July 2, 2006--This week I attended CPSI or the Creative Problem Solving Institute's annual conference in Chicago.  CPSI is a week
The (Chicago) Bean stuffed full of morning lectures about the CPS process for first timer's and a variety of tracks for returning attendees involved in all fields from teaching to architecture to marketing to nuclear physics to BBC programming and beyond.  CPSI was created amongst others by Alex Osborne who was one of the founders of the BBDO advertising agency.  Mr. Osborne was a proponent of brainstorming, an activity that allows all members of a team to throw out any idea that comes to mind in order to innovate without fear of being judged.  My overall perception of creativity is that its concepts are openness, imagination and interactivity.  The most freeing of these is of course openness--the ability to be free to say yes to any idea in order to create a new one.

This year nearly 700 participants representing 31 countries including the United States attended CPSI.  We heard talks and keynotes from dozens of speakers from all walks of life.  For example, Blair Kamin the architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune spoke about the Architecture of Creativity and the Chicago skyline.  Gene Cohen, the first Director of George Washington University's Center on Aging, Health and Humanities spoke about the Liberation Phase or how the aging use experience and a sense of freedom to innovate.  Frans Johannsen also spoke about his book The Medici Effect which is about how brainstorming at the intersection of disciplines can create a explosion of innovative ideas.  Offsite excursions were also
Half The Millenium Park Fountain options.  One of the excursions I went on was led by Liz Monroe Cooke to Chicago's Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the first planetarium built in the United States.  Jim Sweitzer, who developed and implemented all scientific content for New York's Rose Center for Earth & Science, demonstrated the spatial relationship of planets to one another and the sun by having us plant stakes at scientifically correct distances based on astronomical units.  This was a way to show us how to educate creatively and on a dime.  It also gave me an opportunity to finally let the ideas that I was collecting all week incubate.

I attended CPSI first, because the idea of learning how to look at an issue from an entirely different perspective, or applying the concepts of an entirely different discipline to solve a problem, fascinates me.  Secondly, I attended because I want this web site to be a worthwhile and valuable addition to cyberspace.  I want to look at community building and sustainable farming in an innovative way and I want to flip this web site and these concepts on their head!

Look for changes--hopefully good ones--to this site.  And as always let us know how we're doing!