Spent the day at a course on creativity and decision making.

Partly out of curiosity - it's been 6 years I was reminded since a former colleague and I attended an in-house creativity workshop that sparked a whole chain of events. Could I learn anything new? How good/bad would the day's course be? Particularly in comparison with six years back.

(Did I mention that we wrote up the 'chain of events' as an article which has just been accepted for publication? After some revision as a result of the peer-review process it must be said.)

The other reason for attending was the fact that come January, said former colleague and I are attending a conference on creativity. As we're tabling a paper there (we've been informed that tables will be made available! seriously!), it seemed prudent to have some recent training on the subject.

At the start of the day we had to share our reasons for attending and I owned up to the attendance at the conference even if I didn't quite dare to own up to being a contributor. I guess I was vaguely surprised that the two workshop leaders didn't know it was happening (and nor did a lady sitting at the same table as me who came from the university where it's being held).

Before we'd even got going there'd been coffee and registration at which a conversation with the tutors about De Bono's six hats had developed. I mentioned that in my last job we'd actually bought six physical hats rather than just referring to the process on occasion. Deciding that a yellow construction helmet was just too camp, one attendee said, perhaps having not grasped the true creative spirit yet: "let's knock that idea on the head".

The day itself was good. I learned and had a go at some new techniques; I met interesting people from a range of libraries; I was even able to contribute on occasions with some of the techniques and experiences I've encountered (for example with the six hats and, of course, with mindmapping).

One exercise was particularly interesting. After lunch we were sent off to nearby stores/organizations to do "creative swiping". The aim being to come back with three ideas that "we could learn from them" and three ideas "they could learn from us". (The latter being good at helping you see the positives of your own place). Going off in pairs and taking notes meant we had some really interesting thoughts to share on return. But of course the process was of interest as you might guess from the purpose of this blog!

Possibly my favorite moment from the day was the lady mentioned above who at the conclusion revealed that she'd been hoping for a couple of techniques or quick solutions and not realized just how hard work creativity was going to be! I encouraged that it could be fun as well.

Finally, the one thing that struck me about the two presenters - who it turned out were a couple which occasionally created an interesting dynamic - was how much they said they enjoyed what they were doing. And how much they weren't really doing anything I suspect I, perhaps with help, couldn't be doing myself...