Tina Seelig: The 6 Characteristics of Truly Creative People

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the No

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the new

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come up with great ideas

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and then make them happy this is what

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I spend my days doing I run the Stanford Technology Ventures program which is in

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the management science and engineering department at Stanford School

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engineering and my goal to help students figure had come up the big ideas and

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then bring them to life

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now I've been doing this past 14 years and i wanna take a secret

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I decided I wanted to write a book on creativity

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a few years ago and ask her to file my computer and the file said

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not another book about creativity it's like not one more block

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how one this is not going to be just one more block and I saw the idea basically

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with the name which is

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ingenious and for the title was kidnapped my publisher said that yes

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let's do it

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but I got to the end to the first draft and I realized you know what

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it was just one more block about creativity

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so I start over and I start over and I start over

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and of my realized I was looking at the curial too much to

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how a focus and I need a top open up the land

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and look at the creative process and the process bring your ideas to life

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thread very very different perspective and I create a model

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which I call me innovation and shit and want to do

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is over the next few minutes take it apart and put it back together

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and I hope you agree with me that this is a really interesting way it looks how

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come up with ideas on how to actually bring them to life

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now when you look at the innovation engine you'll notice there's some things

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are certainly

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obvious place you would start if you're talking about creativity you would

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typically start

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but thinking about imagination right so let's start there

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okay now we're all mad when work ends okay we are going to school we come up

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with a really interesting things or more in kindergarten

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overtime we start seeing that creativity

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and our sense of confidence our creativity dwindling why you're fat

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it's because a lot of the questions we get asked in school or like this

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what is the fam bypassed by now with yesterday's question

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gray out come on say it aloud

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yeah we know it tadic as there's one right answer to this problem

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and unfortunately the more we going school the more we get questions like

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this

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wired by you know whatever what the number of the divers number

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okay might get to be more complicated questions but there's only one right

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answer

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we'll create a people don't look at the world like this

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they problems through different lenses and then we frame the problem

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for their fall instead

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teaching math like what summer five-plus I you can ask a question like

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yes what two numbers add up to tap how many answer to that

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this have the answers a lot to how many a lot

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infinite number right negative number fractions

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this critically important because on the answer is taken to the question you ask

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and see if you don't question the questions you're asking

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you're not going to come up with a really innovative solutions when I can't

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even

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very easy example the to bring it to life on

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so this wonderful new book what 99 news coming out with

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we can right now brainstorm about a great launch party for this book

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and you don't think that's a great question to ask but I could change one

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word on that question and say

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let's come up with a great our launch celebration

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all the fun me opened up the rain two possibilities

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from a party to a celebration that makes health ok

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so free in reforming problems is one fabulous way

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increase your imagination but they're other way okay this is just an example

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from

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Asher how we are constantly refining and and framing

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even in a and image like this even in the same picture your

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challenge to look at things from different perspectives so another way to

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increase your imagination

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is I can not going and combining ideas

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now most inventions don't come at a know where they come from putting things

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together

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and we were interesting and surprising ways I do this with my skin from

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Stanford

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I haven't practiced the art Shindo

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now she joked with art the Japanese art accreting

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I'm useless inventions now with that name and we're putting things together

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surprising way they're not useful they're not useless

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when you put them together interesting things happen let me cuz show you a

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couple

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example

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okay we've got little umbrellas on shoes pretty cool

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you laugh because it's really climber its interesting and unexpected

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what about this one shoes red yeah

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a third way to increase your imagination

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is with challenging assumptions it means going beyond the first right answer

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and I like to do this by giving assignments that are really surprising

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that I've never seen before and real challenge the student to come up with a

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very interesting solutions

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for example here is a very I an example the design brief from other projects

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that I gave you a bunch of students all over the world

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their challenge was to create as much value as possible value measured in

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anywhere they want

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starting with one trashed the content for the trash can

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would you like to do this kinda fun well the

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wonderful thing is the students end up spending a bunch of time thinking about

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what is value to the they came up with some really interesting

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in fact value was community in friendships with health what was

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happening is it was beating your family

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and of course there was financial back let me show you a few examples of some

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other things the students came up with this is the team from

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Ecuador they started with a garbage can filled with

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yard waste your way I probably wouldn't have started with this one

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here's what they did pretty amazing made a beautiful mural

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or a girl who was in Ireland her mother had just cleaned out the sock drawer

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in her brother stock for all these old holey socks

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different colors black grey white okay

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she took she claims she cut them up so the back together

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and made this where pretty amazing

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secrete can be enhanced by I'm

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reforming problems connecting combining ideas and I challenging assumptions

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but you know what vs is not enough this is not a nap and it's certainly not

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enough to want to really make things happen

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because need to start with the basic knowledge knowledge

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is that cool box for your imagination the morning no

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the more you have to work with think about it if I wanna come up with a brand

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new solar car

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or cure for cancer I need to know something about engineering and biology

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I moved something to work with and so how do we

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however get knocked off course you can come in with a toxin can read books

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but when the most powerful ways to get knowledge about the world

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is like home much we know I don't pay attention to our world in a way but we

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were really find interesting opportunities often the solutions

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waiting for right in front of us

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a great example that um I

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love because it's so Monday and yet so fascinating

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is a fellow named David Freeburg who was commuting from San Francisco everyday

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an email interesting observation just looking out the window of his car

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he noticed that the bike a rental station that was near the train

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with clothes on days when it rains any pot

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that's really interesting how many other businesses are influenced by the weather

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unrealized how many types of companies are affected by the weather

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end up starting a company called climate corporation where they basically cell

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whether insurance to all the attacked the company's this would never have

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happened

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he had been paying attention so we have imagination

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we have now but there's another important part of your innovation engine

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and the has your out you are not

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reading motive and have the confidence that you can solve your problem

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you will not solve it yet is not

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little it's not easy to come up with a really big ideas

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and it's certainly not easy to bring them to life unfortunately

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most people see themselves as puzzle builders

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this means they're looking at how have the box top and they know what the

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picture looks like and they know what they're trying to get out

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but here's the problem what happens if you're a puzzle builder

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and you're missing a piece in the paper what happened you can finish the puzzle

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your stuff you know you said your boss sorry you know that part is out of stock

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okay you say sorry we can't get there true innovators

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true entrepreneurs are not puzzle builders their quilt makers

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they take all the things they have at their disposal all other things

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they're kinda strange and surprising and they figure out how to leverage them to

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make

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amazing things happen this is really important need to see yourself

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as a quote maker as opposed to a possible so now we have the inside under

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innovation and

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and let me tell you how this works it's really quite simple

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your knowledge is a tool box for your imagination your imagination is the

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catalyst

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for the transformation of that knowledge into new ideas hajur

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attitude is a spark to get to go the here's

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the problem I'm gonna ask you to shorthand how many who are really

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innovative folks

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who were stopped environments that don't allow you to express your creativity

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or had ever been okay quite a number people

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the reason he is no matter how innovative and on her with each

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are were also find ourselves in environments will work with clients

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corn environment they don't really foster this happened innovation

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so we need to look at the outside at the evasion

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so let's go there let's look at the first place have attacked

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habitat is quite complex and multidimensional

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they're the people you work with their the rules the rewards

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the in phantoms I want things we often don't pay attention to

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is the physical space now think about when we're

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kids week are in on classrooms like this with lots of colors with what the

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manipulatives with what the flexibility

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could you be creative in this type of environment yeah

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okay why I'm graduating from kindergarten and go through school

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and all the fun you end up in places like this

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now will not because we've all been detected environments where the chairs

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are

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lined up in rows and columns are bolted to the floor

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if you talk to get in big trouble I spent my entire growing up writing

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silence is golden silence is golden

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guess but that's why I'm a teacher now okay I that bad did you go into this

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environment

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and your they recycle them then we worry about these kids on screen anymore

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and forth or gamble given these problems like what's the summer I plus pop

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okay and then to graduate from there they go more convenient environment

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I don't worry worry about why are people not so creative

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I'm fortunate enough to teach out my classes in the design school the school

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at Stanford

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our customer looks much more like vs where everything is flexible movable and

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nothing is too precious

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you know you can write on the furniture someone spill something no big deal

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anything can be multiplied more like a stage that you can that

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for whatever you're doing because guess what the space

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here's the stage on which you plan your life I'm mistaken on that stage a walk

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into that room

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know how you're supposed to be home they're really innovative companies and

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I'm sure many viewers

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me situations know this they create space is that when you walk

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all you go this is the place where creativity innovation entrepreneurship

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new ideas

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are welcome now this is a picture I just death found from Google in Zurich

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you know this is a obviously walking here it's very playful or Pixar

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where they have a slide right in the in the entryway again you walk in and you

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know this is really

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a place for finding ideas ok for habitat's important

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but so I the resources that you have at your disposal

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now what's the first thing that anyone thinks about when they think about

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resource let's say together

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money okay people think of money okay I've never asked that question and

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gotten a different answer

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okay people think about money and I'm of a place in the world where people say

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you know what I just don't have enough money at to do things and I think you

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know you have to be kinda

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you're really limited you're thinking because most to the resources you have

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our

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are well beyond money think about it this is a spectacular space

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built with a lottery sources but you know what if there were no people in the

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room

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nothing what happened okay this faces

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exciting place because I people who are here not because the money to build this

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beautiful place the product

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there are also important things natural resources that we often don't see

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process he's been put in place and the community

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that we can drop on for IDS so we need to think we were building that quilt

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that patchwork quilt

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look at the resources we have far beyond the money we have

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but all the other resource now speaking at community

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the last piece for the innovation engine is culture

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what is called culture something fuses the entire organization

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when most important aspects of culture is how we deal with

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failure now I have to tell you I don't like the word failure because as a

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scientist

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when I do things that have surprising results what do you call that you call

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it day back

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okay and when you're a scientist you get data that is an expected

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that actually would most interesting thing happened is when you get things

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are unexpected

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you can my room and come up with some really really interesting inventions and

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I get

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really innovative firms know this I'm gonna play with short video clip that

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come from i do.

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and I'm sure many of you know the design firm IDEO this is what the prototype

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they put together

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for a I thought app for kids called monster maker

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and this was their way and dealing with doing short

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little quick experiments so that would fails you haven't invested a lot of time

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or money

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or technology this is the way you wanna stay out by doing rapid prototype

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they give you a lot of data quickly to determine if you're going in the right

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direction

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music haha skybox reach

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is attacked and play flack a checkbox

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spent

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hi scripted

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and okay what can't contempt

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okay swap

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told

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it. me the whole fish

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you you

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so great for this example how you could do a short quick experiment

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let me ask you %ah more wasn't a factor

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yeah you know I saw this month to an auditorium in there were some little

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girl sitting in the back

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at the very end they called up to the front and wanted to gamble

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okay that would be great experiment haven't had worked

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you know what they probably spent a few hours on this thing go back to the

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drawing board and do something else

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so being able to do lots of rapid prototyping experimentation

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and celebrating the things that don't come out as you expected

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but guess what cultures much broader than that

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culture is like the background music have any organization

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it is so powerful to hit think about when you when you go to see a movie

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and there's music that tells you whether you should be in whatever suspenseful

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or romantic scene actual tells you how to

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the and I will play youtube video clips to demonstrate how this works

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this is a video clip I found from at coca-cola bottling plant in 1994

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at someone clip I'm gonna play at 12 what's with thought about what happened

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music

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another the second time with a different music i watch think about

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how it makes you feel whether you wanna work there

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and what do you wanna drink with enough power

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the okay

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calendar they'll answer have fun playing about this one

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of

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%uh

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time

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I think you get the point okay

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culture is important culture affects way we feel the way we think we

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waving act and so we need to think about the cultural new

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we create environments so that we wouldn't want people to be

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really anything it and be willing to experiment especially if there's a fear

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that the results will come out

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as expected said now we have the outside organization engine

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abrupt put the whole thing together and see how this works

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all in concert okay now you might say okay these are interesting parts but why

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be woven together in this movie is tight Street the recent years that none of

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these things stand alone

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think all fact each other and without one

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the others can't function for example

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and my to meet in habitat are parallel

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because the habitats we create I think external manifestation Armada nation if

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we can imagine it we can't build

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and then from the habitat we build the course affect the way we think and the

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way the acting

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as certainly our match in Asian this is true

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with resources and knowledge the more we know

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more resources we can unlock and that have the resources we have in our

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environment

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determines what we now for example you know the more

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fish I have my varmint more likely I know about fishing

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and the more I know about fishing the more fish I'm gonna catch make that and

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finally

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culture attitude culture is the collective

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added to the individuals and every individual contributors to that culture

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and of course we're all Apple by the campaign culture of the organisation the

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wonderful thing

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is you can start anywhere on this innovation until to get started there's

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no beginning and there's

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on knowing you can start as an individual by building your base of

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knowledge

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the more you know the more you have to work well right

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the more I know that any topic the more I have tools for my imagination I can

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start if I manage a company

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by building a habitat that stimulate imagination other people I work there

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I can start by leveraging the resources and knowing what they are in leveraging

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resources my final

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the fact is that almost 19 is so powerful

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and bleach happy cool to our own innovation and

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and I each review to turn ok then

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you

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the new

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room

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theme

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the man

Published on Feb 6, 2014

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