Author: Guest Blogger

 I’m sending an article by Kelvin Legal as I have found the content, by and large, to be useful. http://kelvinlesterlee.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/some-thoughts-and-blogs-on-entrepreneurship/ I like the idea of being self-employed. One day I hope to be able to run my own business, perhaps even run a law firm (whether as a partner or by starting my own remains to be seen since I am still in law school). Entrepreneurship has hit the mainstream in a big way. Where once people preferred the protection and stability of a good-paying job, more and more people are now jumping on the entrepreneurship bandwagon or being encouraged…

This week I spent a day with a group of IT leaders from one of America’s great companies (whose meals have made billions happy). With our goal being to make strategy recommendations to improve a technology process, I conducted a Creative Problem Solving (CPS) session to collectively harness creative thinking to address a complex challenge. Most of the problems we face in our culture, business and lives need creativity, but few of us know about CPS, a valuable process that has been discussed, tested and evaluated for more than 50 years. Originating from the brainstorming work of advertising pioneer Alex…

If you were told that your work was being done “wrong” because it was different, that the style was ineffective and that “no one would get it”, what would you do?

What is the purpose of art?  BIG discussion and many different beliefs are out there.  Here’s mine.  Art must  contribute to making a real difference in the world.  Mia Farrow is fasting for 21 days starting Monday April 27th.  I think of this as performance art.  It is time we all became more aware of what is going on in Darfur.  We don’t want another Rwanda, although in some ways it’s happening already.  My mother spent time at Ravensbruck concentration camp and I heard stories about he stay from the age of 10.  I wish everyone had.  We need to raise our…

Child within?  What does that have to do with public speaking?    Speakers need to be reminded that their imagination and their ability to talk passionately and speak in pictures, is directly connected to how often they release the child within.    Last night I conducted another amazing Acting Class and it reminds me of the skills public speakers need in order to be great.   Be a five year old.    Everyone found a spot on the floor and began imagining their five year old space and whatever popped up was then worked on – tying shoes, waiting for Dad to…

Written by Dr Kate Francis Siner P.h.D. www.largervisions.com Although creativity is a new buzzword for desirable in the business world, the creative traits that are desired by many employers are not the same as the traits displayed by many creative personalities. Employers and organizations, who are looking for creative personalities, are generally looking for people who will use creative thinking towards any end the company picks (Warner, 2008). In short, these work environments measure creativity by the results produced. This demand, placed by these organizations and employers, is in direct opposition to the actual needs of the creative personality. Koch…

I will be presenting a PACE session at this year’s CPSI Conference, taking place in June 2009 in Boston.  Go to www.cpsiconference.org to check it out. At the conference I will be presenting about the Principles of Design and problem solving.  The Principles of Design have been used by artists for centuries to create successful images.  These same principles can be applied to identify organizational strengths and weaknesses, to access right brain thinking and to provide direction for creative problem solving. While proportion, harmony, repetition, contrast and balance have long been identified as key elements of the visual arts, they have…

In 1975 the Sociologist Rollo May published a series of essays about the nature of creativity. He begins with these words: We are living at a time when one age is dying and the new age is not yet born. A choice confronts us. Shall we, as we feel our foundations shaking, withdraw in anxiety and panic? Frightened by a loss of our familiar mooring places, shall we become paralyzed and cover our inaction with apathy? If we do those things we will have surrendered our chance to participate in the forming of the future. We will have forfeited the…

While these days the Kreativity Network is the name I use for my business–primarily designing and facilitating events, meetings and retreats that spark innovation and creative collaboration in organizations–it was once a thriving network in the San Francisco Bay area supporting individuals to express personal creativity. The operative question then was this: How do we, as adults in a consumerist culture that often wants us to be a spectator more than a creator, actively engage and communicate our unique talent, voice, story, art? Our original name was the Multi-Arts Creativity Network–as I believed then, as I do now, that creativity…

Hello, everyone. I’m excited to be a member of your community. I know Cyriel and John (we were together in New York at the end of March), and have spoken with Lisa on the phone. I’m looking forward to getting to know the rest of you more fully. I decided to introduce myself to you through the topic of remembrance. I have a background in theatre – 20-some years of acting, directing, producing. I stepped away from performing regularly to write a book (which will perhaps be the subject of a future post; it is a memoire, to continue the…