Collaborative Corner: Nicole Sheldrake

Posted By admin ~ 31st March 2010

This week on Collaborative Corner, Nicole Sheldrake who is a creative writer and the founder of Vancouver Innovation Camp talks about creative thinking and how you can apply these techniques to your daily process.

I’m a writer, so you’d think that when invited to write a guest blog post I would leap from my chair with excitement and shout Yes! Instead, I felt as though I was ordered to prance naked on Granville Street at Tuesday lunchtime.

So of course I accepted.

But it got me thinking about how one simple request immediately brought up my bucket of fears and stories. Stories, for example, I tell myself about not being good enough. Despite those fears filling my head, I said yes because developing creative thinking skills is partly about being open to new experiences.

It would be a practical but exhilarating piece of work. I could see it front me, glowing slightly with inspiration – what to do, how to do it, legions of readers being excited by new ideas… and indeed, it was right in front of me, on this great blog called Copyblogger, on another called Litemind… and so on.

There are already a ton of blogs about creative thinking and how to do it. I figured that, honestly, I would only be repeating what they were saying. So I decided to apply creative thinking techniques and come up with another focus for my blog.

Applying Them Creative Thinking Techniques

Specifically, I tackled the 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking, using #3 Following Rules, to challenge my assumptions.

Assumption #1:

The blog must be non-fiction.

Assumption #2:

The blog must be instructional, i.e. tell readers how to be creative thinkers.

Assumption #3:

I must write the blog from the point of view of an ‘expert’.

So I could write a fiction blog that showed readers how to think creatively from an amateur’s experience. There was some potential there…I’ve read many blogs about creative thinking techniques but none about a person’s experience consciously and (semi-) systematically applying the concepts.

Creative Action Online

Of course there are lots of people out there who are successful in business and creative projects and who apply creative thinking techniques daily. But what about someone who is just starting to ‘unleash her creative potential’? Someone who wants to think more creatively, not just for her creative projects but in all aspects of her life?

Being an expert is not my thing. I’m an expert in my own life. That’s it. And I like applying concepts. I like creative ‘action.’ I made a decision; I could write a blog about the action I am taking to apply creative thinking techniques in my daily life. Disclaimer: you’ll be reading about my failures as much as my successes. Failure is, after all, just a way to get feedback on progress and learn.

Action Items

Do something you fear, every day: It can be small. Very small. Talking to a stranger at the bus stop. Practice acting despite your fears.

Challenge your assumptions: List your assumptions about a problem first. Are they actually true? Can the assumptions be altered in any way? What other possibilities does this reveal?

Keep the Conversation Going

This blog will be about my experiences applying creative thinking to solve problems or just improve my life. If I can entertain you or maybe, just maybe, even inspire you to think more creatively, then I will consider the blog a success.

A blog is a collaborative effort and I would like to hear your comments and stories. What is your experience with applying creative thinking techniques? What results have you got from challenging your assumptions?

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