23 August 2010
I
n a recent article on Scotland's most vibrant website promoting sustainable development (no, no, you don’t need to click a link for this site!) mention was made of Crowne Plaza hotels’ PR gimmick about installing living grass lawns in some of their meeting rooms to increase creativity. Our article pointed to research which indicated there was scientific backing for this idea. Martin provided the following comment.
Re: Meeting on grass, high on ideas
- Here are some additional points employers could consider on the way back from the garden centre:
- Encourage regular aerobic exercise.
- Provide stimulating & meaningful work which allows for creative & flexible solutions.
- Reduce passive 'broadcast only' events (eg TV, lectures, speeches, conferences particularly dull ones, like duh! why hang about at those?)
- Encourage & support meaningful external pursuits (hobbies, special interests, community projects?) Most importantly: *act* on good suggestions for improving things.
The above is Martin’s summary of a useful article in Newsweek, which also give us the lowdown on brainstorming – frankly it’s rubbish, it doesn’t work, people come up with more ideas and better ideas when left by themselves, it’s been known for years, it’s been proven. If you wish to read more about this and all sorts of wrong ideas in the field, widely defined, of self-help (and what techniques you can actually use simply and effectively) I recommend the fine book by Professor Richard Wiseman, Britain’s most quoted psychologist. It’s called 59 Seconds: Think a little, change a lot and is not available at butchers, bakers, candlestick makers and surgical stores but can be found at all good bookshops (if it can’t be found it’s not a good bookshop) and of course, if you must, it’s available online. There’s a hardback, a big-format paperback and a normal paperback edition, the middle of these being now available at branches of The Works, at only £1.99.
But to get back to Newsweek the article cited above points to another Newsweek article on The Creativity Crisis which covers the decline of creativity in the US (no reason to imagine it’s not the same here) and offers some suggestions as to why this should be so. A serious issue and well worth looking at. We might come back to this so I can rant about the huge amounts of time folks are spending watching television, surfing, texting, phoning, computer gaming and the whole gamut of digital and VDU stuff which is at least part of the reason for the creativity crisis. Or to put it in technical terms it is stunting and rotting especially our children's brains - go climb a tree!
We want your comments. Oh yes we do! This article is proof that we read and value your comments, favourable or rubbishing, solemn or humorous, written in English, Scots or Doric. Thank you, Martin.
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