Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All

---

Now here are 5 stories or examples that vaguely demonstrate the importance of teams, and are otherwise largely unrelated to each other, and don't make a larger, persuasive point! Which was what I wanted, I guess. I had also hoped there would be more wisdom imparted.

More practical advice on what to do, steps to take, things to try. A lot of the "lessons" that were concluded from the various narratives felt rather weak and contrived. Yeah, when you want to implant Creative Confidence in the culture of a company, you should get the approval of upper management?

That is sound advice indeed. There was a nice chapter at the end with a few simple creativity-inducing exercises to try, but I think I was looking more for a handbook of creativity, rather than a series of stories explaining the importance of creativity. Does that distinction make sense? It's true - while reading, I would read a few pages, then become inspired to jot down "creative" new ideas, then keep reading and jotting, reading and jotting. It provided fodder for my mind-mill that otherwise would have been fodder-less. It was definitely an interesting book!

It's just, I can't say it was particularly well-written or that it taught me anything that another book on creativity couldn't. Sorry, this is a pretty all-over-the-place review, but I wanted to record my thoughts before my mind got lost to other distractions. Overall, read it if you are interested in IDEO and the D-school, and are looking for general inspiration.

I'd maybe look elsewhere if you're looking for actionable advice on how to be more creative. Aug 29, Kevin rated it it was ok. A self help book that's really just a long recruitment brochure for the Stanford d. Apr 23, Tomas Ramanauskas rated it liked it Shelves: No unexpected findings, a few stories and a handful of excersises, it does exactly what it says on the cover.

Good as a reminder of important points, quite average as a fresh outlook generator. A few random takeaways: Much more useful and thought provoking than boasting about successes. Ask "why" after every answer. The things that bug you are likely to spark an idea how to solve them. The book starts off on a great note emphasising how everyone can channelise their creativity in a productive manner.

Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All

It also gives some guidelines and examples of how design thinking created some great solutions that are interesting to read. The only one downer was that most of these examples were from the Stanford d. Mar 26, Devika rated it it was amazing Shelves: A book is good when it is well written and offers insight. But a book is amazing when it can actually make a difference to your life, to who you are as an individual. I would put this book in the latter category. I picked it up to get some background on a design thinking role I was hoping to apply for.

Amidst these job applications, it's easy for anyone to feel jaded. I was in fact quite morose and skeptical of the value my higher education has created in my life. But the more I read this book, A book is good when it is well written and offers insight. But the more I read this book, the more excited I felt about finding opportunities around me.

The Kelley brothers write very simplistically and this is a quick read. They discuss many examples of the difference that design thinking has made to people's lives. One thing that stuck with me was the "curse of competence" that they mention. It is the idea that when you are academically smart, the excessive pragmatism of external influences pushes you in the generic directions most people take in life. For instance, if you're good at sciences then you should go into engineering or medicine.

But ever so often your heart will not be in it. Essentially, failure is not only good but a necessary stepping stone to success. This book has helped me in deriving a sense of comfort from failure so that I'll be less afraid to try new things. Historically, all innovators experienced multiple failures till they found their breakthrough. What continues to differentiate them from others is their ability to persevere during the failures- the simple fact that they did not stop trying. This book is also recommended by TED. And now, even I highly recommend it to anyone looking for some inspiration.

Jul 29, Kara rated it it was amazing Shelves: I loved this book.

Customers who bought this item also bought

Although, in full disclosure, perhaps it was the context in which I read it. Second, I'm currently engrossed in a year-long leadership development program for work in which innovation is at the core. Nonetheless, this is a fantastic primer on the concept of design thinking and nurturing your creative self. Everyo I loved this book. It is only as we go through life and gain a few battle scars read: This book outlines the concepts of design thinking and provides exercises to practice your creative thinking - all of which can be easily applied to life in general not just the work world.

It is a quick easy read; however, I will warn you that it is definitely not devoid of the current corporate lexicon - the 3 i's - i. Nov 01, Adib Hakim rated it it was amazing Shelves: This book was highly inter-active. I found myself reflecting a lot about how I see problems and the opportunities it presents and immediately saw how powerful a different attitude to such processes could be. In addition, Creative Confidence brings tools that illustrates it's central premise of innovation very well, ultimately helping us on in applying the insights in our unique situations. My wife has seen me reading this book really slowly, and out of curiosity she's asked to read it.

I look forw This book was highly inter-active.

I look forward to discussing the approaches in this book and eventually applying the concepts in our family building. Thank you Tom, David! Jun 20, Stephanie Sun rated it liked it Shelves: Design is the creative process of commercial entities, mainly.

Thinking here is a mental posture. Tom and David Kelley would be the first to tell you that names matter, and so by their own standards the whole enterprise se Nice birthday read. Tom and David Kelley would be the first to tell you that names matter, and so by their own standards the whole enterprise seems suspect. The phrase "Creative Confidence" doesn't do much for me either, but this is a book written in the wake of David Kelley's survival of a serious bout of cancer, and that backdrop, although only fleetingly discussed in this book, gives the discussion of unleashing everyone's inherent creativity including yours!

It's short, and they did a good job of picking stories from their long oeuvre to illustrate the principles they wanted to lay out. Aug 13, Khushboo rated it liked it Shelves: Totally bordering on self-help. Got really annoying after the fifth chapter. At one point, felt like throwing it away but kindle!! Became preachy and started feeling like a long advertisement for IDEO and d. The practical activities suggested came as a relief in the seventh chapter.

So I mostly skimmed through chapter 8 and 6 to be fair it's more relevant if you are in a leadership position in an organisation , but then for people who claim to focus on human-empathy, I don't see how they Totally bordering on self-help. So I mostly skimmed through chapter 8 and 6 to be fair it's more relevant if you are in a leadership position in an organisation , but then for people who claim to focus on human-empathy, I don't see how they failed to see the average end-user desirability for this chapter.

Need to revisit chapter 7 later when I have some scope to actually practice few of those activities. Dec 05, Rodolpho rated it really liked it. Very practical book with lots of calls to action and mindful insights about the role of the individual in the different moments and forms of innovation. For me the greatest value came from reminders of what really means to be creative and HOW to really get it done. Get out there, get vulnera Very practical book with lots of calls to action and mindful insights about the role of the individual in the different moments and forms of innovation.

See a Problem?

Get out there, get vulnerable, take risks and follow some of the experiments and advices. Jan 02, Jeffrey Howard rated it it was amazing Shelves: The Kelley brothers inspired and convinced me of our universal creativity. There aren't "creative" types and everybody else. Creativity requires two things: This is Design Thinking. All problem solving should be human-centered and driven by empathy for the end user, whatever the product or service may be.

Regardless of our educational background, professional choices, or college major, we should and can de The Kelley brothers inspired and convinced me of our universal creativity. Regardless of our educational background, professional choices, or college major, we should and can develop Creative Confidence. School--both are founded by them--demonstrating the eclectic teams they draft to tackle any variety of problems. In one example they enlisted a team to redesign a shopping carusing Design Thinking. This team included an anthropologist, an engineer, a computer scientist, and a graphic designer.

Follow the Authors

Each person brings a special, but creative skill-set to a problem. When they adopt Design Thinking, magic happens: Creative Confidence crystallized my professional direction--before it I was mired in uncertainty about whether I had what it takes to assume more creative roles professionally. I have carried it around for the past few weeks, a new manifesto or professional bible. I also came away with dozens of action items.

I have already put several in place. I recommend this book to anybody, in any firm, doing anything that touches the human world--it is especially relevant for people in the "start-up" landscape. This book is filled with engaging success stories across all industries with people using Design Thinking.

School--which it is--or a series of "shout-outs" to the Kelley brothers' friends and successful entrepreneurs--and their books. Each of us has creativity within: And we believe everyone should have access to that resource. Deep empathy for people makes our observations powerful sources of inspiration.

We aim to understand why people do what they currently do, with the goal of understanding what they might do in the future An empathetic approach fuels our process by ensuring we never forget we're designing for real people Design thinking relies on the natural--and coachable--human ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, and to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well as functional. We'ere not suggesting that anyone base a career or run an organization solely on feeling, intuition, and inspiration.

But an over-reliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as risky. You put aside assumptions and are fully immersed in the world around you.

Creative Confidence means being prepared to capture all the amazing ideas that pass through your limitless mind. Once you start doing this, be prepared to swim in a pool of creative flourishing. David Kelley, who co-wrote 'Creative Confidence' with his brother Tom, had worked with, and was a close friend of the late Steve Jobs. In the book, we learn that, "Steve had a deep sense of creative confidence.

He believed -- he knew -- that you can achieve audacious goals if you have the courage and perseverance to pursue them. We can all achieve "audacious goals," just like Steve did, or at least to believe in our own ability to change our world in some way. It's explained that we came into the world with creativity and fearlessness, but as time passes we encounter others who shake our confidence by saying we're not creative, including schools where we learn to think too constructively -- that there can only be one right answer.

So, we unlearn creativity and lose our confidence, fearful of what others might think. The book inspires us with examples of people who were overly analytical: Even companies that suffered from inertia; bogged down with data and decisions by committee. But by unleashing their creativity, they have learned to conjure up and consider a myriad of solutions to problems, no matter how absurd, and to learn by doing. There's also an emphasis on empathy and human-centered design.

How important it is to observe customers and end-users when designing solutions and products instead of burying heads into spreadsheets and dreaming up things we think will work. The authors share the experiences of many students who've attended their d. It's a fast-paced, team-based learning environment where students, young and old, and from diverse backgrounds, are asked to find human-centered solutions. A popular project is figuring out how the experience of a daily train commute from San Francisco to Palo Alto can be improved for passengers, from waiting on the platform to disembarking at their destination.

The book not only focuses on inspiring individuals to build their creative confidence, but also delves into the importance of working in teams and provides case studies where entire companies have embraced creative confidence to improve the experience of workers and customers.

Written in a friendly conversational tone and filled with real human stories and experiences, 'Creative Confidence' was a pleasure to read, and having finished it, I've realized I've highlighted so many passages to read again. May 27, Paul Grech rated it it was ok Shelves: Whilst there is a lot of material in here, this is essentially an advertising brochure for the two authors' company IDEO and d. A large number of examples come from former students or co-workers and whilst interesting this does not really seem as authoritative.

The main benefit of this book lies in the number of practical exercises to help people in the various stages of the creative process but, again, very little was original and most thoughts can be found in most blogs on this subject. Something to read before going on to other books that have more meat on them.

David and Tom Kelly are brothers as well as respected authorities and advocates of design and innovation. Creative Confidence is all about exposing the creative potential within all of us.

This book first establishes why and how we all have creativity within and then explains what can happen when that creativity is harnessed and utilized. The authors then explain how to tap into our creativity and share exercises to train our creative muscles. This book is not written for or to designers, rather to anyone who is employed and wishes to solve meaningful problems with break-through discoveries as a result of creative confidence. Amount of Content At pages, this book is neither short nor long. The book is broken into 8 chapters, each of which dives into either a different aspect of creative confidence or a different setting or implementation of creative confidence.

There are a few illustrations and some artwork on new chapter pages, but the book is primarily all written copy. I will say that I perceive the value of this book to be pretty high. This books is more about big ideas and concepts and the large impacts these ideas have on those who implement them. For example, there are many instances when talented but unfulfilled people found tremendous success and purpose after making drastic career changes thanks to their experiences with finding their creative confidence. There is evidence to support that when a creative and innovative, collaborative approach to problem-solving is set into motion, great things happen in businesses both large and small.

David and Tom give plenty of examples in which this happened. For those who are familiar with many concepts in this book, the anecdotes and examples are great reminders of what happens when we designers practice what we preach. Furthermore, the success stories highlighted throughout are pretty monumental.

To read about real-world results of what IDEO founders believe and teach is a unique piece of insight many designers hunger for. And to those not labeled as a creative professional, I think the ideas in Creative Confidence are big, yet simple enough to grasp to be impactful. There were plenty of principals I was previously familiar with thanks to my formal industrial design education.

This book serves as a good reminder and brought me back to thinking about innovation and creativity on a rudimentary level. Entertainment Unfortunately, this is where Creative Confidence scored the lowest for me. In this case, it means I felt neutral about it. The longer it takes me to read a book, the higher it scores in this category. This book is a pretty quick read.

I did however put it down for a couple of weeks. I blame the break on it not being as entertaining as it could have been. However, when I did pick it back up, I read large chunks of it quite quickly. I estimate my total time reading this book to be around 6 or 7 hours maximum. This is due to the concrete and simple stories supplied by the authors that prove the power of unleashing and harnessing creative confidence. I felt inspired to examine and write about numerous ideas as they struck me during my reading of Creative Confidence.

The authors are no-nonsense creatives who understand the psychology of collaboration and groups in a professional environment and make the benefits of having creative confidence clear. A student in any design discipline or young professional will likely feel inspired to challenge the status quo and workplace conventions after reading this book.

Anyone in a managerial role will likely find a nugget or two of useful approaches to the challenges they regularly face. The Verdict Buy and read it. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. David Kelley, who co-wrote 'Creative Confidence' with his brother Tom, had worked with, and was a close friend of the late Steve Jobs.

In the book, we learn that, "Steve had a deep sense of creative confidence. He believed -- he knew -- that you can achieve audacious goals if you have the courage and perseverance to pursue them. We can all achieve "audacious goals," just like Steve did, or at least to believe in our own ability to change our world in some way. It's explained that we came into the world with creativity and fearlessness, but as time passes we encounter others who shake our confidence by saying we're not creative, including schools where we learn to think too constructively -- that there can only be one right answer.

So, we unlearn creativity and lose our confidence, fearful of what others might think. The book inspires us with examples of people who were overly analytical: Even companies that suffered from inertia; bogged down with data and decisions by committee. But by unleashing their creativity, they have learned to conjure up and consider a myriad of solutions to problems, no matter how absurd, and to learn by doing.

There's also an emphasis on empathy and human-centered design. How important it is to observe customers and end-users when designing solutions and products instead of burying heads into spreadsheets and dreaming up things we think will work. The authors share the experiences of many students who've attended their d. It's a fast-paced, team-based learning environment where students, young and old, and from diverse backgrounds, are asked to find human-centered solutions.

A popular project is figuring out how the experience of a daily train commute from San Francisco to Palo Alto can be improved for passengers, from waiting on the platform to disembarking at their destination. The book not only focuses on inspiring individuals to build their creative confidence, but also delves into the importance of working in teams and provides case studies where entire companies have embraced creative confidence to improve the experience of workers and customers. Written in a friendly conversational tone and filled with real human stories and experiences, 'Creative Confidence' was a pleasure to read, and having finished it, I've realized I've highlighted so many passages to read again.

Whenever IDEO publishes a book or some other sort of media, it is important to take attention. IDEO is one of the companies spearheading the revolution to change traditional business models by focusing on human-centered design. IDEO has been around since but has been thinking this way since its inception and thus is way ahead of the curve. Their approach to human-centered design has shown multiple times to be one of the surefire ways to guarantee customer loyalty and longevity.

In Creative Confidence David and Tom show ways for both consumer and creator to keep their humanity in an otherwise leviathan capitalistic system. The end result is a better product and a more enjoyable time creating the product.

Frequently bought together

The Kelley brothers start off the book offering you a dose of confidence right off the bat by saying "everyone is creative". Yes, fair enough, right? People designated as "creatives" don't have a monopoly on creativity and creativity isn't genetically inbred. It can be learned. Yes, some people will have a greater inclination towards creative thought processes and ideas than others but that does not defeat the fact that creativity can still be exercised and strengthened like a muscle.

Great book, I definitely recommend it to anyone wishing to approach their work in a new, more optimistic light and mindset. Refreshing and eye-opening book. See all reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Set up a giveaway.

• Strickanleitung – KP55 - Babykleid, Bolero, Schal und Schühchen (German Edition)
• Le musée de lhomme (Littérature Française) (French Edition)
• Transported: The ruby is alive
• El juego del dinero (Spanish Edition)
• Siamese Nation
• In This Mans Army
• Trout County