Buffalo Roaming

Where have we been? Roaming, of course. Truthfully, we've been gone too long. (Yes, a rare "judgment statement" from The Innovise Guys.)

Okay, so the bison shot here is not only symbolic of our "shuffling" off to Buffalo recently for the E2E Conference at Buffalo State, sponsored by the International Center for Studies in Creativity -- and traveling across "The Pond" to the CREA Conference in Sestri Levante, Italy and to Creativity & Innovation in Dublin (both in April) ... and before that, to the American Creativity Conference in Austin (late March) -- It is also about giving a "GET WELL Shout-Out" to our friend, mentor and teacher Mary Murdock -- who once dubbed my distance Master's cohort "The Wild Things" (fierce bison among them). Hi Mary!

Where was I? Oh, yes ... it's about what really had us away ... (and we could claim "busy") But the truth is, the culprit is an "old friend" -- namely, "Procrastination". This guy normally travels with a henchman known as "Perfectionism". While some people proudly proclaim their perfectionism, those of us who have studied creativity know it as a scantily cloaked version of judgment that has a way of sabotaging creative productivity. (Witness a three month void of blog entries here!)

It might be a good time to remember the importance of deferral of judgment and Linus Pauling's admonition that "In order of have a lot of GOOD ideas, we must first have a LOT of Ideas." (quality notwithstanding) It is also important to note, that no matter how far behind our old, self-sabotaging behaviors may seem, nor how well-trained we are in creative process, we need to be mindful. One selective-perception-based blind spot creativity practitioners may indeed have is that we believe we are "so creative" we are "cured". Not so, at least for this buckaroo.

Okay, so we promise to be here more often with even small pearls, some diamonds in the rough, and from time to time, some lumps of coal or piles of bat guano -- We'll try not to judge.

One last insight that came in Jonathon Vehar's session at E2E -- in which Jonathon was facilitating a discussion on the definition of innovation. I had an insight: We were agreeing that often seemingly small, incremental improvements upon existing ideas or product platforms may create sweeping and enduring change ... In other words, a novel idea "that sticks" -- which is, for many, what qualifies as a true innovation. My inference? ... That a lot of "innovation" comes from "uhu moments" rather than the legendary, watershed "Aha! moments" so often referred to in creativity lore.

Expect to see a lot more "uhu moments" here from now on. If we do that, the "Ahas!" will take care of themselves.

I am off (literally) to "where the Buffalo roam" -- the great state of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore, Custer National Monument, Deadwood and Flinstones Bedrock City -- and we'll probably stop at the iconic pop tourist destination, Wall Drugs -- along the way. We'll gratefully except the "uhu's" along with "Ahas!"

Bye for now, but not for long.


Doug Stevenson for
The Innovise Guys