World Creativity and Innovation Week

April 15th - 21st

World Creativity and Innovation Week starts today, April 15th. April 15th was chosen as the start date in honour of Leonardo da Vinci's birthday. Celebrated in 43 countries, the goal is for everyone to appreciate the role of creativity and innovation in making the world a better place.

The creativity day website has ideas for celebrating creativity and innovation in the home, work place and school. Perhaps you are a teacher or a homeschooling parent. You might find these tips helpful. I personally enjoyed the tips for celebrating at work. One of my favourites is number 1: the weird challenge. "Find the smallest or zaniest problem your organization faces and challenge people to come up with the worst solution. Watch how 'worst' ideas spawn great ideas." A suggested small problem was people not shutting off their computers and the zaniest problem to solve might be stolen toilet paper. I really like the idea of trying to come up with the absolute worst solution.

My second favourite tip for the workplace, was number 9: the mistake party. Here the idea is to really celebrate mistakes. The site says, "A big part of creativity is taking risks and sometimes risks lead to mistakes." The work team makes a pact that every time someone makes a mistake, everyone will join in the celebration. The celebrations include: Throwing one's head back and enthusiastically shouting "I made a mistake!!!!", clapping, cheering, whistling, dancing, shaking and shimmying." Okay, the next time I make a mistake at the drafting table, I shall enthusiastically shout "I made a mistake!" and I shall dance, shimmy, clap and hoot (I can't whistle). It might not be quite the same experience as I work alone in my studio, but what the heck, I'm game. I mean if it leads to greater creativity... :-)

Here in Ottawa, as part of Creativity and Innovation Week, the Council for the Arts is kicking off a series of meetings to discuss what we want our long-term future to look like.

So why not look for ways in your home or workplace to celebrate creativity and innovation this week? If you belong to an arts group, you might wish to start planning a community wide event for next year. Hey, I'm thinking that celebrating our worst solutions and our mistakes would make great material for Motivation Monday posts!!

Does anyone remember that peony piece that I posted a long time ago? Okay, not that long ago but I haven't given any further updates. Well hang onto your seats...my next post will have the finished image!