Arts, gentrification, and planning for creativity

Recent decades have seen an almost obsessive focus on creativity in an urban development context. Yet, creativity has come to be prized not so much for the intrinsic values of imagination, innovation and experimentation as for the possibility to exploit these qualities as a means of urban revitalization and wealth generation. This policy emphasis has both contributed to the misplaced assumption that artistic activity causes gentrification and displacement while, at the same time, often setting in motion programs that are detrimental to the creative environments such policies claim to support. It is time to end the current approach to creative city planning, which treats the arts as amenities to catalyze land development and lure upscale consumption.

Empowerment climate, supervisory support for creativity and work role performance in new product development settings: A team level investigation

This thesis is an examination of how organisational context variables affect the performance of new product development (NPD) teams. Specifically, the extent to how team empowerment climate and supervisory support for creativity impact NPD team performance. Moreover, this thesis is a step forward in the ongoing development of work role performance theory by examining Griffin et al.'s (2007) work role performance model in the context of NPD teams. This thesis addresses the lack of research exploring work role performance dimensions in NPD teams and the extent to which a team empowerment climate and supervisory support for creativity impact NPDs performance.

Situated interpretation in computational creativity

This paper describes, formalizes and implements an approach to computational creativity based on situated interpretation. The paper introduces the notions of framing and reframing of conceptual spaces based on empirical studies as the driver for this research. It uses concepts from situated cognition, and situated interpretation in particular, to be the basis of a formal model of the movement between conceptual spaces. This model is implemented using rules within interacting neural networks. This implementation demonstrates behaviour similar to that observed in studies of human designers.

A lifespan perspective on creativity and innovation at work

In this review, we address the relationship of aging with creativity and innovation at work. Organizing our review around the triad of person, environment, and behavior, we first discuss relevant theories and empirical findings from the creativity/innovation and aging literatures, and then review meta-analytical and primary studies on the aging-creativity/innovation relationship. In contrast to prevalent age stereotypes, we show that the empirical literature does not support direct, zero-order relationships, but that more complex (moderated, indirect, and curvilinear) relationships are highly plausible. We illustrate this point with a discussion of research on aging and scientific creativity. Finally, we outline opportunities for future research, both methodological and conceptual.

A f/oxymoron? : Women, creativity and the suburbs

Donald Horne famously wrote, ‘Australia was born urban and quickly grew suburban’ (1964), an observation that carries a weight of assumptions about suburban living. Historically, the Australian suburbs have been regarded as places of retreat, family life and female activity, and subsequently as a place where not much of interest happens. By contrast, a city's central areas are seen as more dynamic spaces and, with recent creative city thinking and planning, as potential powerhouses of innovation and creativity. This article challenges assumptions about suburban living as passive places of retreat through an examination of women in the creative workforce who are living and working in the suburbs. It draws on historical accounts of creative suburban activity and a research project that mapped and investigated the experience of creative workers in the outer suburbs of Brisbane and Melbourne. The study finds that there is much creative work occurring in suburban localities, but this is not as unusual as might be expected.

Designing Creativity Through Clusters - A periodisation of cluster discourse

The thesis focuses on one of the most dominant articulations of the relation between geographical place and development, clusters - internationally competing place-bound economic system of production in related industries. The dominant articulation of cluster discourse represents the subnational region as a system of production, and as a means for competitiveness for Western countries. Its reproduction in theories has become one of the most prolific exports of economic geography to other disciplines and for policymaking. By analysing cluster discourse the thesis traces how the languages and processes of globalization have over time altered the understandings of the relation between geographical place and the economy. It shows how in its latest incarnation of the cluster discourse, the language of mainstream economics is combined with ‘softer’ elements (e.g. community, learning, creativity) in the economic geographic discourse. This is typical for the idea of soft capitalism, wherein it is assumed that economic success emanates from soft characteristics, such as knowledge, learning and creativity, rather than straightforward technological or cost advantages. A reoccurring critique against the dominant understanding of the relationship between competitiveness and regions, as articulated in cluster discourse, has pinpointed the perspective’s inability to reconcile the respective and reciprocal roles of local standard of living with firm competitiveness. The thesis traces how such critique is increasingly appropriated through the fusion of the economic, social and cultural landscape into the language of capitalism. It shows how cluster discourse has appropriated its critique, by focusing on creativity, with its strong associations to arts, individual artists and the cultural sphere in general, while predominantly creating its meaning in relation to competitiveness. The thesis consists of six essays that each outlines the development of the cluster discourse. The essays show how meaning systems and strategies are created, accepted and naturalized in cluster discourse, how this affects individuals, the economic landscape and society at large, as well as showing which understandings are marginalized in the process. The thesis argues that clusters are a) inseparable from ideology and politics and b) they are the result of purposeful social practice. It calls for increased reflexivity within corporate and economic geographic research on clusters, and underlines the importance of placing issues of power at the centre of analysis.

Assessing design creativity

Creativity is crucial for designing products and enabling innovation. Assessing creativity can help identify innovative designers and products, and support improvement of both. The literature variously defines creativity as a function of degree of novelty, usefulness, or both. Most methods for assessing creativity, however, focus only on assessing novelty of products. This research proposes a new method for assessing the creativity of products as a function of their novelty and usefulness. We develop individual methods for assessing novelty and usefulness of products. and then combine these into a method for assessing creativity of products. The proposed methods have been evaluated by benchmarking them, and other methods available from literature, against the collective, intuitive assessment of product creativity of experienced designers. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comparison of the degree of creativity in the design outcomes using different design methods

This work analyses the influence of several design methods on the degree of creativity of the design outcome. A design experiment has been carried out in which the participants were divided into four teams of three members, and each team was asked to work applying different design methods. The selected methods were Brainstorming, Functional Analysis, and SCAMPER method. The `degree of creativity' of each design outcome is assessed by means of a questionnaire offered to a number of experts and by means of three different metrics: the metric of Moss, the metric of Sarkar and Chakrabarti, and the evaluation of innovative potential. The three metrics share the property of measuring the creativity as a combination of the degree of novelty and the degree of usefulness. The results show that Brainstorming provides more creative outcomes than when no method is applied, while this is not proved for SCAMPER and Functional Analysis.