By Christian Grondin And Andrew Heineck

 J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis both wrote great stories.  Neither were particularly good writers.  Formed a group with other known writers.  Brought segments of their works and presented, giving constructive feedback.  The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia were written during these sessions.

 John Reed came up with idea for street level cash machines and wireless credit cards.  Came up with the idea on a beach holiday while he was thinking about the company.  This led to blueprint for idea.  “Reed’s spark came when he was alone and away from the office”  These ideas allowed Citibank to become the lead customer bank for the next decade.

 Psychologists discovered 5 stages to describe the collaborative process: 1. Preparation: This involves a period of working hard, studying the problem, and talking o everyone else working on it. 2. Time off: the team members change context and engages in other activities, often in conversation with others. 3. The Spark: During the time off, a solution appears, but that solution is deeply embedded in the knowledge and social interactions of the preparation and time-off phases, and it builds on sparks that others have had.

4. Selection: An “Aha!” feeling doesn’t always mean that an idea is good. Creative people are very good at selecting the best ideas for follow-up, or they collaborate with others in selecting them. 5. Elaboration: Working out the idea typically requires a lot of additional ideas. Bringing them all together always requires social interaction and collaboration.

 Hubble Telescope launched into orbit with faulty mirrors.  Project required 1000’s of scientists and engineers, and government would not pay for a new telescope.  NASA’s experts got together for a last ditch effort to save the project.  Bottema came up with idea to place 10 coin- sized mirrors that corrected the image, but couldn’t install them.

 Jim Crocker (engineer) had been studying the problem around the clock.  He was in the shower when he noticed the shower head was mounted on adjustable rods.  He could picture the mirrors on it, which caused his spark.  After this, a long elaboration stage took place to apply this concept to ten mirrors in the telescope (5300 parts)

 The “Aha!” moment was explained by Karl Duncker.  He believed that some problems could only be solved so quickly that it could not be the result of incremental reasoning.  He proved it by asking subjects a series of twenty questions.  First, subjects were drawn to one incorrect solution, and had to break free of it in order to see the correct answer.

 Janet Metcalfe (psychologist), an expert in metacognition, wanted to take another look at how the brain works when it solves a problem.  She pressed a clicker every 15 seconds so the subjects would right down how close they thought they were to a solution.  For Algebra problems, they got steadily warmer.  For insight problems, they kept feeling cold until they figured out the answer.

 Weisberg believed, unlike Duncker, that experience helped solving insight problems.  “You have to know how to think outside the box.”  Hints didn’t help, so they trained the subjects by making them draw lines outside of triangles.  When presented with hints, subjects process them better after seeing the problem.

 Past experiences does not block creativity. They help eliminate false assumptions.  Breaking out of the fixation does not result in immediate insight. That requires prior expertise.  Priming one’s mind with prior training helps immensly.

 People forget how their insights came about.  Maier put two ropes in a room, each hanging from the ceiling, such that subjects couldn’t hold the end of one and reach the end of the other.  Asked to come up with solutions.  For the fourth solution, Meyer would hint by purposefully walking into rope as he walked across the room.  This gave the subjects a moment of insight that they would not have discovered independently.

 This is a step-by-step (linear) process, conscious or unconscious.  People steadily got to a solution, even if they felt cold up until the moment of insight.  Even though Reed and Crocker were far away from others when they had their creative sparks, collaboration played a part in creating the ideas that they put together.

What are the five stages of the collaborative process?

 You have two ropes  They burn at inconsistent rates (that is, they burn faster along some segments of the ropes, slower at others)  They burn for exactly 30 minutes each.  You don’t have a stop watch.  How do you get them to burn for 45 minutes?