Group Creativity

Creativity and co-creativity have been identified as essential factors for business success. Yet conventional approaches to group problem-solving and collaborative design typically follow a “waterfall” sequence where agreement is sought on problem definition and solution criteria before exploring any initial solutions; this is not how an “agile” co-creative process best functions. Dialogue Mapping and Dynamic Facilitation are two non-linear dialogic approaches for group problem-solving and collaborative design. One is high-tech and one is low-tech, yet both share the underlying principle of “welcoming initial solutions” to enhance group co-creativity. This paper details two case studies of Dynamic Facilitation in action to show what this principle looks like in practice. Other features of this approach that are illustrated and discussed include facilitator multipartiality rather than neutrality, protecting the emergence of a creative field through spatial redirection rather than temporal constraints, retroactively organizing information rather than using an agenda and holding space for emergent convergences rather than facilitating toward managed convergence. Benefits include creative breakthroughs, leading to greater alignment, motivation, and follow-through; challenges include a different skill-set than that associated with “managing convergence”.

This paper uses a complexity-based framework to study creativity in short-term self-directed groups. The study is based on observations and interviews collected from three eight-day working groups addressing real-life societal challenges. Qualitative content analysis of the data was conducted using Atlas.ti. The results reveal group differences in creative capacity as well as difficulties in achieving a working mode that enables the production of creative output within a short space of time. Based on these results we identified seven factors that support creativity in these short-term groups. The results provide important clues for organizing and facilitating creativity and innovation in self-directed work groups, self-managed teams and other short-term and ad hoc groups.

""From the perspective of current theoretical approaches the figure of the archive seems to have lost its central status and its fever. In our medial and cultural set-up new (kinds of) archives seem to crop up everywhere, accelerated by new means of production and distribution. Cultural repertoires are being remixed alongside technological repositories – often giving new life to almost forgotten relics. Ever more things, valuables, processes, projects, constituencies, even movements, need to be taken care of. It is not only cultural and critical theory that is being challenged, but also law, the natural sciences and design, alongside other applied sciences. But what are the complex dynamics and contexts of these new (non-)archives? Do they really make sense? And if so, by and for whom?
To address these questions, 'Taking Care of Things!' focuses on the transformation of things – analog and digital – into life-cycles and specific practices of care. This will be done in different thematic groups dealing with topics, like Mesh Media!, Civil Archaeology, Measure Drones, Unearthing the Archive, Translating Ontologies and Extinction in Context.

This workshop will address such fundamental changes in archiving and objects by generating practices and chances to take care of things. That is, we will seek to extend (or sometimes end) the life-cycle of objects not by simply preserving them (this usually guarantees they will be forgotten), but rather through acts that respond, react, and/or reuse.

'Taking Care of Things!' will be based at and operating from the Stadtarchiv Lüneburg, the city's rich and still to-be-further-explored archive, headed by Danny Kolbe.

'Taking Care of Things!' will start Wednesday evening (Jan 15) with a public talk by Kelly Dobson (Brown University) and followed by short introductions by Oliver Lerone Schutz, Nishant Shah and Wendy Chun to set the scene for the following days. Clemens Apprich together with Marcell Mars will then turn the evening into a Public Library offering the first charge of Post-Media Lab publications.

Thursday and Friday (Jan 16-17) will be reserved for intensive exchanges and workshops among the invited participants, all of whom deal very differently and critically with post-medial (non-)archives. There will be the opportunity to interface with the Lüneburg public, assembling archival objects of different kinds. On Saturday (Jan 18) all these activities will culminate in a public presentation and fair under the umbrella of 'Parliament of Things' held at the Stadtarchiv.

'Taking Care of Things!' will create multiple interweavings not only with the rich repository of the Stadtarchiv, but also with the multiple potentials of existing and new collaborations around the Center for Digital Cultures.

This event will mark the conclusion of the first life-cycle of the Post-Media Lab by bringing together former fellows and new participants. 
Among the participants are: Adnan Hadzi and James Steven (DeckspaceTV), Femke Snelting and Michael Murtaugh (Constant/Active Archives), Eric Kuitenberg and David Garcia (Tactical Media Files), Boaz Levin and Daniel Herleth and Adam Kaplan (The Rise of Data), Fabian Giraud and Inigo Wilkins (Glass Bead), Jonathan Kemp and James Howse („Stack, Frame, Heap –SFH)", as well as Memory of the World (Marcell Mars),  Mathias Fuchs (Gamification Lab), Cornelia Sollfrank (Giving What You Don´t Have), Hauke Winkler (Freifunk Lüneburg), Robert Ochshorn (InterLace), Tapio Makela (M.A.R.I.N.), Fabrizio Augusto Poltronieri (MaisZero), Owen Mundy (Living under Drones), Kristian Lukic (NAPON),Vahida Ramujkic (irational), Volker Grasmuck (CDC/Grundversorgung 2.0), Vincent Normand, Jeremy Lecomte, Ida Soulard, Erich Berger, Connie Mendoza and more.

Coordination & Care
Christina Kral: christina.kral@inkubator.leuphana.de
Oliver Lerone Schultz: oschultz@leuphana.de

January 15-18
Taking Care of Things!
organized by Post-Media Lab/CDC, Habits of Living in cooperation with Stadtarchiv Lüneburg

PROGRAM

Wednesday, Jan 15
18:00 Stadtarchiv
Introduction to Taking Care of Things
a lecture by Kelly Dobson (Brown University): 'How To Break Things' and a temporarily installed Public Library offering the first charge of Post-Media Lab publications. Bring your own devices to download them live!

Friday, Jan 17
21:00 (location to be announced)
Screening Things
a curated public screening including footage from the Stadtarchiv and works by 'Taking Care of Things!' participants

Saturday, Jan 18
13:00 - 17:00 Stadtarchiv
Parliament of Things
a public fair and exhibition displaying the results of the two-day workshop intermixed with city archive material—an opportunity for the public to engage with 'Taking Care of Things!' and the Stadtarchiv in a variety of activities igniting & deepening conversations around archives, life-cycles and care.""

"

“As we know, well-led groups provide many member benefits: feelings of universality, a sense of hope, altruism, acquisition of knowledge and skills, and mutual support...This text is affordable, easy to use, and very suitable for providing group work material in BSW or MSW practice courses.”

— Greg Tully, West Chester University



AN EXPERIENTIAL APPROACH TO GROUP WORK
Second Edition

Rich Furman, University of Washington, Tacoma
Kimberly Bender, University of Denver
Diana Rowan, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

An Experiential Approach to Group Work is not your typical group work text! Using dozens of exercises that build practice-tested skills, the authors' approach is in perfect step with CSWE's competence-based education requirements. The book is organized into three sections—the first addresses stages of group practice, the second looks at major types of groups, and the final section looks at examples of group work practice with special populations.

Features of the Second Edition

    Expanded! Discussion of the theory of group process and dynamics
    New! Content regarding Canadian, British, and Australian group work practices
    New! Chapters on anti-oppressive practice, group work with immigrants, and macro-practice group work
    New! Content on the use and development of technology to aid group work
    Contains customized exercises for each group work topic, designed to build the student and practitioner’s skills for use in group work sessions
    Special emphasis on how to bring individual sessions or groups to closure
    Provides examples of group work in specialized settings: conflict resolution groups within elementary schools, pregnant teens, Latinos, and HIV/AIDS clients
"

Since its inception, the psychology of creativity has been primarily concerned with the study of individual creators. In contrast, this research is dedicated to an exploration of a) who has a significant impact on a creative professional’s activity and b) what is the contribution others make to creative outcomes. The research included interviews with 60 professionals working in science and creative industries in France. The following categories of others emerged – family and friends, peers and students, clients and funders, critics and gatekeepers, and the general public – and they were related to themes depicting the interaction between these different others and the creator. Findings reveal both similarities and differences across the five domains in terms of the specific contribution of others to the creative process. Social interactions play a key formative, regulatory, motivational, and informational role in relation to creative work. From ‘internalised’ to ‘distant’, other people are an integral part of the equation of creativity calling for a de-centration of the creative self and its re-centration in a social space of actions and interactions.

This paper explores the facilitation of creative development at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London, England. It focuses on a composition and audio recording project from November 2012, undertaken to help develop understanding of creativities and working practices among contemporary popular musicians, in order that pedagogy and curricula at the institution could best serve the needs of students and alumni in a changing global musical workplace. Renowned US-based fusion group Snarky Puppy collaborated with Institute students and alumni to compose and record a work entitled ‘Creative Destruction’. Data were gathered through various means, including videos of interviews, practice sessions and performances with participating students, alumni and members of Snarky Puppy. Exploring the ‘4 Ps’ – process, person, product and place – the paper focuses on creation and use of liminal space, and the interaction of various individual, curricula, programme-level and institutional creativities. Hopefully this paper will provoke questions regarding a range of creativities in and beyond the particular case study presented.

Creativity in adults is highly valued in our society. Personal creativity contributes to inventiveness, innovation, social and cultural change as well as political development and economic progression. The creator is an innovator, a problem solver, an entrepreneur, an artist. Creative people have rapid and effective responses that help them to achieve their life goals and allow them to enjoy the journey. Creativity is both a skill set and a unique and individual character structure that is developed throughout childhood and fine-tuned in adolescence and adulthood. Education has a key role to play in its development. Positive creativity inspiring experiences at every stage of the educational journey are needed. This is especially true in early childhood. Educators who rise to the creativity challenge will be well rewarded in rich teaching experiences and the joy of seeing children reach their creative potential in supportive and integrated learning communities.