The document discusses using digital tools to support creativity in professional practices. It describes the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice and its focus on designing digital tools that foster creativity. Two digital apps are highlighted: Care'N'Share, which provides creative guidance to caregivers of dementia patients, and Risk Hunting, used by manufacturing workers to creatively solve production line risks. Key lessons from these apps emphasize aligning the tools with user needs, domains, and organizational values to effectively support creativity through digital means.

1. Using Digital to be More Creative:
Tools and Lessons from the
Creative Coalface
Neil Maiden
@neilmaiden
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

2. Our Centre at Cass Business School
Interdisciplinary membership
– Creativity, design,
innovation, leadership,
entrepreneurship
– #theMICL Masters Course
Strong digital focus
– Support creative design of
digital that innovates
– Digital support for individual
and social creativity…..
– …. across [non-creative]
professional practices
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

3. In This Session…
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice
1. Digital to support
creativity in work
2. Characteristics and
architecture
3. Creativity support in
dementia care
4. Creativity support in
manufacturing
5. Key lessons learned

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Exploiting Digital for Creativity
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice
Search
space of
possible
ideas
Creativity as information search
and idea discovery
– From information search to
information and idea discovery
[Kerne et al. 2008]
– Idea generation in conjunction with
information finding
– Representation shifts overcome
idea fixation
Digital search technologies
– Creative search algorithms
– Directed creative clues to discover
pre-defined qualities
Session 3-18
Convenience
üYour users want the
perception of convenience
üWhy are we willing to pay
more for mobile phone
calls?
üWhy do we shop online?
üWhat can you do for your
users to make their lives
more convenient?
üRemove one step
üDo something instead of
making your user do it
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

5. Required Characteristics of Digital Support
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice
1. Pain-free interactions [Greene 2002]
– Exploring information
– Classifying results
– Associating ideas
– Experimenting with concepts
– Natural language
1. Pain-free management
– Minimum tagging
– Immediate use
1. Contribute explicitly to learning
– Individual knowledge and skills
– Organizational learning

6. A Generic Architecture
Critical features
– Manipulate natural language
– Automated creative search
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice
Problem
Parse,
sense-
make
Form
creative
content
Problems
Solutions
Creative
qualities
Creativeguidance
Diverge
Converge
Expansive
search
Random
search
Creative
solutions
Creative
qualities
Improved café
service
Pret-a-Manger
serviceFree surprise
coffee
More stylish
service
Offer free coffee
delivered with
style

7. The Care’N’Share App
[From EU-funded Mirror project]
Publicly available for use by carers of older
people with dementia
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

8. The Care’N’Share App
Person-centred care
– Creative thinking to
resolve distressing
conditions
– Minimum training
– Support care in-situ
– Shared good care
practice cases
But limited WIFI in homes
– Replace with web app
– Simpler features
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

9. The Care’N’Share App Architecture
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice
Careproblem
Parse,
sense-
make
Form care
giudance
content
125
structured
good care
practices
67 care
quality
heuristics
Creativeguidance
Diverge
Converge
Critical features
– Incomplete care problem description; structured good
care practices
Expansive
and analogical
search
Random
search
Creative
solutions
and clues
Qualities of
person-centred
care

10. The
Care’N’Share
App

11. Three Lessons
1. Ensure sufficient breadth of cases
– Build confidence in case base
– Tailor cases to reflect domain language
– Carers tend to be solution-oriented
1. Enable time and space to create
– Evidence of original app use off-shift
– Align app use with user motivations
1. Align app with organizational values
– App rejected due to implicit value clash
– Alignment of app to business was key
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

12. The Risk Hunting App
[from EU-funded COLLAGE project]
In daily use at the CNH Industrial plant in Basildon
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

13. The Risk Hunting App
Creative support for risk
resolution on production lines
– All employees are users
– Limited creative skills at work
– Replicated paper forms
– Samsung Galaxy 3 devices
– Use within 4-5 minutes
Creative thinking a seamless
option in work
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

14. The Risk Hunting App Architecture
Critical features
– Incomplete natural language risk descriptions
– Similarity-based search algorithms
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice
Riskdescription
Parse,
sense-
make
Form risk
resolution
content
10,000 risks,
resolutions
85 creative
qualities
from TRIZ
method
Creativeguidance
Diverge
Converge
Expansive
search
Random
search
Similar risk
resolutions
Creative
manufacturing
qualities

15. The Risk
Hunting
App

16. Three Lessons
1. Creative form-fill works
– Meaningful content over playful
aesthetics
– Respect the work climate
1. Provide creative freedom
– Different preferences for different
creativity techniques
– Creativity framed as a seamless,
optional add-on to regular work
1. Seek productivity and creativity
– Editable clue text scaffolded
creative thinking
– More productive in short time
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

17. Other Apps
1. Google-sponsored JUICE
– Creative support for journalists
– Search trusted news stories and
sources on Twitter via
TweetBubble
– Piloting this November
1. Healthy food choices
– Creative support for healthier food
– Build on collected stories of good
food, diet and life practices
– The IFSTAL initiative
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice

18. Contact Details
Centre for Creativity in
Professional Practice
I’m happy to talk more and
explore options for digital
creativity support
N.A.M.Maiden@city.ac.uk
@NeilMaiden