Is a bad idea a good idea? This article about BadIdeas provides some interesting insights.
This paper describes BadIdeas, a collection of techniques that uses ‘bad’ or ‘silly’ ideas to inspire creativity, explore design domains and teach critical thinking in interaction design. We describe the approach, some evidence, how it is performed in practice and experience in its use.
Is social creativity more productive than individual creativity?
In this Understanding Design as a social creative process , the authors Andy and Eamonn concluded that:
Hence, in treating design as a creative process, we must understand it as a social creative process. We argue that theoretically social creativity should be more productive than individual creativity, and so design teams should be more creative than individual designers working alone. However, there is a considerable body of experimental evidence that suggests that real groups are less creative than nominal groups. This dampening effect on social creativity is primarily the result of three interacting social influences: production blocking, evaluation apprehension and free riding.
Based on such findings, Can we treat the design of Open Course as a social creative process? How would open courses allow for social creativity? What are the creative design considerations in Open Courses or Networks?
I am interested in the following questions posted by Andy and Eamonn:
1. What effect does the number and type of available communication channels have on social creativity?
2. What are the effects of public, social and private interaction on creativity?
3. What are the optimal means to increase individual performance by reducing the effects of free riding while not inhibiting creativity by increasing evaluation apprehension?
We have been thinking about collective wisdom, wisdom of the crowds and social creativity in different social or online spaces/media – Facebook, Twitter, Blog Community or Wikispaces/educators, Youtubes, MySpace etc.
Could we apply the concept of social creativity in learning and social networks? How could we foster cooperation and collaboration amongst networkers in the generation of more creative ideas, processes and products, and so creating more creative networks?
What are your experiences and views on social creativity?
Postscript: I would like to refer to George’s post on Reflection on Open Courses here. How would social creativity be emerged from Open Courses such as MOOC (CCK08 Solution)?
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