David Kelley: How to build your creative confidence

Video cameras!

First-year students should consider bringing a video camera back from the holiday break, if their families own one.  Each team could use at least one video camera during the IDEA program. 

Program Kick-off

Reminder: Our program kicks off early on the morning of Monday, January 21st.  All students need to be back on campus and ready to go on that morning.   Please also remember to complete those MBTI self-assessments as soon as possible!  Have a great holiday break!

MBTI

Please complete your MBTI profile as soon as possible.  We will provide your results to you during the IDEA course in January, and we'll help you interpret the results.  Most importantly, we will help you learn how to work effectively on a team with others who have different cognitive styles. 

Collective Action Toolkit

Frog - a leading design firm  - has created a Collective Action Toolkit, which they describe as a "package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community."  What a terrific FREE resource! 

College Entrepreneurship Programs

Here's a terrific article from Lauren Landry titled, "Why Every College’s Entrepreneurship Program Should Focus on Building Skills, Not Companies."  I recommend reading it. Landry argues that we should focus less on launching college start-ups and more on preparing students to be successful entrepreneurs after they leave college.

Group Genius

If you are interested in the topic of creativity, particularly with regard to teams, you should read Keith Sawyer's book titled Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration.   Sawyer is a professor at Washington University of St. Louis.  Sawyer combines some fascinating stories with solid findings from rigorous academic research throughout this easy-to-read and enjoyable book.

Apollo 13: Creativity in Action

Creativity Expert Teresa Amabile

Designing an Electric Bike

Disruptive Innovation Explained

Design Thinking - An Intro

IDEA Orientation Sessions

Stanford Design Thinking Process

Keynote Speaker: Brian Chapman

Source: Purdue Univ.

We are very pleased to announce that Brian Chapman, head of Global Design and Development for Hasbro, will be our keynote speaker on January 21, 2012.   Mr. Chapman has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from Purdue University, with a minor in psychology.   Over the past twenty years at Hasbro, he has worked on popular toys and games such as My Little Pony, Monopoly, Playdoh, and Tonka.   Chapman also has helped create Hasbro’s movies, including the Transformers films and GI Joe. 

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Welcome to the Bryant IDEA Program Blog!

Welcome to the Bryant IDEA Program Blog.  In January 2013, we will be launching an exciting new program for first-year students at Bryant University.   Second semester will not begin with a traditional class schedule.  Instead, first-year students will spend their first three days working on innovation projects with guidance and mentoring from faculty, staff, alumni, and juniors/seniors here at the school.   The program will introduce students to the principles of design thinking and then unleash them on these projects.  We will engage them in the ultimate "learning by doing" exercise - 800 students all working in teams on challenging "real world" problems - no boring lectures, no sage on the stage during this program.   Along the way, they will learn about themselves, about leadership and team dynamics, and about the creative process.  Perhaps most importantly, we will be bringing students together from business and the liberal arts, so that they can bring multiple disciplines to bear on each of these challenging problems.   We hope that you will enjoy this blog.  While it is intended to serve as a resource for this new program, we hope that it will be useful to others outside of the university as well.