CHAPTER 2

Creative Individuals
 1969: Tomorrow's World:
Module Code and Module Title
• 1969: Tomorrow's World: Computer-
Aided-Design1969: A digital computer
was built into the drawing board of a
mechanical design engineer in Britain,
turning a six-person job into a one-
person job overnight.
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/4594
69747409396/
Title of Slides
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 Inventor Artur Fischer, Who Held More
Than 1,100 Patents, Dies at 96

Fischer was born in Tumlingen, Germany,

on Dec. 31, 1919. His dad was a tailor and
his mom took in laundry. He left school
when he was 13 to train as a locksmith.
Fischer joined the Hitler Youth and served
in the military. During the war, he was
captured in Italy and sent to a prisoner-of-
war camp in England. After returning home
to Germany in 1946, he got a job as an
assistant at an engineering firm.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270626
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 Artur Fischer, the prolific German inventor
who held more than 1,100 patents --
beating Thomas Edison's 1,093 -- died on
Jan. 27 in his home in Germany. He was
96.
Fischer was honored by the European
Patent Office with a lifetime achievement
award in 2014, and he was the mind
behind the fischer S-plug, a widely used
expanding nylon anchor that holds screws
in place in materials such as drywall, and
the first synchronized electronic camera
flash.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 Innovation

• Key is creativity
• Introduction of something new or novel
– Never existed before
– New to our situation
– Capable of having a fresh use
• Practical application of creative ideas
– Company meets its objectives more
effectively
• www.ozemail.com.au/~caveman/basics/definitions.htm

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/23/uber-
safetipin/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm
_content=FaceBook
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 • New Delhi is, of course, the city where a
passenger was alleged raped by an Uber driver
in December. In the aftermath of that incident,
the U.S. company has (finally) introduced stricter
background checks for drivers, and added an in-
app panic button and location/journey sharing
features — this coming-together is another effort
to improve safety in the Indian city, the company
said.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 • Safetipin’s mobile app is essentially a guide to
the safety of cities and locations across the
world. It includes a ‘safety score’ for towns and
cities created by the service’s nine-point audit —
which covers the lighting, openness, visibility,
security, walk path, crowd and gender diversity
and density of each location.
That’s supplemented by data from users, who
can upload photos and details of flashpoints and
incidents at places they visit.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
Source: http://fortune.com/2015/02/23/uber-food-delivery-
spain/?utm_content=buffer827b5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 • Uber has had a difficult time with
European regulators in general. The
company’s Spanish squabble began last
December, when a judge ordered the
company to shutter its low-cost ride-share
service, UberPop, because it did not
comply with local laws.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 • And so, last Thursday, Uber announced
the launch of UberEats, a curated food
delivery service that lets users order a
limited number of plates at lunch or dinner
(now, one each) for delivery within 10
minutes. Available in most of Barcelona,
each plate from the dozen or so
participating restaurants costs about €10;
delivery is €2.50.
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 • Uber’s “burger pivot” isn’t that strange, as the
company is less a ride-selling company than a
technology firm that puts unused delivery
capacity to use. That’s why investors valued
Uber at $41 billion in its last funding round. They
weren’t looking for a piece of the world’s largest
gypsy cab service (even if it was in 250 cities);
they wanted a share of a huge, multi-faceted
logistics firm.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

Source:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/p
hoto-essays/2015-02-23/14-smart-
inventions-inspired-by-nature-
biomimicry
Module Code and Module Title
Velcro
After a hunting trip in the Alps in 1941, Swiss engineer
George de Mestral’s dog was covered in burdock burrs.
Mestral put one under his microscope and discovered a
simple design of hooks that nimbly attached to fur and
socks. After years of experimentation, he invented Velcro —
and earned U.S. Patent 2,717,437 in October 1952. Benyus
said it is probably the best-known and most commercially
successful instance of biomimicry.
Photographers: Scott Camazine; Custom Medical Stock
Photo
Title of Slides
 LEGAL DEFINITIONS

• Creativity falls under the rubric of intellectual

property for the legal profession. For
organisations these concern outputs (rather than
processes)

• For example
– New Ideas (which are protected by patent laws)
– New Products/Services (which are protected by
copyright laws)

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 • As of Dec. 1, Big Blue had been issued almost
7,000 patents in 2014. After IBM, the company
with the second highest number of patents
issued was Korean-headquartered technology
giant Samsung, with more than 5,000 patents
filed. Canon, Sony and Microsoft round out the
top five, according to the infographic generated
with United States Patent Office data by
SmartUp, a legal startup that is building an
online platform connecting attorneys and clients.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 • While getting your idea legally protected is a
smart idea, getting a patent is no speedy task. In
fact, it took more than two years, on average, for
a patent application to be completed. In the
software industry, it took even longer. To get a
patent issued in the software industry, it took
almost 32 months. That’s almost three years.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243091
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 CREATIVITY IN ORGANISATIONS
AND CREATIVE
ORGANISATIONS
• Creativity in organisations focuses on achieving
innovation, competitive advantage and social
benefits by enhancing the ‘level’ of creativity in
the organisation.
• This, typically, involves:
– Examining the personality traits and styles of individuals
– Developing an organisational context in which creativity
might be fostered (organisational cultures etc)
– Examining systems (collectivities of organised efforts
coupled with the physical environment) to see how the
systemic tendencies toward stability might be
interrupted….to stimulate new actions and/or different
activities.
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
Shinkansen Bullet Train
High-speed trains can literally cause headaches. That's why Japan limits their
acceptable noise-pollution level, which can be particularly high when the trains emerge
from tunnels. As they drive through, air pressure builds up in waves and, when the nose
emerges, can produce a shotgun-like thunderclap heard for a quarter mile. Eiji Nakatsu,
a bird-watching engineer at the Japanese rail company JR-West, in the 1990s took
inspiration from the kingfisher, a fish-eating fowl that creates barely a ripple when it darts
into water in search of a meal. The train’s redesigned nose — a 50-foot-long steel
kingfisher beak — didn't just solve the noise problem; it reduced power use and enabled
faster speeds.
Photographers: Hiromi Okano/Corbis; West Japan Railway Co. Via Bloomberg
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 TO SUMMARISE…..

CREATIVE INTERNAL
CONTEXTS

EXTERNAL

CREATIVE
CREATIVE
PROCESSES
INDIVIDUALS

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 Creativity….

• Management theory typically assumes creativity

is solely about the creation of new ideas. This is
innovation
• Hence the breathless talk of improvisation, jazz and
unstructured music, commedia del’arte etc….

• But creativity in the implementation of existing

ideas and technologies is equally important.

• Creativity is therefore a broader concept

incorporating both innovation as well as existing
ideas, structures and processes.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

Harvesting Desert Fog
The Namibian Beetle raises its back into the air as fog rolls into its desert habitat. Bumps
on its shell catch water droplets, which then run down chutes toward its mouth. “The
design of this fog-collecting structure can be reproduced cheaply on a commercial scale
and may find application in water-trapping tent and building coverings,” wrote
the authors of a 2001 paper that revealed how the water collection works. Inventors and
designers have taken note. A “Dew Bank Bottle,” designed by Pak Kitae of the Seoul
National University of Technology, imitates the beetle’s water-collection system. Morning
dew condenses on it and conveys it to a bottle, which has a drinking spout.
Photographers: Michael and Patricia Fogden/Minden Pictures; Coutesy Pak Kitae
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 Creativity Involves……

• Concepts: ideas and/or technologies

• Competences: the repertoires of skills and

abilities of individuals (and the opportunity to use
these skills in the organisation).

• Connections: the relationships which individuals,

teams and organisations create (networks).
Sustained by collaboration and can be re-
configured as new ideas emerge/are created.
(Kanter 1999)

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

Experimental Fish Car
"Reinventing the wheel" is imprecise, even as a metaphor, in the biomimetic context.
That’s because nature doesn’t really do wheels; there’s nothing for engineers to
reinvent. The rough-and-humble tumbleweed is one of the few works of evolution that
roll to get where they’re going. Mercedes-Benz instead found inspiration for a car body
(less its wheels) in the boxfish, a tropical species shaped sort of like, well, a two-door
compact. The fish’s body turned out to be aerodynamically superb, and the resulting
concept car has one of the most efficient shapes for a car of its size.
Photograpger: Secret Sea Visions/Peter Arnold; Rendering: Mercedes-Benz/Daimler AG
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 Comparing Creatives and
Knowledge Workers…….
• There are similarities in some of the above
dilemmas between organisations employing
creatives and professional service firms
employing knowledge workers.

• In the same ways as creatives, knowledge

workers are the core competence of the
organisation. They both present similar
difficulties for management.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 Retention is a Key Issue

• Some creatives inhabit a fluid labour market. They can

sell their skills freely and can move from job to job, from
contract to contract and from organisation to
organisation (dangerous in a competitive market)…..

• Some will leave at the slightest hint of dissatisfaction and

seek a job elsewhere. Management’s role in maintaining
a supportive context is therefore crucial.

• Professional/knowledge workers display many of the

same characteristics.

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 The Knowledge Base and
Performance

On the basis of empirical evidence, it would be

better to involve ‘creatives’ in the strategic
decision process rather than marginalise them
and keep them away from the process.

They are the ‘knowledge-base of the

organsiation
(Hickson et al 2003; Kanter 1999; Miller et al 2004)

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides
 Namibian bugs

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyz8xu
MCcOg

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 Kingfsher

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQVE
dXN_Mnk

Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides

 Activities

• In a group, based on the selected image –

propose your creative ideas

Insects
Sea creatures

Bears
Module Code and Module Title Title of Slides