Fostering Creativity And Innovation by Dr. Rashid Alleem - HTML preview

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CONVERGENT THINKING

At certain points in the creative process, thinking and focus needs to shift. To select the best of our divergent options, determine their potential value. In the convergent thinking process, choice is deliberate and conscious. Criteria are purposefully applied as we screen, select, evaluate, and refine the options, all while knowing that raw ideas still need development.

When it’s time to make decisions about the ideas generated by divergent thinking, Scott Isaksen, PhD, and Don Treffinger, PhD, proposed these convergent thinking guidelines in Creative Problem Solving, the Basic Course (1982).

• Be Deliberate: Give decision-making the time and respect it requires. Avoid snap decisions or harsh judgments. Give every option a fair chance.
• Check Your Objectives: Verify the choices against your objectives in each step. This is a reality check—are the choices on track?
• Improve Your Ideas: Not all ideas are workable solutions. Even promising ideas must be honed and strengthened. Take the time to improve your ideas.
• Be Affirmative: Even in convergence, it’s important to first consider what’s good about an idea and judge it for the purpose of improving, rather than eliminating, ideas.
• Consider Novelty: Do not dismiss novel or original ideas. Consider ways to tailor, rework, or tame.

BUILT TO SERVE

Uber started as a simple idea: What if you could request a ride from your phone? But what began as a novel thought quickly grew into a global brand focused on helping move you toward opportunity out in the world. Here’s a peek into the company’s origin story:

December 2008; On a cold winter evening in Paris, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp couldn’t get a ride. That’s when the idea for Uber was born.

March 2009; The two entrepreneurs developed a smartphone app that gave people the power to tap a button and request a ride.

July 5, 2010; The first Uber rider requested a trip across San Francisco.

December 2011; Uber launched internationally in Paris, the same city where the idea was born three years earlier.

In the present days, in addition to helping people get from point A to point B, Uber is working to bring the future closer with self-driving technology and urban air transport, helping people order food quickly and affordably, removing barriers to healthcare, creating new freight-booking solutions, and helping companies provide a seamless employee travel experience. That’s the reason I love to call it Built to Serve.