Deborah Khan -- Creative Inspiration

Sir Ken - The world’s foremost speaker on creativity, culture and education

Fascinating to track the career of Ken Robinson. An ex- drama and English teacher, Professor at Warwick University, now Senior Advisor to J Paul Getty Trust in LA. Voted one of the top business speakers in the world. It’s a long way from Liverpool to LA.  But I think Ken has lost none of the warmth, pragmatism and humour that I was lucky enough to witness first hand nearly 15 years ago.

Ken’s a visionary. And the consummate presenter. He has a number of gifts including the ability to humanize and illustrate everything. He roots everything in story-and ensures he carries the audience with an engaging narrative that demonstrates a wide and diverse knowledge base. He also has the ability to make extremely complex concepts understandable. All arguments I have banged out for seven years in presentation training. And the fundamentals of how we connect with an audience.

Easy to say, I know, but very hard to do.

This great piece of footage from TED gives us all an opportunity to see Ken in action.

Is the development of creativity as essential as literacy in education? Children in school now will indeed be retiring (they hope…) in 2065. Shocking to try to envisage the world in 2065- no-one can. Same colour sky, yes, maybe a few degrees warmer but we don’t have a clue what the world will look like. Provocative point –how do we prepare them for the impact of the massive socio-economic changes taking place as we speak? How will it affect how they will work?

And what about us, now, who had our creative abilities, drummed out of us by an education system that valued and developed academic reasoning?

At five tv I delivered a series of workshops to freshen up the creative thinking of some of their staff. Their Creative Services Team wanted to know the current state of play around conceptual thinking common to all creative actions.  Who was saying what and why?  And some sure fire tools they could implement yesterday. Great people and we will do more work together.

I would love to see Ken elaborate on skills and processes that can extend everyone’s creative behaviour.

If a creative community within a successful creative industry are struggling, what does it say about the learning opportunities available to us?

As Ken says “The world is changing and promoting the ability for creative thinking and promoting cultural adaptability is essential “(BusinessWeek February) 2006

We need to develop behaviours. Far more than provide a token space with a few toys and a white board. It is essential we support those who we work with to understand the creative process. Plus techniques and strategies to nurture, build and develop ideas that will add real value to what we do

From design to meaning: a whole new way of presenting?

Like Garr Reynolds, Dan Pink’s A Whole new mind was one of my favourite books of the year. This excellent post makes explicit links between Pink's lexicon and excellent presentation. Pink has defined the essential attributes we all need to develop to succeed, attributes that are predominantly right brain directed thinking.

I tend to turn off at the mention of anything left or right brain- it is a fascinating area of neuroscience that has sadly been hijacked, overused and reduced to incorrect application. But Pink’s research and detailed narrative illustrates how the brain functions can be a useful metaphor to help us understand the skills essential to flourish and succeed in the 21^st Century.

Relating this work to right brain directed functioning, he identifies the six key concepts that we will need as design Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. A beautiful lexicon.

Garrs summation of the book is erudite, provocative and above all else, extremely useful if we are serious about how to use this information to really connect and persuade our audience to adopt our point of view. Like all profound reads, Pink’s can make us feel humble and the temptation is to say so what. Garr has answered the so what question for you.

How can we apply this information to our organizations whose structures, ethos and operations appear to be the antithesis of Pink’s high concept world? Of course Pink realizes that the left brain directed qualities of logic and analysis are still essential but, fundamentally, we are going to need more if we are going to compete, survive and flourish.

In a world of PowerPoint overload I know that it is a presenter’s grasp of how we really connect to an audience that will have real long term discernible commitment.

I love the Art of Presenting as a metaphor and Garr is specific in his descriptions of how those six high concept attributes help an audience to listen and remember. Presenters need to understand the need for clear objectives, beautifully designed slides that augment what they say (not slides that are what they say…) and use evocative, emotional visuals to transfer an idea. It is about understanding how and why people listen, learn and remember.

Garr’s advice on Design and Story are particularly illuminating. I would deconstruct some of this as being inextricably linked to voice, intention, authenticity, energy and presence. These things are harder to define on paper but we know them when they see them. Richard Olivier’s book Peak Performance Presentations is the best I have read at suggesting exercises develop those skills.

Read the blog. And read Pink’s book.