My personal creativity machine (PCM)

Marcio’s incomplete drawing model — exercise done for Cracking the Creativity Code

THIS EXERCISE WAS PROVIDED TO COURSERA/TECHNION ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: CRACKING THE CREATIVITY CODE. THE QUESTION WONDERS ABOUT ONE’S PERSONAL PCM PRIOR AND BEFORE THE COURSE, HOW CAN WE IMPROVE OUR PCM. THE FOLLOWING IS A RECAP OF MY PRIOR, NOT THE NEW.

Description of my own PCM

My creativity machine started in kindergarten. We would get a piece of paper with a partial drawing and our goal was to complete. The exercise is an invitation for widening ideas. Now think that this exercise is phase 3, with the phase 1 being an exercise where you pick a story, or a problem, and you map out all you know; a brainstorming. Plus a phase 2, with mapping all assumptions. Now, take 1 and 2 and picture it as a whole drawing — create a story. Now, and before you complete with step 3, simply change parts of that story, erasing collected characteristics or assumptions; and give to someone else to complete the drawing.

To not miss great ideas, you can get others involved at the various phases. To not implement a bad idea, we can collect people reactions about ideas and how they see that regarding their lives.

Question about an example of a project that I have used my PCM

I have blended the idea of a TV with the Web. When I left my job at Mozilla, I took the idea of a browser and decided to put in a big TV. When I pictured the browser in a TV, it provoked my mind to think about new experiences I could do. I then decided to bring the social Web, the data from social networks, to help events in real-time — it was how Tela Social was born (http://www.telasocial.com). With the system being used in spaces, such as universities, people started to come up with more ideas and I noticed that walls could become the reflection on interesting things that community could do, and not what we would normally expect of a TV, such as propaganda and standard shows.