Assignment6DelanyTamabayeva

Assignment6DelanyTamabayeva

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

Daniel Delany, Diana Tamabayeva

2. Task 1

I believe Csikszentmihalyi's first quote is half-true, applying more to products than ideas. Products, commodities made and distributed to the public at large, are generally massive creative undertakings, requiring the knowledge and experience of many experts in many domains. Even intangible products like websites and computer programs have a large pool of minds, from graphic designers to system administrators, driving their creation.

An individual's ideas, on the other hand, can be thought of as "deserving the label" creative, even if they require the efforts of others to show their true worth. I believe that social evaluation and appreciation is, as Fischer et al suggest, an essential part of the creative process. However, the synthesis of the idea in the first place is, by all rights, a creative event: when Einstein thought of his rules of relativity, or when Bach composed a piano piece, they were creative, even though they acted alone.

However, I'd like to put forth the idea of creative potential, that is, the potential for a single creative idea to be expressed, published, interpreted, reconsidered and altered, and the extent to which it could affect the ideas of others and the world at large. I believe that, while ideas synthesized by the individual can be creative in and of themselves, true creative ideas cannot fulfill their creative potential without the involvement of other creators.

This rings true in my own experience: I have had ideas and thoughts I consider to be original and creative. While we're all products of our environments, we still have the individual potential to 'put the pieces together' in unique and innovative ways. However, my 'best' ideas did not stop with me, but involved others through collaboration and social evaluation to fulfill their creative potential.

The second quote essentially states that, while individuals are inherently limited in their creative capacity, communities are not, and it's therefore more useful to train our efforts on creating systems and environments which facilitate social creativity than systems which support only individual creativity.

Examples of these sorts of systems include blogs, message boards, chat rooms, videoconferencing and distance learning systems, social news and networking sites, and wikis. Systems like these all have their own unique features, such as the creation primary (editor) and secondary (commenter) creators, allowing for persistent back-and-forth conversation threads between users, or a points system which rewards intelligent, relevant input and discourages trolling. However, the central function of the environments these systems create must necessarily be facilitating the fast and accurate communication of ideas and thoughts between the minds of other creators in the community, regardless of their physical proximity to one another. This, along with a search and filtering system which helps users decide which creators they should communicate with, allows users to utilize the collaborative network to its fullest potential.

3. Task 2

1. EDC: This was interesting because it showed how physical and computational objects can allow multiple people focus on the same complex abstract concept; I'd be interested to know if this process truly requires physical objects for success, and if not, what this physical interaction adds to the creative process.

2. Caretta: This is interesting because of its unique representation of group vs. personal spaces; however, from the photo of Caretta in use, I worry that, in our rush to implement novel physical interfaces, we actually compound the problem of communication and collaboration by building them as complex abstractions from the real world which require focus and background knowledge to operate.

3. Renga: This system is interesting and unique because, unlike other systems which facilitate direct communication between users for collaboration, Renga essentially mixes different users' inputs together on its own, showing only the end result to the user. While this is interesting for this particular piece of art, I have a hard time believing that this random, statistical combining of ideas is more effective than intelligent communication and collaboration.

4. CodeBroker: This system supports the fast, easy sharing and communication of code, which is normally unwieldy to communicate and iterate on. However, this system, in my opinion, has the potential to place too much weight on too little a foundation; for example, if I'm creating a secure script to process credit card numbers, I'll probably want to write some of my own functions, rather than rely on the quality and security of code written by people I cannot vouch for at the heart of my program.