Nottingham Creative Business Awards

Nottingham celebrates its creativity and innovation

An inspirational event at Nottingham's Council House on Tuesday June 2nd 2009 from 5-7pm
Nottingham Creative Business Awards 2009

Nottingham is once more celebrating its vibrant and creative community as the Nottingham Creative Business Awards 2009 is launched.

Now in its third year, the awards will celebrate the city's creative sector which enhances Nottingham's profile as a creative city of national and international importance. They aim to recognise and celebrate the successes achieved by businesses and individuals working in the city's creative industries and raise Nottingham's profile as hotbed of globally influential talent.

The city is bursting at the seams with the most amazing musicians, photographers, graphic designers, writers, fashion designers, advertising agencies, interior designers, performers, dancers, artists and film makers.

The innovation of these businesses and the international recognition many of them have has helped put Nottingham on the creative map and begun to be recognised as a highly credible cultural capital.

Representatives from the creative sector, including past award winners, will come together under the grand setting of Nottingham's Council House on Tuesday June 2nd 2009 for the launch of this year's awards.

Nottingham Trent University 's choir will be performing Abba hits and other surprising numbers at the start of the launch at 5pm during the arrival of guests.

Guests will hear from past winners Maber (acclaimed Nottingham Architects) and Eternal Spirits (Internationally recognised corsetry specialists) about their experiences, the benefits of winning a creative business award and the positive impact it has on businesses.

Guests will also be told about the application process and how to enter and how applicants are judged on their work.

Simon Green, The Director of Sustainable Development at Nottingham City Council, said: "We want to continue with the success of previous years by encouraging as many people as possible to enter for awards

"These awards are our opportunity to show the world how much excellent creative work is going on around the city and are a great tribute to all the established and emerging creative individuals and businesses our exciting city has.

"As a council we are committed to promote and develop the creative industries as a key sector of the city's economy and this is why we are a candidate city for the World Design Capital in 2012."

Ann Priest Pro Vice-Chancellor and Head of College, Art and Design and Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University said: "Nottingham Trent University, College of Art Design and Built Environment is delighted once again to support the Nottingham Creative Business Awards. The College has been central to developing and sustaining the creative community and creative entrepreneurs of Nottingham for over 150 years. The considerable creative influence and business impact of their enterprises is demonstrated year on year through these Awards; and we are looking forward once again to showcasing and celebrating the best of Nottingham Creative Businesses'.

The awards ceremony will be held on Wednesday 7th October at The Council House.

Deadline for entrants is Friday 31st July 2009 at 5pm. PLEASE NOTE the deadline for the Writing and Publishing award, Film and TV award and Music and Performing Arts award is Wednesday 1st July 2009 at 5pm and may relate to work created or designed in the previous two years. Self-nomination or nominations by a third party are acceptable.

Confirmed sponsors for the awards are:

Architecture, Urban & Interior Design – Greater Nottingham Partnership

Music & Performing Arts – New College Nottingham

Product Design – Nottingham City Council

Writing & Publishing – The Arts Council

Graphics & Advertising – St Tropez

Fashion & Textiles – Nottingham Trent University

Digital Media – South Nottingham College

Visual Arts – One nottingham

For further information on the categories and application process then please visit Nottingham Creative Business Awards 2009

All media are welcome to attend the launch event at the Council House, Old Market Square, on Tuesday 2nd June from

Creativity step child to Innovation???

Creativity seems to be
a poor stepchild
to innovation these days.

Sorry you see it that way Chuck.

Innovation has become a SAFE term, a BUZZWORD for those who are afraid to actually think creatively or let their employees be creative and not robotic innovators.

Are all those companies that are claiming to be now focused on Innovation truly innovative or has it become the BENCHMARK, BEST PRACTICES, RE-ENGINEERING of today.

Are supervisors, managers, team leaders, CEOs, owners of companies truly

Supporting the creative thinking of their employees
Promoting them
Recognizing them
Encouraging or Educating them
Applying them
Developing them

or are them simply using INNOVATION as their slogan of today?

I wonder?

Most innovation consultants whose websites I visit appear to be selling \
their formulas,
their systems,
their structures,
their LEAN MANAGMENT,
their SIX SIGMAs

while not long after the consultant leaves the premises most are going back to their usually uninnovate, uncreative habits and methods?

I wonder?

Robert Alan Black, Ph.D., CSP
http://www.cre8ng.com

Creativity Conferences: US & Around Globe
http://www.ifoco.org

We Are All Born Creative-Yet we don't all use it!
We Can Improve Our Creative Skills Daily
Learn to S.P.R.E.A.D. C,r,e,8,N,G, & Creative Thinking thruout
Alan's Cre8ng Challenges (weekly)
total collection
http://www.cre8ng.com/CC/index.shtml

Taught to Seek Solutions

Taught to Seek Solutions

We are taught through our school systems, our workplaces and our families to discover, find, create, stumble upon solutions.


Always solutions.

Yet what does the word solution really mean?

Solution

The method or process for solving a problem.

The answer to a problem.

Answer

A solution or a result of solving a problem.

Solve

To find a solution to a problem.

Solution = Answer

Now I ask…

Are solutions finite?

Are solutions final?

Are solutions/answers only temporary at best?

Are there only single solutions or answers to problems?

Class what is the answer to 1 + 1?

In the minds of the teachers who ask this question there is only one answer, one correct answer.

What is the capital of Georgia?

When was “X” fought, born, discovered, published…….?

To these questions SINGLE ANSWERS/SOLUTIONS are implied.

Life Questions, Questions in REAL life
Problems outside of school, in the home, at work, in life

None of these have single solutions/answers most of the time.

Today’s correct answer may be wrong tomorrow.

Today’s solutions, generally will create tomorrow’s problems.

Maybe you can discover, create, produce, find, stumble upon, agree upon a solution/answer that appears to be a CORRECT ANSWER/SOLUTION at a specific time. Yet soon after you or someone else will discover, create, produce, find, stumble upon, agree upon another solution/answer that appears to be more CORRECT at that moment.

None of the definitions for answer, solution, solve include the word CORRECT.

CORRECTNESS is implied, demanded, expected, infurred.

Productive
Efficient
Effective
Successful
Improved
Innovative
Creative
New
Original
Unique
Novel
Weird
Strange
Unusal
Doable
Better
Workable

Answer
Solution
Result

Solutions
Ideas
Answers
Resolutions
Possibilities
Probabilities
Designs
Creations
Sketches
Thoughts
Concepts
Guesses
Estimations
Innovations
Creations

Thinking
Rethinking
Studying
Analyzing
Synthesizing
Understanding
Belief
Philosophy
Assumption
Premise
Theory
Hypothesis

When something is first invented it is THE SOLUTION
Then over time we keep improving, innovation, recreating, creating anew, changing, adjusting modifying, advancing

1968 solution
not equal to
2009 solution

are they both solutions, answers,

are either truly the correct answer/solution

or simply chosen solutions/answers/resolutions

Meditative an answer/solution
Intuitive one possible answer / one from many ideas
Negotiative our idea/answer
Directive ‘THE’ ANSWER

Today’s great medicines may become useless or poisons in the future

Today’s beautiful cars, designs, buildings
Maybe seen as dated or ugly tomorrow or in the future

Any Human Activity Can Help Develop Creative Thinking

Any Human Activity Can Help Develop Creative Thinking


Like Mr, Miyagi (spelling?) in Karate Kid shown his student painting a fence, washing a car and many other activities can teach, prepare, rehearse someone in the skills of karate, such can happen through many activities including

video games

can prepare someone to become more creative.

see the attached sheet that shows the 32 traits I focus on. Also there are the 20 that E. Paul Torrance's famous Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking focus upon. That is a total of 52 and those are not the only skills and traits involved with creatively thinking, creatively solving problems, finding problems....

when the student is ready the teacher will appear.

whether it is a question from Socrates while sitting on the grass at his feet
writing or drawing on a chalkboard
an overhead projected image
a video
a dvd or cd

we can learn and develop many skills

the medium is simply that the medium

Alan

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES KEEP CREATIVITY ALIVE

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES KEEP CREATIVITY ALIVE

Lists of traits of highly creative people mostly all contain

fluent
flexible
elaborative
original

school systems, cultures, families, religions, groups, perhaps systems in general tend to reduce the need for being

fluent
flexible
elaborative
original

so when we are born we are born with many capacities that support and cause us to be creative by nature

yet then we grow up and are educated not to be

fluent
flexible
elaborative
original

for those of us whose lives involved much change, variety, moving from place to place, town to town, state/province to state/province or country to country

we were exposed to high degrees of difference
we observed people being

fluent
flexible
elaborative
original

for me it was my parents' annual FAMILY VACATION,
only once did my two older brothers go
I went every year for 13 or 14 years and experienced all 48 mainland US states, 4 provinces and one Mexican state.

during the first 6 years after graduating from architectural school I worked in 9 different architectural firms and my own (10th)....and had to learn almost 9 completely systems and sets of working happens and approaches to doing the same work.

In total since I started working part-time as a freelance artist at 16 I have had 47 jobs in 8 professions.......a source of learning many different ways of doing things.

what about for you?

has there been much change in your environments: personal, professional, family?

physical, psychological, visual, social, emotional?

Alan

Breaking Crayons to create

Breaking Crayons Produces Creativity



Class now take out your pretty crayons. Remember we want to keep them neat. Handle them carefully. We don't want to break them.


Across the United States school teachers continually tell their students this daily. But why? Are they trying to teach them orderliness or how to use some wonderful tools.

Keeping crayons neat, not peeling them (because children will not know the names of the colors), and not breaking them limits the creativity of the children and eventually diminishes their natural creativity as adults.

Crayons can be seen as metaphors for tools. Too often teachers, parents, even employers or friends and fellow managers or workers squelch natural creativeness by emphasizing neatness, orderliness, and limited, selected use of tools.

For instance, what are crayons? They are simply portions of colored wax. Why are they pointed? Because Binney & Smith, the Crayola™ manufacturers, thought they would look and work better if they were shaped like pencils? The pencil shape restricts the possibilities of line widths and shapes. Why do they have wrappers on them? Perhaps the manufacturers wanted the children to remember the colors name (in small print) and also to reinforce the brand name (in very large bold print)? Rarely do children or artists refer to colors by the manufacturers chosen names. Plus the name is not important. While the visual recognition of the color is.

If the inference of the teachers crayon lessons is taken literally, we need to learn to use our tools only in the manufacturers prescribed ways. If we do this we will only limit our potential capabilities as tool users, problem solvers and creative human beings. This is also true of the greatest number of our rules, policies and traditions in the common workplace. Breaking crayons symbolizes the need and act of change that is especially needed in todays medical profession.

What policies have you been following without question? What procedures have you not analyzed or challenged for relevancy today? What job assignments have you reviewed for their necessity recently? What work tasks have you reviewed for responsibility placement this year to better serve your patients? Break your crayons!

Perhaps you have a policy requiring multiple signatures for purchases over $100. Perhaps the policy was put into effect in 1963. Break this crayon. Can you raise the dollar value to $250 or more in todays dollars? Re-examine what time and steps are required for the signatures to be collected or who is actually collecting the signatures. Perhaps in 1963 the three or four people who then signed the requisition were located near each other but now are in varied locations at your facility? Back in 1963 it took a few minutes to collect the signatures. Today it might take 3 or 4 days using inter-department mail. Break this crayon!

Have you examined the locations of your equipment, department by department, use by use, shift by shift recently? The locations may be based on decisions made in 1978? When you think about it you may realize you have had 5 separate renovation projects since then. Break these crayons!

Have you purged your record storage recently? Break your crayons! Research continues to report that very few stored records are ever used again, even though they are required by law. Verify whether you could lessen your record storage without sacrificing completeness. Verify whether you have duplication or not. Ask, Can we store these records more efficiently or more effectively. Break these crayons!

Department by department, job by job, shift by shift examine equipment storage locations. You may even check to see if you have acquired multiple tools or materials that duplicate each other. Break your crayons!

Each of these may be crayons at your medical center, hospital or clinic. Each might function better or be better performed if they were broken and examined to be made more efficient and effective.

Is your floor plan layout like a box of unbroken crayons--limited in its flexibility and outdated for todays needs? Are doorways in their best locations? What about the placement of lighting? What about the type of lighting? Does it suit your needs in 1993? Are the colors of your walls, floors, ceilings, equipment, uniforms effective for today?

Each of these also may be crayons at your medical center, hospital or clinic. Each may be vastly improved if they were broken and examined and then replaced or modified to suit the 90s.

Change and flexibility are the greatest strategies and tools of the 1990s in the medical field. By learning to break our crayons. By training your staff to break their crayons you can discover and develop more efficient and effective policies, procedures, tools, methods, and systems. Each of these can benefit all aspects of the medical field.

So! Peel your crayons. Then break them. Then experiment making as many different kinds of lines as you can with the broken ends, the unbroken ends, the sides. Hold several different pieces at one time and discover what you can create. Challenge your rules, policies, procedures and traditions (paradigms). Try doing things differently, at least in small ways.

Using our tools as prescribed, teaches us only to follow instructions, not to think, not to create and therefore limits the possibility of discovery.

So what might you do? Go break a crayon today. Have fun. Discover as much as you can. Encourage employees to break crayons. In fact you may have a staff meeting and have everyone break crayons together. Remember those who see their tools only as hammers will only see their problems as nails. Instead see your hammer, your crayons, your tools as objects that may have endless uses when you apply your natural imagination and intelligence to challenges you choose.

©1990, 2009 Robert Alan Black, Ph.D.
RAB, Inc. - Cre8ng People, Places & Possibilities
P. O. Box 5805 Athens, Georgia 30604-5805
alan@cre8ng.com -- www.cre8ng.com
1-706-353-3387

Being Creative is Always Your Choice

When we all wake up we have the choice each day to be creative. We can choose to take time to list many ways to do everything we need or want to do any day. If we choose novel things our lives will be different each day.

My recommendation for you today is to read a book you have never read before today.

Perhaps read one of the books in the photo above.

Go walk somewhere you have never walked in your town or city.

Go spend time in a park, zoo. Volunteer at a kindergarten or pre-school. Spend time with young children

Choose to be an open-thinker without immediate answers that someone else gave you.

Have fun being creative in many ways today.

Wandering ALan

http://www.cre8ng.com