Ben Zander (pictured) conductor for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, faced the same problem at the start of each semester. His students, all gifted instrumentalists and singers were so anxious over the measurement of their performance that they were reluctant to take creative risks and open themselves [...]

A really interesting TED talk by Tim Brown of Ideo in which he links the importance of playfulness to ensure creativity and particularly in the world of design
Some of the main points included:
• The importance of creating a trusted environment where people feel secure and free to try out new ideas. He gives examples of [...]

Innovation Dublin is a week long festival running from Wednesday 14th October to Monday 20th October. The festival is a key project of the Creative Dublin Alliance ( a collaborative organisation of businesses, third level institutions Government sectors and the not-for-profit sector). The idea behind the festival,is was to highlight what Dublin can be proud [...]

The BUBBLE exhibition is an exploration of the physics of foam and bubbles; it’s very hands on and has had over 50,000 visitors to date. BUBBLE was developed in collaboration with Professor Denis Weaire and Dr Stefan Hutzler, of the Foams and the  Complex Systems Group at TCD’s School of Physics.  Michael John Gorman, Director [...]

For many of us, airports are a necessary (evil) conduit to our destination; for Alain de Botton, renowned author of  The Art of Travel and Essays in Love they’re the “imaginative centres of our civilisation”. For one week last month, de Botton took on the unprecedented role of Heathrow’s writer-in-residence. His book, based on life [...]

To maintain competitiveness every business needs an influx of potentially feasible ideas. Good ideas are generally available from employees at all levels. The key is to have a methodology to collect and select the best ideas and sort them according to available resources and ease of implementation.
From Danish company, Nosco, comes the Idea Exchange; idea [...]

IDEO, whose philosophy centres on building on the ideas of others for optimum impact, has collaborated with the Gates Foundation to create the human-centred design toolkit, an open source innovation toolkit for social impact in developing countries. To date the toolkit has been used on agricultural, medical and sanitation projects and continues to be modified and enhanced by users.

To make sense of the world around us and to react quickly and appropriately to situations we filter the multitude of information available to us. And as we spot patterns in behaviours or information we react accordingly. Sometimes, however, to be creative we need to break the familiar connection and make something new and different.

Sir Ken Robinson’s excellent TED talk on Schools Kill Creativity contends that all children have tremendous creative talent and the educational system squanders that talent by educating children to become good workers rather than creative thinkers. Ken Wantanabe, a former management consultant with McKinsey Consulting, has come up with an innovative response to this problem. His book Problem Solving 101 was written to support Japan’s children in learning how to problem solve and think critically. The book has been been a best seller for adults in Japan and internationally.

TED came to Dublin last Friday 12th June as part of the TEDx series of independent spin-off events. TEDx continues the same spirit of spreading exciting and inspirational ideas. The Science Gallery was the venue for Friday’s TEDx talk and only the fourth such event in Europe so far.