Education

Art / Blog / Creativity / Education

My April creativity talk at Fred in Brooklyn

I'm speaking on creativity at the next Fred Talk, April 10. Please come! A longtime friend emailed me after she went to the last one (I was out of town) telling me my talk was announced. Fred talks are do-it-yourself Ted talks with the slogan "Your friends' ideas worth spreading." Who says you need some huge conference for thousands of people that costs lots of money? You probably learned more from your grandmother than most of your teachers, let alone famous people you don't know. Let's do it ourselves! Sharing locally can do things pristine, beautifully-produced things can't. Who isn't a fan of do-it-yourself community building? A big part of why I'm doing it is that the people behind it give me the feeling they…

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March 27, 2011
Art / Blog / Creativity / Education / Tips

Innovative technique

[This post is part of a series on creativity. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Here are some basics to TRIZ. After the basics, I'll interpret them. After examining all those patents, Altshuller and his team found that about 1,500 generalized solutions described all the specific solutions. Even simpler, they created 40 techniques, or "inventive principles," that would lead to those solutions. Using these techniques would allow you to use an existing solution to your problem. In your regular life you encounter specific problems, not general problems. Often the specifics of your problem are irrelevant to the solution and get in the way of…

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March 16, 2011
Art / Blog / Creativity / Education / Entrepreneurship / Tips

More history of innovative technique

[This post is part of a series on creativity. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Altshuller called his ideas the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, or that's what the Russian gets translated to, which is generally called TRIZ. People pronounce it to rhyme with ease or is. As best I can tell, the ideas have been taken up in technical and scientific circles more than any place else. He came from technical realms and his analytical style lent itself to their style of thinking and problem solving. I learned the techniques in business school, and they worked great applied to product development and devising…

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March 15, 2011
Blog / Creativity / Education / Entrepreneurship

Initial creativity research II

[This post is part of a series on creativity. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Wow, I'm just learning about Altshuller and his discoveries. Amazing stuff. This man, Genrich Altshuller, was working in a patent clerk role in the Soviet Union after World War II. He was working for the Navy, apparently helping people start innovative proposals. As I understand, he began to see patterns in the innovation and invention process. As he began to understand the patterns, a couple things happened. First, he developed techniques to simplify the process -- to break it down into more manageable steps. Second, he saw the prevalent…

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March 14, 2011
Art / Blog / Creativity / Education

Teaching is awesome and inspiring

Class at Parsons today was awesome and inspiring. The project due today -- a linear zoetrope for each group, internally lit -- was a big challenge. At the beginning of class a couple groups appeared to be having trouble -- missed communications, etc. They grouped together, rallied, figured out what they could do during class, and, by the end, nearly every group was nearly finished. I expect each will be done by the end of the week. (I'm hoping to get emails from each group as they mount each completed display). They keep surprising me. Whenever I mention an idea I've never done, one of them implements it better or quicker than I would have. Inspiring. Check out some of their work on the class…

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March 8, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Creativity / Education

Your understanding of creativity holds you back from creating

If you accept mainstream ideas of creativity, then your understanding of creativity is holding you back from creating things and being creative. Mainstream views on creativity sell books, movies, magazines, and so forth. They sell over-romanticized myths that, while entertaining, undermine your ability to create things and solve problems.Let's start with two contradictions to lay bare the counterproductivity in mainstream views.First, mainstream views value creative, original, so-called outside-the-box thinking, but when push comes to shove, we don't value it in practice. To illustrate, say you have a problem you don't know how to solve. You need someone else to create a solution. It could be anything -- a leaky sink, a managerial issue at work, what to make for dinner, a musical score you want…

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February 20, 2011
Art / Creativity / Education

Parsons Class

The Parsons Class I'm co-teaching this semester has a blog.So far it just has a few pictures from the zoetropes a few students did. The results from that first assignment were incredible -- tremendous variety of solutions to the various challenges of physical animation devices and animations: materials, sizes, quality versus quick and dirty, colors, contrast, motion, repetition, etc.I can't wait to see the results of the later projects, which will be substantial efforts.Correction: There are already many images and animations, I was just blocking javascript. Enjoy the class site!

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February 7, 2011
Blog / Education / Nature

The best book on the environment, economy, and ecology

Everyone has something to say about the environment, the economy, and ecology. People believe in human caused global warming or they don't, but they have something to say about it. They believe improving the environment will ruin the economy or save it or something. Everyone has something to say. One major trend I see is based on the interests of the source. If the person speaking comes from the business world there is a good chance he or she will communicate that others' environmental concerns are overblown, things aren't as bad as they say, you should keep doing what you're doing, and buying his or her product or service will make things better. If the person comes from a science or nature focused world, he…

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January 30, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Education / Tips

Unsolicited advice annoys people: how to avoid giving it.

Some people like to give advice. Maybe everyone does, despite knowing how annoying it can be. Sometimes we think we can help so much or don't think of the other person's perspective enough that it feels worth it. We're all used to our thoughts preparing the advice: hoping to avoid stepping on toes, to avoid insulting, and so on. The other person's annoyance is often justified. That is, our advice invites it. We may not think of it explicitly, but when we give unsolicited advice we imply "Your life isn't as good as it could be and I know better than you do how to live it." Who wouldn't be annoyed? Most people think they are living great lives. Since their values aren't the same…

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January 19, 2011
Art / Creativity / Education

Joshua Spodek’s Art Resume

Joshua Spodek EDUCATION 2006 MBA, Columbia Business School New York 1999 PhD, Astrophysics, Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences New York 1993-94 MA, Physics (Completed at Columbia), University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences Philadelphia 1993 BA, Physics, Columbia College New York 1991 L'Institut Brittanique, University of London Paris EXHIBITIONS 2017 The Museum of Math, Dance New York 2011-12 District 36, Elements New York 2011 Union Square Subway Station, Union Square in Motion New York 2011 Crossing Art Gallery, Motion in Stillness New York 2011 Parsons the New School of Design, Expressions (group project with students) New York 2010-11 Bryant Park, Bryant Park in Motion (with MTA Arts for Transit and NYU/Tisch) New York 2011 Leaders In Software and Art New York 2010…

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January 10, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Education / Freedom

Tao translations and translators

The Tao Te Ching has influenced and resonates with me more than any other book. This translation is my favorite so far for its accessibility.The translator in this interview said a number of perspectives like I would: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Most other perspectives I have follow from those life-level perspectives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4W8ufwzp50 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58eopl0tQao http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sETgCeOdof0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7lxiwJCj08

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July 23, 2010
New Bryant Park in Motion Videos
Art / Creativity / Education / My Favorite Posts

New Bryant Park in Motion Videos

First, here is MTA Arts for Transit Page on Bryant Park in Motion (EDIT: Arts for Transit changed the page to one on Union Square in Motion) -- created by me and four students and NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program:  Molly Schwartz, Igal Nassima, Brett Murphy, and Eyal Ohana. Below is an overview of the piece, starting from Bryant Park at the corner of 42nd and 6th, then entering the station and viewing the piece. By coincidence, a family of five happened by the piece while I was taping. All five, especially the three kids, are fascinated by it, peer in it, and enjoy it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIfi71_ffG0 Below is just the kids and family from the previous video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwg1BhkAFU Below is a common viewing pattern involving an…

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March 10, 2010
Art / Creativity / Education

Public Art

My first big public art piece is up: Bryant Park in Motion, co-created with four students -- Brett Murphy, Igal Nassima, Eyal Ohana, and Molly Schwartz -- at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), supported by MTA Arts for Transit and Submedia. The piece was created at no cost to the MTA. BPIM will be on display March 2010 at the base of the northeast entrance/exit stairs to the 42nd St Bryant Park subway station. The works consist of animations activated by viewers motion past the display, recalling zoetropes, early animation devices, and the MTA's own Masstransiscope. As with Summ Kunce's nearby permanent installation, Under Bryant Park, also commissioned by MTA Arts for Transit, each animation is inspired by a…

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March 2, 2010
Less, please
Awareness / Blog / Education / My Favorite Posts / Stories / Tips

Less, please

I used to view books like most people seem to. Books reflected who I was, they added to my home, let people know more about me, were good to have for quick reference, etc. I went through an experience that changed that. It started innocently enough. I decided to get rid of only the most useless books I had. The ones I would never miss and had for no good reason in the first place. Looking at my shelves it was easy to figure out those from the ones worth keeping. Actually there were some borderline ones. I decided to be conservative so I kept all the borderline ones. I still got rid of a good portion of my books. Some time later I found,…

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April 12, 2009
Blog / Education / Entrepreneurship

Get out what you put in

[In response to some alumni on the Entrepreneurs' mailing list complaining the school wasn't helping alumni enough, proposing a "nuclear option" of talking to the press about it.] If anyone thinks "we have little to lose" and that the "greatest risk is that nothing will happen anyway" of a process called a nuclear option, they should sit down and think more. If you prepare for war, you'll get it. War means loss of control (to the press, who promotes conflict), factions form, people get hurt, conflict escalates, nobody wins. I wasn't going to participate, but people are pushing increasingly extreme viewpoints. I am concerned one or two people may decide for everyone they'll take the matter into their hands and complain to the press. Bad…

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February 12, 2008

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