Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic holiday and are well-rested. I know, it’s time to work for some of us, but look at the good side - Christmas is over and you don’t have to think about gifts anymore - Santa already came to your house and there is plenty of time before next Christmas. ;)
I was wondering about this article and what I should talk about and the only logical follow-up topic is an explanation of the conceptual principles that the Creative Platform adopts. Those are also the four pillars of the Creative Platform. If you have read the previous articles, this chart is familiar to you then:
And here are the four pillars of the Platform:
The first one is - NO experience judgement - I emphasize on “no” because this is probably one of the most important aspects of the Platform. This is also the biggest task of the process guides (the group leaders, who help the participants and give them the different tasks). In the previous articles, we talked about the rules of the Platform. Well, the rules - “Say yes to everything”; “No judgement is allowed” and others are there for exactly this reason - not to allow judgement of any kind during the creative process, based on the Creative Platform. It is essential to feel at ease, to be yourself with no constrains. That is also why socialisation is not allowed and your real name is not valid when you are a participant. Therefore, we use the 3D cases - “Yes, we made a mistake” and “Cartoon character”.
Here prof. Byrge in his PhD talks about fear – fear in professional relationships. It is the fear of being wrong, the fear of being misunderstood, the fear of losing face and the fear of losing power (Byrge, 2011). This pillar is also connected to the confidence area of concern that we discussed in our previous article.
Parallel Thinking - the next pillar - means “to focus the thinking of both the individual and all participants in a group towards one task at a time” (Byrge, 2011). Therefore, the main task (to find a creative solution to the problem at stake) is divided into multiple subtasks. These subtasks are then given to the participants collectively so that all participants are solving the same subtask at the same time – they are thinking in parallel upon the same task (Byrge, 2011). This allows for full completion of the main task and thus minimising stress and the sensitivity of thinking about other tasks. Something really important here to mention is that: participants are only told to start solving a subtask and are not given any information about the deadline (Byrge, 2011). The process guides take full responsibility that the time given for a subtask is sufficient to continue to the next subtask (Byrge, 2011). This allows participants to focus 100% only on the subtask they are given. This is also the reason for having process guides, people that have the role of a group leader and who take care of the time management within the group work and of course, they invoke all the rules during the creative process.
Here come also the rules about distractions - such as:
All watches and electronic devices are removed by the process guides
Drinks and food are not allowed in the group rooms
Nobody except the facilitator can come into a group room
Anything that is not related to the subtask at hand should not be on the working table
If a participant needs any sort of a break, they can have one alone.
Task Focus is one of the most important pillars of the Creative Platform. It is connected to Parallel Thinking as well as concentration and motivation areas of concern. On the Creative Platform, the participants are allowed to focus so much on the task that they lose track of time, that they lose track of colleagues, that they lose track of themselves (Byrge, 2011). In only that situation they have successfully experienced the Creative Platform and are able to apply unlimited knowledge. This is one of the tasks of the facilitator and the process guides. There must be no doubt that the process is controlled by the facilitator, and any attempt to divert from the planned process is misleading from the task under focus (Byrge, 2011). This is also why the tasks must be prepared beforehand.
Horizontal Thinking is also presented on the Creative Platform by diversified knowledge and it is connected to the knowledge application area of concern. For the Creative Platform to reach its optimal stage, it is necessary to have a broad and deep base knowledge, meaning that we have as many mental books as possible (Byrge, 2011). Furthermore, due to the theory of recently activated knowledge, there is a problem of humans to apply all types of knowledge – both connected and not to the topic of the workshop. This is the difference between horizontal thinking and vertical thinking. Horizontal thinking is the application of knowledge not directly applied to the subject matter; vertical thinking is the application knowledge directly related to the subject matter (Byrge, 2011). Therefore the Horizontal Thinking pillar is introduced as the support for getting new ideas (categories of ideas) on-demand at any given point during the workshop (Byrge, 2011).
With this being said I want to end this article. I hope you guys have a better understanding of the Creative Platform now. If you have any questions, please, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for reading my article!
Cheers from me!
References:
Byrge, C. (2011). Conceptualisation of Creativity Practices through Action Research: The case of the Creative Platform at Aalborg University. Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University.