A6KellerClark

A6KellerClark

To Do

• please work as a group (minimum: 2 members; max: 6 members) and submit one answer as a group (clearly identifying the members of your group)
• read Fischer, G., Giaccardi, E., Eden, H., Sugimoto, M., & Ye, Y. (2005) "Beyond Binary Choices: Integrating Individual and Social Creativity," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS) Special Issue on Computer Support for Creativity (E.A. Edmonds & L. Candy, Eds.), 63(4-5), pp. 482-512.

Task 1

Critically evaluate the following two claims based on the arguments in the reading assignment (the claims are from: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity - Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY):

• "An idea or product that deserves the label 'creative' arises from the synergy of many sources and not only from the mind of a single person."
  • to do: comment whether this argument is valid? can you think of exceptions?
  • to do: reflect on your own creativity (or major achievements)- does the argument apply to them?
• "It is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively."
  • to do: provide examples and analyze features/requirements of systems which "change the environment" to enhance creativity.

Task 2

Section 4 of the Paper lists four "Examples of Environments That Support Creativity"; for each four examples, say in one sentence

• what you found interesting and
• uninteresting or missing

Group response

1. Members of the Group

Scott Keller, Matthew Clark

2. Task 1

"An idea or product that deserves the label 'creative' arises from the synergy of many sources and not only from the mind of a single person."

Matt: I do agree with this statement. The reading mentions that "Although society often thinks of creative individuals as working in isolation, intelligence and creativity result in large part from interaction and collaboration with other individuals."[1] I find that many creative solutions, including my own, spring from applying a solution that already exists in one context to a new context. For example, the magsafe power supply for macs,
Image courtesy of Wikipedia[2]

which was an award winning product in 2006, was not originally developed for laptops, but for deep fryers. Deep fat fryers had a problem of children tripping over the cords and dumping the oil on them, which was very dangerous. "Scalding grease has been blamed for seven deaths and 64 serious burn injuries since 1980, according to the CPSC. In each case, children pulled on the cord, resulting in the accident." [3] To solve this, the Consumer Product Safety Commission made a new requirement that electric fryers, fondue and multi-purpose pots must have a "break-away" cord attached by a magnet. [3] The designers at Apple saw this cord, which had been created to protect people from products, and saw that it could also be used to protect products from people.

"It is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively."

Matt: This is certainly true. If you take the classic example of the Gordian knot, the challenge is described as being to untie the knot, and it stumped would-be untiers. However, if the challenge is framed as "free the ox-cart which is tied to the post," and a sword is set next to the ox-cart, everyone will find the "Alexandrian solution."

In terms of software, video games typically change the environment to encourage creativity, by first having easy challenges which teach the user the basic controls of the system, and then introducing more and more complex problems to be solved as the user gains expertise. The CodeBroker example given in [1] changes the environment to encourage code reuse, by continuously searching in the background and trying to match existing code to the task at hand, CodeBroker attempts to automate the process of building on what has been built before.

[1] G. Fischer, E. Giaccardi, H. Eden, M. Sugimoto, and Y. Ye, "Beyond Binary Choices: Integrating Individual and Social Creativity," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Volume 63 , Issue 4-5 (October 2005), Pages: 482 - 512.
[2] Wikipedia, "MagSafe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia," [Online document], 2008, [Cited 2008, Oct 5], Available HTTP:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe
[3] CNN, "'Break-away' cord aims to make deep fryers safer," [Online document], 2001, [Cited 2008, Oct 5], Available HTTP:http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/07/03/deep.fryers/

3. Task 2

Scott:

Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory - The ability for a group to actively add and change information in the simulated construction environment is a great tool towards group problem solving however it would be nice to have a separate work area to test and think.

Caretta: Integrating Personal and Shared Spaces - Basically, I feel that this is an enhanced version of EDC that fosters individualism, and sharing in a balanced way as to increase productivity and to better workflow.

Renga Creations: Entwining Individual Creativities in Interactive Art - Seems to be an interesting artistic venue when collaboration is the goal but art is nothing without reason and it seems that in many applications, the soul of the original pieces, and sometimes, the intent of the art is lost in collaboration.

CodeBroker: Fostering Social Creativity by Facilitating Reuse in Open Source - Where do the original code segments come from? Is it the first person that created it? Sometimes, it is good to reinvent the wheel if the original wheel is inefficient or is lacking functionality. Good idea in theory. In practice, seems improbable to be super effective.