DIVERGENT IDEAS

When we talk about creativity somewhere I mentioned that creativity is a divergent way of thinking, it's another concept that we have a hard time understanding. Most people think it is a synonym of creativity but it is an essential capacity for creativity.





It allows us to see many possibilities to answer a question and it can be interpreted in many ways, with this way of thinking we generate many ideas.

It is as easy as asking someone what they can do with a stone? Maybe most people can tell us a 10 things they can do with the stone, but there are people who are very good at thinking in a divergent way that could look for more than 200 ideas of what to do with the same stone, since they expand their limits and do not limit themselves to the moment of thinking about ideas.

just a normal idea

divergent idea

Several studies have been made about divergent thinking when we are in kindergarten our capacity is immense but while we are growing most of us lose it, this is not entirely our fault, but with the years in school we are taught to think in a certain way so it deteriorates.

But when talking about this thought it is important to say where its importance lies based on the University of Texas at Austin

•  Opens possibilities of innovative ways to solve more complex problems, overcoming the tendency of many learners to only work within the confines of first impressions or latent assumptions. 
•  Fosters empathic understanding of difference and appreciation of varying perspectives.
•  Builds on learners' curiosity, encouraging experimentation, risk taking, perseverance through failure, and self-expression. 
• Develops creativity, which is often cited as one of the most in-demand skills by employers.

Although as we have mentioned divergent thinking is something we all have or had, but there are some techniques we can use to stimulate this type of thinking such as brainstorming, keeping a journal , freewriting Subject Mapping, if you want to know more read the references below. If you want to have this skill don't waste time and start practicing.

References

Estudiantil, D., 2020. Psicomentarios - Pensamiento Divergente E Innovación. [online] Psicomentarios. Available at: <http://blogs.up.edu.pe/psicomentarios/pensamiento-divergente-e-innovacion/> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

Psicologiaymente.com. 2020. Pensamiento Divergente: El Tipo De Pensamiento Basado En La Creatividad. [online] Available at: <https://psicologiaymente.com/inteligencia/pensamiento-divergente> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

 Facultyinnovate.utexas.edu. 2020. [online] Available at: <https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/TeachingGuide_HowtoTeachDivergentThinking.pdf> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

Faculty.washington.edu. 2020. DIVERGENT THINKING. [online] Available at: <https://faculty.washington.edu/ezent/imdt.htm> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

CREATIVITY VS. INNOVATION

Hello again, I know for sure you are as impressed as I am about this subject, and to be honest even for me it is still difficult to explain which one is which. But I'm willing to go into as much detail as possible so that when you're done reading this you can happily go out on the streets and share this information and use it in the right way.



First let's read together the definitions of creativity- the ability to produce original and unusual ideas, or to make something new or imaginative (Cambridge,2020) and innovation a new idea or method that is being tried for the first time, or such ideas or methods. (Cambridge,2020)

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, the just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while." - Steve Jobs

If these words still don't make sense to you then let's keep talking, when we talk about creativity it can be shown in many ways, creativity is difficult to measure as it is very relative.
When we talk about innovation it is measurable, because innovation generates a change in an established system. Based on a viable idea.

"What is often lacking is not creativity in the idea-creating sense but innovation in the action-producing sense, i.e. putting ideas to work." Theodore Levitt

So basically creativity is the search for solutions or alternatives to a problem to be solved. The more alternatives we find, the more creative we are. Now, innovation does not have to do with the search for ideas, but with the production of those ideas. Creativity uses lateral thinking, our divergent perspective. While innovation necessarily has to use linear thinking.

So even though both are relating at the moment of creating something which can make it very difficult to differentiate, it is important to realize that creativity is not what is being sold, what is being sold is innovation.

There is no point in hoping for a breakthrough idea - what matters is the ability to generate many ideas and act with drive and ambition to achieve a meaningful goal. Ideas don't make people successful - it's the other way around. (CHAMORRO-PREMUSZIC)

 So I hope you have understood the difference between these two concepts. For me it is important to be creative but it is more important to know how to innovate.

Thomas Edison, the greatest innovator of all time, put it well:

"Innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

References

Dictionary.cambridge.org. 2020. CREATIVITY | Definition In The Cambridge English Dictionary. [online] Available at: <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/creativity> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

Dictionary.cambridge.org. 2020. Innovation | Meaning In The Cambridge Learner’S Dictionary. [online] Available at: <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/learner-english/innovation> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

Harvard Business Review. 2020. Innovation Is Not Creativity. [online] Available at: <https://hbr.org/2010/08/innovation-is-not-creativity.html> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

Business Insider. 2020. There's A Critical Difference Between Creativity And Innovation. [online] Available at: <https://www.businessinsider.com/difference-between-creativity-and-innovation-2013-4?r=MX&IR=T> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

Both), C., 2020. Creativity Vs. Innovation: What's The Difference?. [online] Business News Daily. Available at: <https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6848-creativity-vs-innovation.html> [Accessed 10 March 2020].
Hoganassessments.com. 2020. [online] Available at: <http://www.hoganassessments.com/sites/default/files/uploads/Tomas_QA_R1.pdf> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

CANVAS

Have you ever thought, what is a business model? If your answer is no, it's probably because you haven't thought about creating one yet, or it could be that you have thought about it but didn't know it was called that. The business model is to know how you are going to generate money for your business, whether your business is selling tacos or a very sophisticated application is very important to take into account how much it is worth what we do in order to put a price for customers.

In their simplest forms, business models can be broken into three parts by (Parson, 2015) :

1. Everything it takes to make something: design, raw materials, manufacturing, labor, and so on.
2. Everything it takes to sell that thing: marketing, distribution, delivering a service, and processing the sale.
3. How and what the customer pays: pricing strategy, payment methods, payment timing, and so on.

In a few words, the business model is basically knowing how you are going to make money, because at the end of the day if you can't make your idea generate money, you will have to rethink it and decide whether to keep that idea or change it. In the business model it is important to know how much you spend on each aspect of your service and product, to know how much you can charge. That's why what we are looking for with the business model is that what we are paid is greater than what we spend to generate income.

That's why it's necessary to sit down and plan what we need to know about where we are, the budget, cash flow, or the elements that can make our company go bankrupt. Although it has been defined how we are going to get money, it is still important to know when you need the money and how the clients think about paying it.

Now, let's talk about a specific business model called "CANVAS" that was created to improve the business model that previously existed, allows us to discuss new business ideas and show the potential of them.  Since it synthesizes the information in just one page it is very easy to understand, explaining the most relevant and leaving aside unnecessary information

Below is the canvas business model template with an example and we will explain each part of it:

The following canvas is based on this problem and solution:

Merida is one of the most important cities in Mexico, which is disturbed by the rainy seasons. The large quantities of millimetric rain that falls into the city over time floods important parts of it, this situation happens regularly and even though the coverage of sewage is around 95% it is still not enough to prevent floorings from happening. We defined a solution a Galvanized strainer mesh designed to separate the solid garbage from the sewage without obstructing the water flow and disturb the passing of people in Lucas de Galvez market.

As you can see the Canva template is divided into sections to make it easier to identify what we want to know:

First we define the problem, putting its main causes. In the same way we put the existing alternatives to know which is our competence, in solution we describe our idea in a specific way.

In key metrics we will put in what way we are going to measure the satisfaction or performance of our product.

Unique value preposition we will say what characteristics our product has and what it offers to the customer either in a quantitative or qualitative way.

High level concept is what internally our company knows it is doing, it can be seen as an internal slogan.

Channels in which way we can reach the customers, they bring us closer to our customer segment.
Unfair advantage is what we excel at and what no other company has.

Customer segments is to define for whom our solution is intended and early adopters is who can be those customers that can give us the money first and can prove it.

Cost structure  The important expenses to be made in order to offer a quality product but which remains within the range of our profits.

Revenus stream So the client will have to pay and that is what he prefers to pay, payment method, this either by fees, licenses, etc. It must be related to our customer segment.

In conclusion, it is important to use some kind of business model, since it allows us to analyze where we are going to acquire the resources we need and the risks we must avoid in our business. So if you are ready to start, don't forget this good friend.

References


Das, S., 2020. Business Model Canvas Explained. [online] Feedough. Available at: <https://www.feedough.com/business-model-canvas-explained/> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

 (What Is a Business Model? Business Models Explained | Bplans, 2020)

Bibliografía: Bplans Blog. 2020. What Is A Business Model? Business Models Explained | Bplans. [online] Available at: <https://articles.bplans.com/what-is-a-business-model-business-models-explained/> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

dummies. 2020. What Is A Business Model? - Dummies. [online] Available at: <https://www.dummies.com/business/start-a-business/business-plans/defining-your-business-model/> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

Das, S., 2020. Business Model Canvas Explained. [online] Feedough. Available at: <https://www.feedough.com/business-model-canvas-explained/> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

EMPATHY MAP

Hello again, today we will talk about a strategy to be able to offer an idea, service or product based on the needs of a person, as you saw in title today we will talk about the empathy map. When you're working you must make decisions about which things to cover and which not, in an ideal world we would have enough budget, time and we could analyze each scenario. So this empathy map tool helps us to make the best possible decision.



We say that it is a tool because it allows us to know what a user thinks, feels, listens and says. So it allows us to know the needs that our user may have. A better definition "An empathy map is a collaborative visualization used to articulate what we know about a particular type of user. It externalizes knowledge about users in order to 1) create a shared understanding of user needs, and 2) aid in decision making. (Gibbons,2018)

But I really don't want this to be another boring topic to learn about so I'm going to explain it with an exercise. We did this exercise in class, but before getting to the example I'm going to show you, I have to say that we practiced how to do it in class among my classmates, then in teams we had to interview the students from UPY so the students were the group to analyze, each one went out to look for students and fill out the empathy map, at the end we gathered the most representative characteristics as a team and created this one:

What we look for is to answer the following questions explained by (Amaresan, 2018)

1. What does the customer think and feel?
What are their beliefs, dreams, worries, and daily emotions? What makes them happy, sad, scared, emotional, and angry?

2. What does the customer hear?
Who do they hear from? What media are they influenced by?

3.-What does the customer see?
What are the sights surrounding their home, job, and other activities? Who do they see?

4.What does the customer say and do?
How do they behave in different settings -- in public, in private, with coworkers, with friends and family? How do they speak to others?

5.What are the customer's pains?
What frustrations and stresses do they encounter? What risks and threats do they face?

6. What are the customer's gains?
What do they need to be successful and achieve their goals? How do they measure success?


This empathy map did not come from just one person, but from all the people we interviewed in the team, we combined the results obtained, so we grouped the common characteristics of most of the interviewees, so in the end we obtained this synthesized empathy map. This is a practical help to synthesize the information from several empathy maps into one.
We chose Manuel Moo because all the interviewees always shared one of the characteristics presented by Manuel, so it is not much easier to know which aspects to attend to in order to satisfy the person's needs.

Some of the important points to use the empathy map are
- Capture who a user or persona is.
- Communicate a user or persona to others
- Collect data directly from the user.

So the next time you need to analyze a group or person, don't miss the opportunity to use the empathy map.

References

Nielsen Norman Group. 2020. Empathy Mapping: The First Step In Design Thinking. [online] Available at: <https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

The Interaction Design Foundation. 2020. Empathy Map – Why And How To Use It. [online] Available at: <https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/empathy-map-why-and-how-to-use-it> [Accessed 10 March 2020].
Amaresan, S., 2020. What Is An Empathy Map & How To Create One. [online] Blog.hubspot.com. Available at: <https://blog.hubspot.com/service/empathy-map> [Accessed 10 March 2020].

                   

RIGHT QUESTIONS => GOOD SOLUTION

If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it,” Albert Einstein said.

It might seem like the same old topic about how to find a solution. When we identify a problem, we immediately begin to devise the perfect solution that will end that problem. But the reality is that to find the right solutions, we need effort. The most important thing is not only to identify a problem and look for a quick solution, If this were the case, we would have already solved all the existing problems. And this post would never have been written.

But Jennifer, what do you mean by problem? Problems exist all over the world and we have to look for solutions.  Well that's right, but first let's define the word problem as "something that causes difficulty or that is hard to deal with" (Cambridge, 2020).

"The word "problem" stems from the Greek word "proballein" with "pro" meaning "before" and "ballein" meaning "to throw." In that context, "proballein" really suggests an idea of throwing something, as in throwing forth a question or throwing forth a situation. A problem, in this view, is nothing more than a question, or idea, proposed.  "Matthew Edgar 2014

Okay Jennifer, so you can't solve a problem just by identifying the problem? The short answer would be no. But if you really want to know, how do you find the right solutions to solve a problem? Prepare yourself for me to share some of my knowledge with you.

Imagine that you are an detective, one of those that appear in the movies. Your mission is to find out who ate your Aunt Betty's cake, so you will start looking for all the possible clues, you will look for the fingerprints, you will ask around, you will find out the time it happened, you will ask yourself many questions, and try to find the most possible answers, at the end of your mission you may have found out who ate the cake, and not only that, you will know why they ate it and also what your aunt can do to prevent them from eating the cake again. This happens because you came to the right questions, which gave you the only answers you needed to put all the pieces together and finish your mission.

"IT'S NOT THAT THEY CAN'T SEE THE SOLUTION. THEY CAN'T SEE THE PROBLEM." - G.K CHESTERTON, WRITER AND PHILOSOPHER

Jennifer, I'm already lost, so how do I do it if I want to solve the problem of the baby penguins at the North Pole that are cold? First ask the right questions so you know what the biggest cause is and you can work on it.

MAGIC ADVICE

To be honest, asking the right questions is not very easy.  That's why wise people have created Methods to solve problems. Among them are diagrams, models analysis for decisions, methods of analogies, etc.  So find the variety that exists, choose one and put it into action on the problem you have identified.

HERE ENDS THE MAGIC ADVICE

I will now talk to you about a method of solving the problem.  That I have used in my project, it is called PROBLEM TREE. It is in charge of identifying the causes that generated a problem. It is an iterative process, in which it is easy to identify what the problem is, causes and consequences. In order to implement correctly, the conclusions and causes are supported by documented evidence. Usually there is more than one potential cause for a given problem, known causal relationships must be established.

- At the roots are the causes of the problem

- The trunk represents the main problem
- On the leaves and branches are the effects or consequences

It is a way of representing the problem by getting an understanding at a glance of what is happening (main problem), why it is happening (causes) and what is causing it (effects or consequences), which allows us to do various things in the project planning.

- It allows us to break down the problem, the causes and its effects, improving its analysis.

- There is a better understanding of the problem by breaking it down into causes and consequences

- It facilitates the realization of other important components of an investigation.

What we seek in using the tree map is to obtain meaningful data, determine causes, effects and elaborate project objectives.

This post has already been very long, so in the next post I will explain how I used this method to solve problems in my project. Where will be a post guide of how to perform each part of it and its explanation, so don't miss it.

References

Harvard Business Review. (2020). Are You Solving the Right Problem?. [online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2012/09/are-you-solving-the-right-problem [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].

Matthew Edgar. (2020). What Is A Problem? - Matthew Edgar. [online] Available at: https://www.matthewedgar.net/problem/ [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].

Dumb Little Man. (2020). Finding the Right Solutions by Asking the Right Questions. [online] Available at: https://www.dumblittleman.com/finding-right-solutions-asking-right-questions/ [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].

 Dictionary.cambridge.org. (2020). PROBLEM | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary. [online]

Floods in the center of Merida

Uncontrolled waste

"Although social awareness has increased, there are still people who don't want to pay for garbage collection service, and it is easy for them to dump their waste on abandoned land," warned Eduardo Batllori Sampedro, head of the Secretariat of Urban Development and Environment (Seduma).



"More work needs to be done on health education, creating environmental police rounds and rigorously enforcing the law when someone is found littering," the state official said.

Fines are established by law and anyone found littering in public spaces can be arrested and brought before the Public Prosecutor's Office.