So it is no surprise that "Creative Chaos" is the title and focus of a new book from the ETC Press on best practices in teaching creative collaboration to the interdisciplinary groups in its interactive entertainment graduate program. Co-authored by ETC Director Drew Davidson and others, the book provides an overview of the ETC's work to foster an inclusive environment, welcoming constructive conflict in discussions and diversity in students' disciplines, worldviews, ethnicity and gender.
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Creative chaos is one of the best environments for innovation. Just yesterday I was at the CT State Finals for Odyssey of the Mind, a creative problem solving competition. I competed for 10 years in the program, and this year I came back home and was able to judge the competition. Teams of 5 to 7 kids work together to find a solution to a problem which they present in an 8 minute performance. I was a judge for the elementary and middle school division for a problem that involved building a robot that learned to perform human tasks and repeat the task causing a different outcome. Most teams were a mix of boys and girls, and racially diverse. Often you would assume the older the kids, the better they will be at building at robot and coming up with creative solutions, but overwhelmingly the more creative and interesting solutions came from the elementary school teams. I think some of it has to do with them not being as scared of trying anything as middle schoolers are, and as the older you get the fear of failure creeps more into your mind. Conflict is definitely one way to foster creative ideas, but sometime problems present enough need for just trial and error that good solutions can come of them.
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