Since you are already on our web page, you probably already know what the Creative Platform is. If not – in simple – a creativity workshop for innovative solutions to any kind of problems. Here is term that might trip you further in this article: process guide – a member of a group, who is responsible for the group’s well being and who gives out the tasks to the group. And here is the story of my first encounter with the Creative Platform:
I was 19 years old, just had arrived at college and the lectures had started two weeks ago. Our teacher told us that next week we will sleep at the university. We started looking at one another wondering what will happen. She told us that we won’t need our telephones or food for that matter. We can bring a sleeping bag, if we want, but it is not necessary. So we had a week to speculate what will happen. We kept on discussing amongst ourselves and kept on asking questions around to see, if anyone knew what will happen. It was so to say:
The mystery of the century!
The day arrived and we all went to the building without knowing what will happen in the next 24 hours or how exactly are we going to survive. We were all greeted at the entrance from some of our colleagues, who gave us name tags and a room number. Then we all gathered in the auditorium. We were not supposed to speak , so random people kept on “shushing” us, when we did. The event started with one of the lecturers, who made a presentation about the tourism in Aalborg – the city, where I studied. We made some exercises and were told to go to our group rooms.
Enough about the surroundings! Let me tell you more about the topic we worked on and how exactly we came up with a solution. Our group was chosen to work with the local museum of modern art – Kunsten. The museum had decided that it is time to attract more business people and their families, because Aalborg itself is the largest conference center in Denmark. Every year people from around the world gather there for many different conferences on all kinds of topics. Since there were not that many visitors at the museum, which is right next to the conference center, they wanted to create something special, so they can accommodate the needs of business people and their families.
Our initial idea was to create a series of events and activities that the museum can organise, in order to attract not just business people, but also their families. We worked on it all night and at the end we created the following concept:
A museum for business people and their families – come make your business meetings in our beautiful gallery, while your entire family can enjoy a day amng the art.
For the family members we thought that the museum can create workshop on different topics for children and adults, while the professionals can use the facilities to make small meetings.
Our idea became second on the contest, however, up til this day workshops with different themes are created weekly on the premises of the museum and the visitors number had increased for the past 8 years. The museum is one of the major attractions in Aalborg and famous for it’s art.
Let’s talk about the techniques we used:
Mind Map – each and every one of us has a mind map. What is that you might ask? Well, everything you know about – every topic you have any knowledge of – that is your mind map. For example, in my mind map you will find knowledge about business administration, tourism management, Switzerland, Bulgaria, salsa dancing, the languages I speak, cooking, cleaning, movies, etc. These more or less are the topics I use on a daily basis. However, the Creative Platform wants you to reach out to those topics you don’t even remember having in your mind map. That is why this is the first task you receive, when you arrive in the group room. They take your telephone and all other electronic devices, they give you a piece of paper with a picture of a brain on it and the words mind map and your process guide tells you – write down everything you know about. You have no idea how much time you have, but I assumed around 10 minutes. In these 10 minutes, the first 10 seconds you write fast and it is easy to fill in the blanks. Afterwards, you start to struggle. You can’t think of anything at all. At the end, you want this exercise to end, because you simply start staring at the paper and you start feeling dumb! But the interesting part is that somehow you have managed to put down some topics of interest you have had as child for example, you started remembering about stuff you did way before and the interests you once had. So at the end, this feeling of being dumb is just a negative reaction towards the fact that you are making your brain think as hard as possible.
The tools that helped a lot in the creativity process were the stimuli cards. Imagine playing cards – some of them have pictures, some words, others have principles, challenges, etc. They all have the same aim – to stimulate your brain to find those topics in your mind map that are locked away. Some of them don’t make any sense, some of them are quite helpful. However, each card is specified towards different types of people. Each card stimulates the participant in a different way. Some cards work for me, some don’t.
Other tools that we used are the 3D cases – meaning exercises that connect body, mind and attitude into one. This tool is used both in a group setting and when all participants are together and not working on the task at hand. These cases have the aim of taking the participants away from their everyday life and on to the platform itself. We all have things that distract us, we all think about our chores and tasks of the day. Once you enter the Creative Platform it takes you through a completely unique journey – you are not longer thinking in a box, you are not judged, you definitely don’t think about chores and you are completely focused on the task at hand. These exercises remove all barriers, they tell you how to feel, they are the energizers, when you are almost asleep half way through the night.
I am going to share my favorite one, which is called “Yes, we made a mistake”:
