to Think Creatively November 2011

7. 8 Secrets To Creative Thinking (Hint: Steal From Others) November 2011

8. Don’t Let What You Know Limit What You Imagine November 2011

9. Leaders need to tap into creative thinkers November 2011

10. Early Prototypes Can Hurt a Team’s Creativity December 2011

What were your favorite inspirations from 2011? Anything you would add to this list?

2011 Recapped: Top 10 Provocative Pieces

As 2011 wraps up, we’re quickly closing in on The Creative Leadership Academy. As a year-end exercise, we’ve collected our top provocative thoughts to stimulate your brain well into the new year. The January 2012 Creative Leadership Academy will feature some provocative, prolific thinkers and, in no particular order, these are our favorite pieces that came from them in 2011.

1. “Inspiration is the most effective way to unleash innovation in yourself and your organization. ” — Andy Stefanovich. In this podcast with Andy Stefanovich he discusses some great tips for finding inspiration and bringing more innovative thinking to your life.

2. In this piece, “Daniel H Pink: employees are faster and more creative when solving other people’s problems,” Pink discusses an interesting phenomenon: the fact that sometimes those outside of a problem are able to find a better, more innovative solution than those closest to it.

3. In this quick video, “The Purpose of Constraint,” with Chris Waugh of IDEO, Waugh discusses the ways that constraints can give you a good starting point for problem solving.

4. In another podcast, Andy Stefanovich discusses Innovation, Growth and Change and how to bring inspiration to life in an organization so it doesn’t get buried under more menial tasks or bureaucracy

5. In this speech on “Exploring the Science of Creativity,” Jonah Lehrer discusses the science of creativity and the forces that can help us find that “aha” moment, skip to 8:40 for Jonah’s section.

6. In this video from The Economist’s The Idea Exchance series, David Kuehler of P&G’s Clay Street Project gives a great three minute talk on innovation and creativity where he discusses the ways a team can keep “going vertical: flowing from moment to moment to moment” in problem solving.

7. This Mashable feature, “HOW TO: Develop Ideas That Will Disrupt Your Industry” published back on February 17, 2011 by CLA Provocateur Luke Williams focuses on disruptive thinking and the ways that something as simple as mismatched socks can change an industry.

8. In perhaps our most recent post on this list, Laura Seargeant Richardson discusses “The Kaleidoscope Mind: Some Easy Ways to Teach Creativity” in The Atlantic 

9. In “Every Child Is A Scientist,” a piece in Wired by Jonah Lehrer, he discusses a study that explores the power of uncertainty and looks for strategies to “keeps us playing with the world, eager to figure out how it works.”

10. This piece from back in April 2011 by Dan Pink “Why we all need a ‘To Don’t’ List, just like Moses” still holds true. Will you use a to-don’t list to cut through the clutter and focus in on what you need to accomplish in 2012?