Raman Roy Chief Executive Officer
Quatrro BPO Solutions
I think creativity is more of a mind game than something limited to being creative to find a particular solution. It goes right in to basic things like what you eat and how you eat, how you dress and how you live. There are standard exercises that make people find creative solutions to day to
day issues.
Tina Seelig Executive Director
Stanford Technology Ventures Program
I find people are naturally creative, but many lock it up inside themselves.
Formal creative exercises can help them loosen up. I start off by giving people creativity tools that will make them hang their head on. Brainstorms, metaphors and mind mapping are effective ways of stretching their creativity.
Unlike a workplace, where people are more risk-averse and therefore less creative, an academic course provides a controlled environment where they can experience and experiment being creative without any fear of a downside.
We start the course with focus on individual creativity and then extend it to creativity in the organization. We give them something different to do everyday. We do everything from traditional case studies to a lot of experimental work, including projects and field trips. In addition, we make them maintain a creativity portfolio where they record a list of things that trigger creativity in their environment. We also have research assignments that cover creative companies, and we encourage them to make their presentations as
I think it is the thinking and analytical capabilities that I picked up at NID that has brought me this far.
I built the foundation of my creative career in National Institute of Design, where I was exposed to different streams of design. More than the skills, I am grateful for the exposure it has given me. Grateful for breaking boundaries. I didn't just see till the next yard, I saw across countries, across continents and deep within my own culture. It was a very intellectual process. It encouraged me to take responsibility for something much larger than doing a little piece of prettification design. I think it is the thinking and analytical capabilities that I picked up at NID that has brought me this far.
I learnt the real skill of creativity from Mohammad Khan during my four year internship at Contract Advertising. It is difficult to teach. Creativity is an abstraction. You may find something creative which I may not or he may not. But at some point we all tend to agree that yes, this is sparkling. To be able to
teach that is difficult. You can only teach that by osmosis.
