Note: to see the video clip of this topic, click on the image below this text; it is in Spanish
FOOL "I WANT A GREAT GUM"
Some years ago, being in New York City, attending the Museum of Natural History, and accustomed to the fact that normally museums, especially in Mexico, do not have much attendance, I was struck by the fact that in one of the rooms there was a large amount of adults and children observing a strange piece, and I imagined that it was perhaps some instrument forgotten by extraterrestrials that people were admiring; what was my surprise that what I saw was the famous totem pole that became very popular in the movie one night at the Museum.
👀 Find out more about “Fool” in the following link; it is in Spanish
In truth I tell you that it was surprising to see how a character in a movie that became famous, managed to make an unattractive museum (except for the Dinosaurs that are really “box office”) become successful; I have only gotten to see many people in the National Museum of Anthropology and History of Mexico City, when students are forced to go by their teachers, to do special work to accredit the course, however, the case that I tell you about the Museum of Natural History and Ton- Ton was something out of the ordinary and I want to find out how this type of phenomenon happens.
It is very clear that we are experiencing the fourth wave, called by Morrie Shechtman as the information and communication intensive revolution, other authors call it the digital age and still others call it the knowledge age (Peter Drücker).
👀 Find out more about Morrie Shechtman in the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek0xoGzL0l0
Whatever the name of this era, the reality is that we are experiencing very accelerated changes due to the intense competitiveness derived from that fourth wave of change, where the profit margins of companies have decreased due to the fact that the life cycle of many of the products are getting shorter and copying products is easier.
However, despite the great competitiveness that exists, it is clear that we are living in a time that authors like Morrie Shechtman call the fifth wave of change, where we realize that the number one force in countries, companies and institutions it is the human potential since, unlike machines, the human being has flexibility, originality, the spirit of innovation and the attitude of continuous improvement.
THE CREATIVITY
The mother of Creativity is Imagination, the latter being one of the great characteristics of the human being.
Quoting Mauro Rodríguez Estrada:
You learn to create, creating, just as you learn to swim by swimming.
Culture - unlike nature - is the creation of man and this in turn, the manifestation of his power and his will to conquer and dominate.
The interest in creativity is as old as mankind. The instruments of the stone age are already testimony to the transforming and dominating effort.
The conscious and programmed education of the creative man and the creative group, the techniques of developing ambitious innovations are modern inventions; creativity goes hand in hand with the joy of living; It is an elixir of youth.
The playful facets are obvious, insofar as the creative plays or tinkers with reality and ideas.
When we play with children, our creativity awakens and recovers, and the same happens through humor, which is associative: it ingeniously combines heterogeneous and disparate elements. Play is the foundation of learning; a happy individual makes almost no difference between work and play.
Creativity, by its own weight, tends to become security, comfort, time savings, effort savings, increased profits, and general well-being. Creativity is mental health and hygiene.
It must be made clear that creativity is not synonymous with superior intelligence, but first of all a restless, ambitious character, and an entrepreneurial spirit: creativity is more in attitudes than in skills. "The mistake most people make is to assume that the only way to do something is the traditional way."
Creative intelligence is applied to various areas and that sometimes it is one and sometimes it is another that we are interested in developing.
Gardner, who distinguishes seven "intelligences": logic, linguistics, kinesthetic, spatial, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal, affirmed that classifications of this type are useful for ordering the material and our own ideas, but in all, Creative intelligence is present.
Creativity is based on divergent thinking, which is what is applied to situations where there is not a single correct answer, but several or many. For this reason, in life, there is no solution to many problems that we face.
To solve "divergent" problems, "group wisdom" is very important, that is, Teamwork. All thought is potentially creative. And when working in a group, we seek not only to tolerate, but also to encourage divergences, in a constructive way.
FLUIDITY OF THOUGHT
Ideas are the energetic fuel for innovations, logical thinking and fluid thinking are not the same; To illustrate, let's see how these two types of problems differ from each other:
1. Finding the best headline for a newspaper, or the best name for a new car.
2. Identify the assassin of John F. Kennedy, or specify the amount of silver that New Spain produced in the year 1705.
The last two cases appeal to convergent thinking and seek a specific answer; the other two to divergent or lateral thinking.
For convergents there is the solution; for the divergent there is no solution, but some solution.
The three typical characteristics of divergent thinking are:
Fluency
Flexibility
Originality
The first phases of the creative process involve opening up to a range of alternatives; We encompass them with the words fluency and flexibility, which are the most characteristic. Convergent thinking tends to predominate in the final stages, but even there there is ample room for trial and error.
Fluency, flexibility and originality should be a mental habit that overcomes fear, laziness, apathy and routine.
We clearly distinguish between knowledge (knowledge, information) and imagination, which is the kaleidoscopic handling of that knowledge.
Let us now direct our batteries towards the right hemisphere of our brain, which is intuitive, emotional, experiential, non-analytical, metaphorical, synthetic, holistic, fanciful, subjective, spatial, lateral, primary, subconscious, and for a moment let us put aside the hemisphere. left, which is logical, sequential, rational, intellectual, realistic, objective, analytical, critical, schematic, linear, secondary, numeral, verbal, conscious.
Often the least obvious is the most novel and useful, that is, the most creative.
NASA spent a lot of time and money before "discovering":
o That the best locomotion mechanism on uneven terrain has been the spider for thousands of years.
o The bat that locates objects with its ears anticipated ultrasound and radar.
o The scorpion that detects with its legs the vibrations produced by its prey on the ground, anticipated the seismograph.
o The fly solves the difficult problem of inverted landing.
o Ships were perfected before the model of fish, airplanes before the flight of birds, and computers before the human brain.
A great mental stimulating is the method called PNI (= positive-negative-interesting), which consists of imagining something that does not exist or formulating a certain hypothesis and asking ourselves:
1) The positive or favorable or advantageous,
2) The negative or unfavorable or harmful,
3) The interesting or curious.
This simple exercise helps us break out of our frames of reference and venture into uncharted terrain.
Other simple methods are CTF (= consider all factors)
APO (= alternatives-possibilities-options)
OPV (= other points of view), and so on.
The "why" strings serve to create dissatisfaction with the usual explanations. For example, faced with the statement - or tradition - "aviation pilots are men, not women", or "car doors open to the side, not up", who asks again and again why , can lead to very interesting questions.
EXAMPLE
Think of the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City, and design and propose a strategy or several, as detailed as possible, to increase the number of entries in the museum; It is necessary not only the idea but the detailed strategy that must be followed.
REAL CASE
"The Prado warns that the" disneylization "of museums is here
The Prado Museum is a very interesting case that combines "The Economy of Experience" with the Digital Era (Revolution of Information and Intensive Communication) and a new way of making learning fun, because learning invites us to Imagine and be Creative and, Creativity is fun, has a sense of humor and, it is also energizing.
On May 27, 2021, Javier Pantoja, head of the Digital Development Area of the Prado National Museum, questioned "Is it so important to be in front of Las Meninas, physically, in room 12 of the Prado Museum?"
Javier assured that museums "are already" in the process of 'disneylization', equating art galleries with amusement parks to "offer experiences" to visitors; This reminds us of the "Economy of Experience", which was raised in the 90's; the economic phases experienced by humanity in contemporary history:
1) The Economics of Commodities, early 20th century
2) The Product Economics of the mid-1950s
3) The Service Economy of the 1980s
4) The Experience Economy formally started in the 90's, although Disney theme parks were already a previous benchmark.
👀 The Prado Museum, a new benchmark in the Experience Economy:
The question is, is it bad to demystify museums and even formal education, to make it more accessible through an authentic experience?
To this question, Javier replied "It is not that dysneylization seems bad to me, but it is that we are already in it"; Javier has argued that, mainly due to virtualization, museums "are already beginning to be sold as places of experience", in addition to "giving a very important role" to visitors and their audience "in the sense that they begin to produce content" .
👀 The Prado Museum launches its first virtual tour in Spanish and English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lNTl2kquHA
Are we about to see the application of the Experience Economy to Museums and Education?
It is very possible that Museums and Education itself come to resemble this experience with amusement parks or 'resorts', which are sometimes "completely digital". This would lead to question the need for face-to-face visits to contemplate works such as “Las Meninas” by Velázquez.
In this regard, Javier argues that taking “Las Meninas” as an example, it is about having an experience with “them”, who believes that sometimes the artistic experience is “sacred” and adds “How important is it to be in front of Las Meninas, physically, in room 12 of the Prado Museum? Does everyone really get goose bumps seeing the work there and not seeing it in their living room, in front of the television? "
Recalling cases such as "The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, amusement parks such as" Puerto Aventura "or movies such as" Avatar "Javier points out that now, with the Internet," the museum begins to be not only a source of content, but also producer".
Finally, Javier Pantoja added: "It is important to know that digitization leads to virtualization and the next step is a simulation. Amusement parks have known how to make these jumps, but museums are still reflecting and do not know very well in which direction to go. : not because they are not clear about it, but they start from different assumptions (experience versus knowledge) ", he concluded.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE
1) The Prado warns that the "disneylization" of museums "is here": May 27, 2021
https://www.europapress.es/cultura/exposiciones-00131/noticia-prado-avisa-disneylizacion-museos-ya-aqui-20210527153819.html
2) Rodríguez Estrada Mauro, A thousand creativity exercises, Mexico, Ed. McGraw, 1995
3) Erdozáin Juan Carlos, Create your own tomorrow through divergent thinking, eaBC, 2021
https://www.eabc.website/post/crea-tu-propio-ma%C3%B1ana-a-trav%C3%A9s-de-la-fluidez-de-pensamiento
