A Peacock in the Land of Penguins: A Fable About Creativity and Courage by BJ Gallagher Hateley and Warren H. Schmidt
AUDIOBOOK: "Interested in new ideas for making yourself and your organization successful -- read this little book." Ken Blanchard 15.05
Centering: The Body Drop Technique by Synthia Smith
AUDIO: A quick and easy way to cut through anxiety and become fully present and aware....anytime, anywhere - even in the middle of a business meeting.
4.95
FIRST FRIDAY ARCHIVE Innovation and Creativity from Successful Advertising Entrepreneur, Joe Duffy hosted by Coaching Circles
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Creative Tension By Charles Fishman - Fast Company
Corning Inc.'s Sullivan Park research facility is one of the most creative places in the world -- a place where brilliant (and unruly) scientists literally invent the future.
The hair is hard to overlook. It's short, stylish, and artfully done, but distinctly purple. Except among skateboarders and in dance clubs, purple hair is pretty uncommon. In a respectable corporate setting where people spend time talking about benchmarks, annual-performance objectives, and 360-degree feedback, purple hair is truly scarce. When you cross that corporate setting with an advanced scientific-research institution -- where people wear lab coats, talk about quantum dots, and browse chemical catalogs looking for interesting molecules -- people with purple hair are as hard to find as neutrinos.
Throw in the fact that Lina Echeverr?a, 50, is guardian of one of the great scientific traditions of America -- she is director of glass and glass ceramics at the storied glass-research lab at Corning Inc. -- and the purple hair is truly striking. How does a woman who is a scientist, a colleague, and a pivotal corporate manager maintain credibility with purple hair -- no matter how stylishly it's done?
"Usually it's more eggplant," says Echeverr?a. "Aubergine. A.J., my hairdresser, I give him all the freedom. It's fun, no?"
Echeverr?a is an unlikely occupant of her office -- an energetic, elfin, Colombian woman who started her career tramping through the jungles of South America studying ancient lavas. And she brings an unlikely management style to Corning, a company (1999 revenues: $4.7 billion) whose history spans three centuries and whose early customers included Thomas Edison. Echeverr?a heads an unruly group of 45 researchers -- 25 PhD scientists and another 20 technicians and support personnel -- who make up the glass and glass-ceramics research group. The group works to understand existing glass, invent new kinds of glass, and improve the performance of pulled glass -- Corning's modern signature product, optical fiber. To say that Echeverr?a is those people's boss, which is how the company would explain it, is laughable.
One of her group's top scientists, Nick Borrelli, 63, is also one of Corning's most senior researchers. "I don't really report to anybody," he says. "I don't care who my boss is. I can't be managed. I can just be suppressed and frustrated."
The Nature of Creative Development by Jonathan Feinstein via Stanford Univ. Press The "Nature of Creative Development" presents a new understanding of the basis of creativity, describing patterns of development of individuals engaged in creative endeavors. I show how creativity grows out of distinctive, unique creative interests individuals form, often years before they make their main contributions, which grow out of their interests. I describe paths individuals follow exploring their creative interests, building up unique knowledge bases that are generative of creativity; describe how individuals’ interests spark creative responses they make, and ways in which individuals are guided by their interests and values in managing their development. Later chapters describe richer patterns of development that unfold over decades.
“An Easy Way to Increase Creativity” By Oren Shapira & Nira Liberman
Creativity is commonly thought of as a personality trait that resides within the individual. We count on creative people to produce the songs, movies, and books we love; to invent the new gadgets that can change our lives; and to discover the new scientific theories and philosophies that can change the way we view the world. free
“Are Distractible People More Creative?” By Jonah Lehrer via Wired
Our culture worships attention. We assume that, when we’re faced with a really hard problem, the best response is to stay focused, to lavish the dilemma with deliberate thought. And so we order a triple espresso, or chug some Red Bull, or snort some Ritalin. The point of these chemicals is to sharpen the spotlight, to keep us fixated on the task at hand. free
Creative Tension 
The Nature of Creative Development by Jonathan Feinstein via Stanford Univ. Press 
