Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Bryant IDEA Orientation Sessions

REMINDER: To prepare for the IDEA program, you are required to attend a one-hour orientation session.   During this session, you will learn about the IDEA program and you will complete an important survey that will help us place you on a project about which you are interested.  Please bring your laptop computer to the orientation session.  You may choose to attend any one of the following sessions, all of which will take place in Janikies. 

Tuesday, November 4th  11:00am-12:00pm
Wednesday, November 5th  2:00pm-3:00pm
Thursday, November 6th  4:00pm-5:00pm
Monday, November 10th  2:00pm-3:00pm
Monday, November 10th  8:00pm-9:00pm

Thank you very much.   We look forward to seeing you at one of the sessions and to working with you in January.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Amazing Contribution to the Rhode Island Food Bank

Congratulations to the Class of 2017.  You donated 3,150 pounds of canned goods to the Rhode Island Food Bank during the Bryant IDEA program! 

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Key Reminders

  • Residential students will move back to campus on Sunday, January 19th and pick up their informational packet and schedule for the IDEA program at their residence halls.  
  • Commuter students will check in and receive their materials on Monday morning, January 20th at 7:45am in the Chase Wellness Center Lobby.  
  • The program begins on Monday morning at 8:30am in the MAC.   Please be on time!   Late arrivals and poor attendance will affect your grade in a very significant manner.    
  • Each individual should bring 5 canned goods to the MAC on Monday morning.  These canned goods will be used in an activity on Monday, and then they will be donated to the Rhode Island Food Bank. 
  • Please be sure to have your ID with you at all times throughout the program.   You will receive a name tag on Monday morning.  You must have the name tag with you at all times during the program as well. 
  • The Chase Fitness Center will be open on Sunday from 6-11pm for those who would like to work out when you arrive back on campus.
  • Salmanson will be open for dinner on Sunday and breakfast on Monday morning before the program begins. 

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Intelligent Constraints and Creativity

I highly recommend this blog post by Matthew May.  It examines the issue of how smart constraints can actually enable and stimulate creativity, rather than deter it.  The post draws on the work of Teresa Amabile, one of my dissertation advisers in graduate school.  She is a top notch scholar in the field of creativity.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

SketchUp: Download for Free

SketchUp Make is an easy-to-use, free 3D drawing tool.   We encourage IDEA teams to download this free software, as you may find it very useful as you build your prototype.  

Providence Improv at the IDEA Program

Melissa Bowler and her fellow comedians from the Providence Improv Guild will be performing on Monday night, January 20th at the IDEA program.  Before their show, Melissa will be talking about the techniques that improv comedians use.  She will be relating those concepts to the general topics of creativity and innovation that are central to the IDEA program.  It looks to be a fantastic night!


Friday, January 10, 2014

The Brainstorming Debate

Jonah Lehrer wrote a fascinating New Yorker column awhile back in which he argued that brainstorming doesn't work.   In some ways, he's right on the money.   Academic studies often have demonstrated that individuals could perform better at a creative task than a group engaged in brainstorming.  For instance, Lehrer cites one of the early studies at Yale:

The first empirical test of Osborn’s brainstorming technique was performed at Yale University, in 1958. Forty-eight male undergraduates were divided into twelve groups and given a series of creative puzzles. The groups were instructed to follow Osborn’s guidelines. As a control sample, the scientists gave the same puzzles to forty-eight students working by themselves. The results were a sobering refutation of Osborn. The solo students came up with roughly twice as many solutions as the brainstorming groups, and a panel of judges deemed their solutions more “feasible” and “effective.” Brainstorming didn’t unleash the potential of the group, but rather made each individual less creative.

Unfortunately, Lehrer's column draws some misleading conclusions as well.  Scott Berkun, author of Mindfire: Big Ideas For Curious Minds, has written a strong rebuttal to Lehrer's essay.   Berkun offers four key criticisms of Lehrer's conclusions:

1. Nothing matters if the room is filled with morons or strangers (or both).

2.  Brainstorming is designed for idea volume, not depth or quality. 

3.  The person leading an idea generation session matters.

4.  Generating ideas is a small part of the process.  

Berkun takes particular issue with the conclusions that Lehrer draws from a study by Charlan Nemeth.  Brainstorming typically involves a shared norm called "deferred judgment."  Under that norm, participants do not criticize each others' ideas during the idea generation process.   Berkun explains Nemeth's study:

The primary thrust of Lehrer’s critique is based on 2003 study by Nemeth, where students were divided into groups and given 3 different sets of instructions.  In one group, no instruction was given (‘Minimal’). In the second group, basic brainstorming rules were given (‘Brainstorming’). In the last, brainstorming rules were given, plus students were allowed to critique each others ideas (‘Debate’).... The results do show that the group that could critique generated more ideas... [However] The debate groups was given brainstorming instructions, as well as an instruction to debate. It should be labeled “Brainstorming with debate“. If the only instruction they were given was to debate, it’d be a fair comparison. But it isn’t.

Lehrer concludes from this Nemeth study that stimulating dissent and debate works much more effectively than brainstorming.  I'm with Berkun - that conclusion is a step too far.   My work over the past fifteen years has focused a great deal on the importance of debate and dissent.  I'm glad that Lehrer has chosen to emphasize its importance.  However, an effective group process doesn't employ either deferred judgment or dissent and debate.  It involves both!  In the idea generation phase, deferred judgment makes sense as a norm employed to encourage the generation of many different ideas and options.  Later, dissent and debate become critical as a means of comparing and contrasting those options, and perhaps facilitating the development and generation of more ideas and alternatives.

One final point - Later in the article, Lehrer describes the many innovations that emerged from Building 20 at MIT over the years.  He concludes, "The lesson of Building 20 is that when the composition of the group is right—enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways—the group dynamic will take care of itself."  In other words, if you get the team composition right, you will automatically get lots of constructive dissent and debate.  I disagree wholeheartedly with this conclusion.  It's just not right.   You do not guarantee constructive dissent and debate simply by building a diverse team and giving them a forum for dialogue.  In many settings, people simply don't speak up.  Groupthink occurs even in diverse teams at times.  Yes, you have to get the composition right, but group dynamics do not take care of themselves. They take hard work on the part of a leader.   Leadership matters!  Process matters!  

Saturday, January 4, 2014

How to design breakthrough inventions

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Solving Problems for Real World, Using Design Thinking

Here is a great article from this week's New York Times about how students at Stanford are making the world a better place, using design thinking.   We are excited to bring this design thinking process to life at Bryant in a few weeks!

David Kelley: How to build your creative confidence

Getting Excited for IDEA 2014!

We are in the final stages of preparations for IDEA 2014.  We are very excited about all the new and improved elements to the program.   Among other things, we will be hosting Providence Improv at the IDEA program this year.  They will be presenting on the techniques of improv and how they relate to creativity and innovation.  Then they will be performing an improv musical for us on Monday night, January 20th.   We also have a great design challenge set up for Monday morning (replacing last year's marshmallow challenge), and we have a whole new approach to helping students understand their cognitive style.   Finally, we have partnered with Rhode Island Food Bank to help local families in need. We ask each first-year student to bring five canned goods to the program on Monday, January 20th.   January is an especially important time to help the food bank, as donations tend to drop after the holidays (while the need continues).