Creative Thinking Process

1. Creative Thinking Process 薛智文 台大資工 cwhsueh@csie.ntu.edu.tw http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~chsueh/ “It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.” - Robert H. Goddard The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

2. 工欲善其事、必先利其器 • To excel in research, we must sharpen our skills in • positioning R&D strategically • identifying and formulating high impact problems • communicating ideas and results effectively The entrance to graduate school marks a critical phase of transition for most graduate students from absorbing knowledge to creating knowledge… - Prof. Lui Sha, UIUC The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

3. Cone of Learning (Edgar Dale) • After two weeks, we tend to remember: • Passive learning: • 10% of what we read • 20% of what we hear • 30% of what we see (pictures) • 50% of what we hear and see • Active learning: • 70% of what we say • 90% of what we say and do  So we want you to say and do in this workshop The more energy that you put into a subject, the more you can remember. - Prof. Lui Sha, UIUC The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

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5. Level of Educational Objectives (B. S. Bloom) • Level 1: Knowledge: List, and recite • Level 2: Comprehension: Explain, and paraphrase • Level 3: Application: Calculate, solve, determine, and apply • Level 4: Analysis: Classify, categorize, derive, and model • Level 5: Synthesis: create, predict, construct, design, imagine, improve, and propose • Level 6: Evaluation: judge, critique, verify, and debate The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

6. R. Keith Sawyer • Innovation requires no special thought processes, says an expert. Creative people just work harder at it. • Ideas don’t magically appear in a genius’ head from nowhere. They always build on what came before. And collaboration is key. • Creative people have tons of ideas, many of them bad. The trick is to evaluate them and mercilessly purge the bad ones. But even bad ideas can be useful. from “The Hidden Secrets of the Creative Mind” Time Magazine, Jan. 16, 2006 The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

7. Why You Should Learn Creative Thinking Process ?! You don’t want to be the lower part of M-Society. (下流社會 -- 中產階級蒸發了), Mar 15, 2006 • It’s your responsibility and duty as a person living in Taiwan. • Recognize yourself. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

8. What’s Next about Taiwan and You? • The World is FLAT. • Are we still in East Asian Four Tigers? • How could we compete with BRICs? • What is the role of Taiwan in the world? • Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) • Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) • Intellectual Property Creator (IPC) • What are you going to do after graduation? • Be an engineer or a scientist? • Be a professor? • Be an enterpriser? • Any else, for example… ? The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

9. Basic Elements of Successful R&D Active learning and thinking at higher levels • How to transit from lower levels of learning to higher levels of learning: a shift • from a focus on recites, apply and solve • to a focus on categorize, critique, and create. • What are the habits that you plan to • Overcome? • Cultivate? The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

10. Basic Elements of Successful R&D 1. Positioning your research • What is gift and what is your gift? • To what degree it overlaps with your interests? • “May the force be with you”: what are forces in R&D that can help you? The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

11. Gifts Societal Needs Interests Research Focus The path to success consists of three simple elements.Find what interests you1 that you can do well2, and is needed by the people3. - Prof. Lui Sha, UIUC Research Focus The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

12. Being Wisdom - Understanding Yourself • What is easier for you? • Writing a complex software program? • Proving a difficult theorem? • What excites the community at large and what excites you? • Does it play into your strength? Understand others is intelligence.Understand yourself is wisdom. 知 人 者 智 ， 自 知 者 明- Lao Tze The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

13. Basic Elements of Successful R&D 2. Developing a R&D road map • What is the role of concrete application scenarios in research? • How do you spot opportunities that could create new trends of R&D? • What is the key factor that makes a result significant? • What are the categories of research and their • Risks • Impacts The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

14. Creating an Exciting Application Scenario • Exciting application scenarios will • motivate you, • expose the limitations of existing solutions, and • help you to focus your efforts. “As a mathematical discipline travels far from its empirical source, or still more, if it is a second and third generation only indirectly inspired by the ideas coming from ‘reality,’ it is beset with very grave dangers.…that the stream, so far from its source, will separate into a multitude of insignificant branches, and that the discipline will become a disorganized mass of details and complexities.” - John Von Neumann, “The Mathematician,” 1957 The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

15. Thinking Out-of-Box Great advancements in science and engineering often are the repudiation (rejection) of generally accepted beliefs. - Anonymous • Most researchers/engineers are constrained by models and generally accepted assumptions of the real world. But our knowledge of the nature is never perfect, and the underlining technologies are rapidly changing. • Velocity of light is constant – embrace it as a low of physics and we have the theory of relativity. • Clients request and server computes… -- Why not send some of the code to client instead? • E.g., • Is TCP appropriate for wireless communication? • Is fairness a good metric for real-time computing? The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

16. Pick the Right Problems to Work on • What is the difference between a theorem and a homework problem to be proven by students? • Both were proven to be correct. • In fact, some homework problems are harder than some of the theorems. • E.g., stack scheduling protocol and priority ceiling protocol are easy but useful. • Therefore… If we decide to spend time on a problem, shouldn’t we work on a problem with greater potential impacts? Of course, you should persuade your advisor if you find a great impact topic. ^^ The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

17. Know What has been Done and Estimate the Impacts • New directions • Challenging long-held beliefs and pioneering a new path • Broad applicability • For the further development of the theory • For solving practical problems • Unification / Integration • Proving a unifying structure or theory and give deeper understanding to seemingly diversified approaches • Advancement along an established line of inquires • You need to significantly improve performance, reliability, or scale. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

18. Basic Elements of Successful R&D 3. Getting Your Ideas across • How can we help audience understand your points?What should be made concise and what should be elaborated? • How can we make our presentations? ‧More informative‧More interesting‧More insightful - Prof. Lui Sha, UIUC The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

19. Impart an Understanding • Understanding is an act that builds a bridge between what your audience already know to what they need to know. • Focus on key ideas and key results, go from specific to general and from concrete to abstract. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

20. Managing Human “cache memory” • Human short term memory can only hold about 5 unfamiliar items • Don’t load it up with unimportant details. • Suppose you need to present an OS overhead formula unfamiliar to your audience, (2S + …). • Don’t say we now add “two S” to …. This forces others to remember what S means. Poor use of human short term memory. • Say we add “round trip context switching time to…” • Think carefully about the new ideas you want your audience to absorb. • Keep them in the “cache” by periodic refreshing during your talk, until your audience “write the new ideas” into their long term memory. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

21. Techniques that help get ideas across Techniques that reduce “unfamiliarity” and help “write through”: ‧Read out the physical meaning of the terms. ‧Use analogy familiar to your audience. An ideal presentation is one that is: ‧Informative ‧Interesting ‧Insightful The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

22. Being Informative Inform: give new knowledge… • “New” is relative to your audience. • What they already know? • What they should know after your presentation? • What are the steps in-between? • For example: • Managers: the key ideas, expected impacts, and costs. • Experts: new challenges and new insights/results The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

23. Being Interesting Interesting: unexpected, counter intuitive, difficult to believe • Seemingly unimportant fact that actually holds the key • Seemingly true but it is in fact false • A “difficult” problem is solved with ease and elegance. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

24. Being Insightful Insight: impart a deeper understanding • Explain a seemingly complex and confusing problem in a way that is easy to understand. • Unearth hidden/unstated assumptions. And quickly put an argument to rest. • Show things in new angles, new lights and new forms and gain new understandings. • Demonstrate subtle but important connections/inter-dependencies between seemingly unrelated subjects. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

25. Syllabus • Meeting 0: Introduction • Meeting 1: Creative thinking process, case study, and team formation • Meeting 2: Presentation – each team should propose two potential research topics. • Meeting 3: Discussion and refinement • Meeting 4: Presentation (,discussion, and refinement) – each team should further elaborate one research topic. • Meeting 5: Final presentation The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

26. Assignment • Each one has to prepare a five-minute presentation, which should introduce: • The global trends that you think • Your interests • Your gifts/strengths • The trends related to your interests or strengths The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

27. “The Creative Thinking Process”Workshop Meeting 1 Creativity is a mechanical and learnable process. - Prof. Lui Sha, UIUC The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

28. Creative Thinking Process • Identify potential research topics in the context of people’s gifts and interests. • Position the research focus on the intersection of your gifts, your interests, and societal needs. • Examine theTrends • How the idea relates to the research trends? • What are the key related works? • How to spot opportunities that could create new trends? • Look deeper into theChallenges • What can be solved by current technology? • What needs to be invented? • What is the estimated effort? • What is the key factor that makes a result significant? The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

29. Creative Thinking Process (Cont.) • Estimate theImpacts • What are the categories of research and their risks/impacts? • new directions, unification/integration, broad applicability, incremental improvements. • Look ahead into theFuture • What else will the future technology enable? • What are the new and exciting application scenarios that established technologies stop working? • What is truly hard and what can be removed from your design? • understand the true nature of constraints and separate the hard constraints from the soft ones. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

30. Creative Thinking Process (Cont) • Expand to aDevice Family • A group of devices where each member is complemented and reinforced with each other . • What are their intrinsic characteristics? • What are their strength and limitations? • Layout an ElegantArchitecture • Optimally use the advantages of each member. • Build Low Level Details • Publish papers and file patent. • Create new architectures, protocols,… • Prototype demonstration and identify industrial partners. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

31. End Products • From incremental improvements to existing architectures & product lines • To the creation of a new product line • architecturally different from the existing products • new form of information sharing and exchanging • enabled by emerging technologies The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

32. The Process to Find the Next-Wave Technology A New Product Line Research focus & next-wave technology The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

33. Creative Thinking Process - Summary How the idea relates to research trends? Identify Potential Research Topics Trends Key related works Estimated efforts What needs to be invented? Look Deeper Challenges What can be solved by current technology? What are the key factor/cores? Expected impacts Impacts New directions Broad applicability Nature of impacts • Creative Process • Mechanical • Learnable Unification/integration Look Further Incremental What else will the future technology enable? Intrinsic characteristics Extend to Device Family Role Setting for Each Member Strength and limitations Optimally use the advantages Elegant Architecture Build Low-Level Details The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

34. Successful Stories • Apple Computer Company • E-Ink Corporation • Discussion The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

35. Case 1The Apple Computer Company Steven Wozniak and Steve Jobs had been friends in high school. They had both been interested in electronics, and both had been perceived as outsiders. They kept in touch after graduation, and both ended up dropping out of school and getting jobs working for companies in Silicon Valley. (Steven Wozniak for Hewlett-Packard, Steve Jobs for Atari) Apple Computer was born on April 1, 1976. At that time Jobs was 21 and Wozniak was 26. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

36. Product History (1/2) 1976 Apple I 1977 Apple II 1983 Lisa / Lisa 2 / Mac XL 1984 Graphical User Interface (GUI) Macintosh • Macintosh II • Macintosh Portable • Power Book The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

37. Product History (2/2) 1993 Newton Message Pad Macintosh Color Classic II • Power Macintosh • iMac • iBook 2004 iPod Mini The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

38. Steve Jobs • He is the CEO of Apple Computer and the Chairman and CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. • He was stripped his duties in 1985. After that, he founded NeXT Computer. • In 1986, Steve Jobs bought Lucasfilm's computer graphics division from George Lucas for $10 million and named the new computer animation studio Pixar. • In 1996, Apple bought NeXT for $402 million, bringing Jobs back to the company he founded. The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

39. Case 2The E-Ink Corporation Electronic Ink is a display technology designed to mimic the appearance of regular ink on paper. Unlike a conventional flat panel display, which uses a backlight to illuminate its pixels, electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity or using processor power; as these resources are only required to change or erase the image. Sony Librie EBR-1000EP, 2004 The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

40. Technology Review Developed in 1997 The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

41. Product Lines • High Resolution Displays • Segmented Displays The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

42. Discussion • Please give us your opinions. • How to keep a company alive? • Does every creative product work? The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

43. Reference • http://www.apple.com • http://www.apple-history.com/ • http://www.eink.com/ • http://www.wikipedia.org/ The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

44. Homework 2 • Team formation – 2 to 4 people in a team • Select one possible research topic or new product. The slides should includes: • The trend related to your topic • Your topic or your product • Target feature or system architecture • Claimed goal (give us the killer application if possible) • Key related work such as paper or data sheets • The Strength of each member related to your topic • Related issues and challenges when marching to the goal (rank the priority of these challenges) • List possible future technologies related to your topic in the future if needed • Expected Impacts The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

45. Q&A • Q1.據在業界的父母說，台灣的資工人才由於能力不敵大陸及印度，國外公司都不喜歡用台灣的資訊工程師，而學生缺乏哪些能力呢?教授對此一現象的看法為何?? • Ans: 父母說的都對！不對的是我們自己。 • 智力 耐力 生產力 溝通力 英語 • 創造力 解決問題 團隊合作 The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

46. Q&A • Q2.近年來國內指考分數資工系有逐漸向下的趨勢，教授的看法是? • Ans: 認識自己 資訊最適性 時勢所驅 資訊最寬廣 Computer Science and Information Engineering 資訊工程 資訊科學 資訊管理 資訊教育 資訊電子 生物資訊 醫學資訊 圖書資訊 金融資訊 資訊服務 The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

47. Q&A • Q3.未來資工系大學生畢業後，在找工作上占有什麼優勢?未來可從哪方面的相關部門著手? • Ans: 了解事情的本質 不怕沒優勢 只怕沒本事 • R&D Engineer, Product Manager, Project Manager, Field Application Engineer, Sales, Marketing, CTO, CIO, CSO, CMO, COO, CEO, President, … • 比創意與願景所要具備的能力 • 市場 格局 架構 組織團隊 想像力 創造力 執行力 The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

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49. 工研院創意中心 • 魔境 水之械 廢土花盆 吸水泥土 光電共生原生植物園 導電玻璃罐 影舞集 innovation future before innovator moderate adaptor The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU

50. Conclusion • 台灣製造台灣創造 • 削弱補習班文化 • 創意心法 • neuro-linguistic programming • Innovation = invention ＋ insight • 個人成功要件 • skills + expertise + intrinsic motivation (passion) • 團隊成功要件 • people + product + press （氛圍） + platform The Creative Thinking Process @CSIE.CCU