Welcome to the

Big City Brainstorm

Julius WeinbergActing Vice-Chancellor and President,

City University London

Prof. Neil MaidenAcademic Lead, Centre for Creativity

City University London

Creativity and the UK Economy

Cox Review [2005]• Creativity vital to UK’s long-term economic success• UK business not realizing full potential of creativity outside creative industries

DTI highlighted• Competitive tools for firms and formal education• Enhancing supply of … management and business skills

Current economic climate• Smart thinking based on creativity more essential than ever

Centre for Creativity in Professional PracticeUniversity-funded interdisciplinary centre• 2 years seed funding, creativity across all professional practices

business

engineering

computing

social sciences

community and health sciences

artslaw

learning development

Creativity in Professional

Practice

Four Centre Activities1. Launch new Masters

• Innovation, Creativity and Leadership• Launch Oct 2009 for Sep 2010

2. Teach creativity to all undergraduates• Cross-school teaching to all 1st years• Core creative problem solving skills

3. Step increase in creativity research• More interdisciplinary research• Institution-level research bids

4. Research network• City as hub of creativity activities

Creativity skills

Innovations

Organizations

Enablers

Leadership

Roger Neill

Centre Director

Innovation: The Scale of the Problem

80% consider innovation important

4% rate their organisation superior at it

Synectics survey, USA

Leadership

The skill most lacking (No 1 at 44% overall)

More so in the public service sector (No 1 at 57%)

Survey by The Director magazine, Institute of Directors, 2008

Break the Rules

Value Absurdity

“If at first, the idea is not

absurd, then there is

no hope for it.”

Albert Einstein

Discovery

“The real act of discovery consists not in finding new

lands but in seeing with new eyes”

Marcel Proust

Work in Metaphors

“The metaphor is probably the most

fertile power possessed by men”

Ortega y Gasset

Experimentation

“There is no such thing as a failed

experiment, only experiments with unexpected

outcomes”

Buckminster Fuller

It's all invented

"What is now proved was once only

imagin’d." 

William Blake

Collaborative Idea Development

Go Wishing Together

Creative Process

Select

Task

Brainstorm

Problem-solve

Action planning

Non-sense

Sense

Groundrules for working together Anything goes

Build, don't judge

Headline first ("How to...", "I wish...")

Share the airtime

Listen in two ways - to others and to yourself

In/Out Listening

In Out

Lecture notes

What I’m hearing

My ideas

Speculations

What I’m thinking

Ideas of others

Task Headline

How to rebuild the reputation of the

UK’s financial services sector

and the City of London

as the world’s leading financial centre

15 September 2009

First anniversary of the fall...

14 September 2009

2nd anniversary of the Bank of England intervention ...