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#bCreative Portfolio
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© 2015 Cyndi Burnett, Julia Figliotti, Kaylene Waite, John Cabra

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Module One: Introduction to Everyday Creativity 1

Definition of Everyday Creativity: “Human originality at work and leisure across
the diverse activities of everyday life,” which is “central to human survival” and
found, to some extent, in everyone (Richards, 2007).

Create a list of ways that you are creative in day-to-day life. The list can include problems
you’ve solved, opportunities you’ve seized, and anything else you can think of. Once you’ve
done that, highlight one that really stands out to you, one that you think represents who you are
as a creative individual.

“I am creative!”

Your Definition of Creativity

What is your definition of creativity?

1 Richards, R. (2007). Everyday creativity and new views of human nature: Psychological, social, and
spiritual perspectives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
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Defer Judgment
Do you defer your judgment? We would like you to take the test! Spend the next 24 hours
monitoring your judgment, and see things from different points of view. Keep your eyes open for
an idea that you don’t like or that you love and consciously defer your judgment around it for a
few minutes. Now it is important to realize that you are not agreeing to the idea, you are
simply giving yourself the space to explore all aspects of the idea. Who knows? You might find
something fascinating. And when you are offered something different or unexpected, practice
relaxing, listening, and understanding. Share your experience deferring judgment below.
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Developmental Trajectory of Creativity2

After watching the Developmental Trajectory of Creativity videos, think about your own
creativity, and write about your own examples of each of them in your life.

mini-c creativity: “the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions,
and events”

little-c creativity: everyday creativity

Pro-C creativity: professional-level creativity

2 Kaufman, J.C., & Beghetto, R.A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four C model of creativity. Review of
General Psychology, 13(1), 1-12.
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Module Two: The Creative Person

Characteristics of a Creative Person3
Here are some of the characteristics associated with creative people. Bold all of the
words that relate to you:

❏ Thorough
❏ Needs alone time
❏ Ethical
❏ Emotional
❏ High energy
❏ Curious
❏ Open-minded
❏ Sense of humor
❏ Risk-taking
❏ Capacity for fantasy
❏ Artistic
❏ Perceptive
❏ Original
❏ Independent
❏ Attracted to complexity/ambiguity
❏ Aware of own creativity

3 Davis, G.A. (2004). Creativity is forever (5th ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.
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Here are some of the creative people in my life.

(insert photos)
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The Big Three Affective Skills4

Tolerate the Ambiguity: the acceptance of vagueness and even thriving in situations that are
unclear.
Tolerate Complexity: staying calm and persevering when large amounts of information, complex
issues, and opposing viewpoints are present.
Openness to Novelty: having a willingness to explore novel, strange, or different ideas, actions,
or solutions.

Think about a complex problem you solved. What was involved, and why was it complex? How
did you manage the big three when faced with this problem, and what could you do better next
time?

Play!5 6
Be spontaneous, be expressive, be creative, be fun, and be silly. Lose yourself in play, and find
a more creative you! Post a photo below.

4 Puccio, G.J., Mance, M., & Murdock, M.C. (2011) Creative leadership: Skills that drive change (2nd
ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications
5 Brown, S., & Vaughan, C. (2010). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates
the soul. New York, NY: Penguin.
6 Diamond, M.C., Krech, D., & Rosenzweig, M.R. (1964). The effects of an enriched environment on the
rat cerebral cortex. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 123(1), 111-119.
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Creative Behavior7
The tricycle metaphor helps us to remember a set of creative behaviors so we can
freely encourage them. With these cues in mind, please write notes after each
TRYCycle part to communicate how you have exhibited that aspect of creative behavior
in your everyday life.

Handlebars (curiosity):

Wheels (experimentation, reflection, and incubation):

Pedals (attitude):

Seat (playfulness):

The Four Components of Divergent Thinking8 9

7 Uribe, D., & Cabra, J.F. (2014). TRYCycle: Creative behavior. Santiago, Chile: IdeMax.

8 Guilford, J. P. (1959). Three faces of intellect. American Psychologist, 14(8), 469-479.

9 Runco, M. A. (1991). Divergent thinking. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
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What might be all the possible uses for an umbrella?

Please take 4 minutes and generate as many and original ideas as possible.
Remember the divergent thinking guidelines: Defer judgment; Go for quantity; Strive for
wild and crazy ideas; and Seek combinations.

How many ideas did you generate? This is your fluency score.

How many categories can you break your ideas into? This is your flexibility score.

Take a look at the originality worksheet in the supplemental materials section. How
many ideas did you come up with that are not on that list? This is your originality score.
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Mindfulness
For a half an hour, explore a city through the website http://www.360cities.net/ and take on the
perspective of a tourist, truly living in the world around you. Take journal notes of the things you
see. Try to imagine what it would feel like being in the streets of Rome or London or any other
city of your choosing.

Then, as you go through your day to day activities, look at your own city, as if you were a
tourist, experiencing it for the first time. What new things do you notice?
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Progress10
Make a to-do list for an upcoming project. As you complete each step, cross it off of
your list.

Pay close attention to how you feel as you cross items off of your to-do list, and write
about it here.

10 Amabile, T.M., & Kramer, S.J. (2011). The progress principle: Using small wins to ignite joy,
engagement, and creativity at work. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.
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Module Three: The Creative Press (Environment)

Take pictures of a space where you feel creative. In particular, make sure you
photograph the aspects of that space that truly bring out your creativity.

Give us a brief description of what really makes that space a creative hub for you!

Culture11
What customs are there in your national, social, or organizational cultures that positively
influence your creative environment?

11 Johnson, G. (1990). Managing strategic change: The role of symbolic Action. British Journal of
Management, 1, 183-200.
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The Ten Dimensions of a Creative Climate12

Think about an environment of which you are a part. Rate each of Ekvall’s Ten
Dimensions on a scale of scale of 1-10 (1 being low, 10 being high) as they are present
in your environment. Feel free to use the handout from your Readings section for
reference.
Idea Time:

Idea Support:

Risk-Taking:

Freedom:

Dynamism:

Playfulness/Humor:

Debate:

Conflict:

Challenge:

Trust/Openness:

Overcoming Barriers

12 Ekvall, G., Arvonen, J., & Waldenström-Linbald, I. (1983). Creative organizational climate:
Construction and validation of a measuring instrument (Report 2). Stockholm, Sweden: The Swedish
Council for Management and Organizational Behaviour.
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Think about all of the ways that you can improve your creative environment from the
previous assignment. What do you need to do in order to take action?
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Module Four: The Creative Process

Annoyances
Come up with a list of 30 things that annoy you. As you go through your day, keep a
notepad with you and make a list of the little things that bother you. You’ll be surprised
at how quickly you reach 30 annoyances.

When you’ve come up with at least 30 things that annoy you, try to come up with a
solution for a few of them. It doesn’t have to be the perfect solution. It can be a far-
fetched idea, something physically impossible or something that would cost millions of
dollars. It doesn’t have to be workable.
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Divergent Thinking13
Take five minutes to generate as many ideas as you can for the following challenge:
What might be all the ways to improve a shower? Remember the divergent thinking
guidelines: Defer judgment; Go for quantity; Strive for wild and crazy ideas; and Seek
combinations.

13 Basadur, M., & Thompson, R. (1986). Usefulness of the ideation principle of extended effort in real
world professional and managerial Creative Problem Solving. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 20(1),
23-34.
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Convergent Thinking
Go back to your divergent exercise from the previous page and copy and paste your
ideas onto this page. Look at your divergent ideas and choose the top ideas that you
think have the most potential. Mark those with a star, smiley face, or asterisk to show
that they are “hits.”

For this exercise, we’re going to ask you to choose your top five. Remember to Use
affirmative judgment; Be deliberate; Check objectives; Improve upon ideas; and
Consider novelty.
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Incubation
Take some time and think about your own creative problem solving process, which you
drew for our previous discussion. Do you see areas where Incubation might fit into your
own model? If so, draw the stage right in! If not – don’t worry! Incubation might not be
obvious in every problem-solving process, but it’s always there… right in the corner of
your mind! Insert your updated process picture here.
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Clarifying Problems
Copy and paste your list of annoyances from the beginning of this module onto this
worksheet. Using divergent thinking, go through your list of annoyances and phrase
them as questions. Then, using hits, choose your top five annoyances. Which would
you be willing to work on for the remainder of this course?
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Ideation
Go back to the list of your top five annoyances - phrased as questions. Choose one,
and generate ideas on possible inventions that would solve your challenge. Practice
using Forced Connections (When you think about __________, what ideas do you get
for solving your challenge?) and SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify,
Eliminate, Reverse)!14

14 Eberle, B. (1984). SCAMPER: Games for imagination and development. D.O.K. Publishers.
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What I See Myself Doing Is (WISMDI)… and How/How

Take a large sheet of paper, make a t-chart. On the left side, fill in your goal after the
statement starter “WISMDI…” Then ask yourself, “How will I do this?” Record those
answers on the right-hand side of the paper. Now, look at each individual answer that
you have on the right-hand side. One at a time, write those on the left-hand side, and
ask yourself “How will I do this?” Once again, write the answers to your new questions
on the right-hand side of the paper. The cycle, as you will see, continues until there are
no more ways to ask “How?”

Once you’ve completed the divergent phase using how/how, take some time to
converge and organize your WISMDI statements into short-term, mid-term, and long-
term categories.

Let’s move forward with this plan of action, developed using the how/how tool. Try to
apply WISMDI to your action plan – what do you see yourself doing next? Take a
picture of your How/How chart and WISMDI statement.
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Module Five: The Creative Product

Definitions of a Creative Product

Generate a list of products that you think are creative.

What makes them creative?

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Your Pitch and Prototype15

Write up a pitch for your product proposal. Any type of pitch should grab the attention of
the audience – and a great way to do this is by combining relatively unrelated elements
and making new connections that others most likely have not considered.

You may also want to prepare a prototype of your invention. Post a picture of your
prototype.

15 Warfel, T.Z. (2009). Prototyping: a practitioner's guide. Rosenfeld media.

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Novelty, Utility, and Surprise16

Find some friends, colleagues, or family members and describe your invention to them.
When you’ve finished explaining it, walk them through the PPCo and invite them to go
through the process with you. With their help, evaluate your invention – and don’t be
afraid to improve upon it!

Pluses

Potentials (use statement starter, I might, It might, We might…)

Concerns (phrase concerns, How to, How might I, What might be all the ways…)

overcoming key concerns (select one or two how to statements, and generate ways to
overcome it)

16 Simonton, D.K. (2012). Taking the US Patent Office criteria seriously: A quantitative three-criterion
creativity definition and its implications. Creativity Research Journal, 24(2-3), 97-106.
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