Unlocking Latent Creativity with Rapid Prototyping

Creativity: An Introduction to Popular Concepts, Topics, and Discussions

“…Most articles (including Zupan et al 2017) dealing with creativity in individual-centered academic disciplines cite Joy Paul Guilford's article (1950) in American Psychologist as the start of empirical research on creativity, although some historical reviews point out that even earlier attempts inspired or influenced creativity studies in various academic fields (Becker 1995;Albert and Runco 1999). The first wave of studies in the 1950s and 1960s dealt with personality psychology, and the second (from the 1970s) with cognitive psychology, trying to determine what goes on in the mind of people when they engage in creative activity.…”

“…It is no different in Slovenia: this trend is the most apparent in education (various creativity trainers offer workshops for teachers and students at different levels of schooling) and in business (with lectures and training for managerial staff and employees). Methods and approaches, ranging from de Bono's most popular methods of lateral thinking (1970) and six thinking hats (1985) to rapid prototyping (for more on this method, see Zupan et al 2017) have been constantly evolving and transmitted to people expected to do (even) better in a knowledge-based economy.…”

“…Workshops designed to increase creativity and help find (or create) jobs are also held for students and the unemployed (cf. Zupan et al 2017).…”

“…Such a broad interest in creativity in academic disciplines and research domains, in economic, educational, cultural and welfare policy, and in (other) applied fields has turned creativity into a fashionable buzzword, attached to an unimaginably vast array of objects, processes (or practices), and actors. On the one hand, this can inspire critical conceptual research on creativity (Bajič 2017), motivate researchers to analyze social effects stemming from such understandings (Vodopivec 2017), expand the understanding of pure economic urban visions towards the value of social and cultural capital (Uršič 2017), advocate the need to foster the creativity of future employees (Zupan et al 2017), or frustrate a researcher because it hinders him/her to properly grasp the phenomenon and get around all of this creative "clutter." This article offers insight into my own struggles with creativity, reflected in selected social practices and activities in Ljubljana that I have encountered in the last three years.…”