Ken Robinson: To encourage creativity, you must first understand what it is→

Sir Ken Robinson, writing in The Guardian, defines creativity in an article commenting on England's new national curriculum:

I define creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value. Creative work in any field often passes through typical phases. Sometimes what you end up with is not what you had in mind when you started. It's a dynamic process that often involves making new connections, crossing disciplines and using metaphors and analogies.

Creativity is about fresh thinking. It doesn't have to be new to the whole of humanity – though that's always a bonus – but certainly to the person whose work it is. Creativity also involves making critical judgments about whether what you're working on is any good, whether it's a theorem, a design or a poem.

There are various myths about creativity. One is that only special people are creative; another is that creativity is just about the arts; a third is that it's all to do with uninhibited "self-expression". None of these is true. On the contrary, everyone has creative capacities; creativity is possible in whatever you do, and it can require great discipline and many different skills.

Inside the MIT Media Lab→

Clive Cookson writing for the Financial Times delivers a great profile of the MIT Media Lab: ​

For 25 years or so after it opened in 1985, Media Lab focused on multimedia computing and communications – the interfaces between people and electronics – and it came up with important new technologies such as the electronic ink used in the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader. Such research continues to thrive but Media Lab is spreading its academic wings to address broader social issues, says Joi Ito, who became director in 2011 after an unconventional career as an internet entrepreneur and social activist in the US and Japan.

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​“We want to be anti-disciplinary – which means filling in the white space between disciplines,” he says. “City Science is a great example of something that brings together work from many fields across the lab. When you bring in kids who are interested in architecture, design, transport, energy, urban gardening, mobility and big data, you get a different way of looking at things.”

Higher education is almost always about honing your skills and research into one specific area. Media Lab is about the opposite, the juxtaposition of skills. ​

The Film before The Film

“THE FILM before THE FILM” is a short documentary that traces the evolution of title design through the history of film. This short film was a research project at the BTK (Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule) that takes a look at pioneers like Saul Bass, Maurice Binder and Kyle Cooper by showing the transitions from early film credits to the inclusion of digital techniques, a resurgence of old-school style, and filmmakers' love of typography in space.

​Add this one to the long list of favorite things related to opening title sequences. 

Scary-Smart People Really Do Accomplish a Lot→

A study of 320 people whose test scores prior to age 13 placed them in the top 1 out of 10,000 in reasoning ability shows that their achievements by age 38 were truly dazzling, says a team led by Harrison J. Kell of Vanderbilt University. The group achieved 2,749 awards and significant accomplishments, for an average of 8.6 per person. 24 individuals produced 128 creative written works; 52 produced 1,069 fine-arts achievements (one person generated 500 musical productions); 59 produced 392 science and tech publications; 117 developed software; 31 received more than $25 million in grants; one founded 3 companies; and another raised more than $65 million in private equity investment for his company.
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​Source: Who Rises to the Top? : Early Indicators

David Foster Wallace: On Real Freedom→

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings…
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​The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
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​That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

​​DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, IN HIS OWN WORDS | More Intelligent Life