Challengers

“Above all, remember to challenge everything. Challenge assumptions. Challenge the status quo. Challenge the “complacent incumbents.” Challenge the rules. Challenge yourself.”
Josh Linkner in his book “Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity.”

In my mind, creativity within an OSS framework comes from being able to make connections that nobody else has made before. The typical OSS collects a staggering amount of information and has the capacity to collect even more, but the data is meaningless unless valuable connections are made with it.

OSS tools already provide valuable connections defined by in-built rules. OSS standards also provide valuable pre-defined connections. But for the OSS artist, there are so many other valuable connections waiting to be established.

Linkner’s book defines a few steps for fostering creativity, as follows:

1. ASK – Driving curiosity and awareness (Why? What if? Why not?)
2. PREPARE – Preparing an environment that promotes creative passion (stimulating shapes and colours along with ever-changing routines)
3. DISCOVER – Looking through a different lens (using role-play to review a situation/problem)
4. IGNITE – Igniting the sparks of creativity (SCAMPER technique – substitute, combine, magnify/minimise, put to other use, eliminate, rearrange)
5. LAUNCH – make an action plan and launch it