I take a class once a week which breaks down the process to innovation and opens up creative thinking.

It’s extremely fascinating the different levels of thinking the mind can possess, and it takes some training to fully take advantage of all the exercises available to reach the highest level of thinking, innovative thinking. The class prescribes The 7 Levels of Change: Different Thinking for Different Results by Rolf Smith, who – after reading a considerable amount of the book for class – has well earned the title from me as a professional in the area. The way he describes even the smallest of daily activities that we take for granted as one of the levels of thinking is incredible. Now, even reading my email reminds me of how I could complete such a task more efficiently, and I walk around with a thinking journal, ready to jot down creative ideas.

The class itself goes into intricate discussion on the steps we can take to encourage more creative thinking in our daily lives, not just as a job, and breaks down the process of creativity to the bare basics. Exercises are more practical and team based, and we are encouraged to influence each other in our different views and perceptions on certain problem solving tasks. My favourite exercise so far has been ‘here’s a sqaure, rectangle, circle, and triangle. Go forth and make a new product with them’ or ‘create a story with these three completely random and unrelated images’. I’ve never before had to step out of my brain and think about my thinking.

Next week I have an assignment due, where we have to research a person we believe to be creative, and then answer a series of pre-selected interview questions as if we were the person we researched. There is a percentage of the mark dedicated to creative delivery. I have chosen Joe Rohde, Executive Designer and Vice President, Creative, of Walt Disney Imagineering. Now that I have finished the interview (written piece) I now aim to replicate a portion of Expedition Everest, and place my interview questions on the cart. We will see how that goes!