Gareth Loudon will be giving a keynote talk entitled ‘The purpose of being creative in the new economy‘ at La Digital Tech Conference in Rennes, France on the 6th December.
Public Lecture on ‘Being Creative: Our Purpose in Life?
This is a video of Gareth Loudon’s inaugural Professorial Lecture where he shares his thoughts on why creativity is important for our own happiness, for the happiness of others and for our learning and growth. He highlights different ways creativity can manifest, and presents some of the key factors that affect our creativity, including the role of purpose and our ‘state of being’. Finally, he reflects on the implications for how we educate our students, and how we run our organisations.
Note that he refers to a video clip in histalk of a famous try in rugby which could not be recorded for copyright reasons, so follow this link to watch it.
TEDx Talk by Shama Rahman on Multidisciplinary creativity
An interesting talk by Shama Rahman on creativity and the importance of bringing together people and ideas from the arts and sciences. It is also worth checking out Shama’s work at Jugular Productions.
Presentation at HEA Conference on Creativity in STEM Education
Gareth Loudon presented the keynote speech at the recent Higher Education Academy conference on creativity in STEM education, on integrating ideas from ‘design thinking’ into the STEM curricula. You can also find details on twitter under #HEASTEM18
Barbara Fredicksen on the power of Positive Emotions
Prof. Barbara Fredicksen talks about how power emotions can help open up the mind and help us see the bigger picture (literally) – and discusses the implications for creativity
Research on factors affecting Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky
It is worth reading the Journal article by Sonja Lyubomirsky called Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change. In her article she talks about different factors affecting happiness, some that are in people’s control (“Intentional Activity”), some that are related to genetics (“Set Point”) and some that are related to “Life Circumstances”, such as demographics and the effect of certain personal life events. She suggests that we can make a difference to our level of happiness by focusing on “intentional activity” aspects, however she also points out that this requires effort. She divides this “intentional activity” into three types of effort: behavioural (such as exercising or being kind to others), cognitive (such as reframing situations or being grateful) and volitional (such as striving for important personal goals) and provides evidence from a range of research on how each one of the three factors has a positive affect on happiness. However, Sonja Lyubomirsky also argues that the effort becomes a lot easier, and more sustainable and enjoyable, if a person can find meaning and value in the activity.
Sonja Lyubomirsky also highlights how “happy people gain tangible benefits” including “superior work outcomes (greater creativity, increased productivity, higher quality of work, and higher income; e.g., Estrada, Isen, & Young, 1994; Staw, Sutton, & Pelled, 1995), and more activity, energy, and flow (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi & Wong, 1991)”.
Shawn Achor builds on these findings in his entertaining TED talk on “The happy secret to better work”