Book Review
Have you ever thought that creative geniuses are born that way and therefore, having not been born a creative genius, you do not have the same opportunities?
Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire is a nonfiction book that discusses how creativity can be learned and how creativity is used in business and industry. The 351 page book is written by Bruce Nussbaum and published by Harper Business copyright 2013. It can be purchased most easily from Amazon books as a hardback only for about $19, or as a Kindle read for around $12.
With his book, Creative Intelligence, Nussbaum would have you put that idea to rest and uses examples from the life stories of successful individuals who have been regarded as somewhat genius in their fields, to show how the experiences we surround ourselves with and the ability to harness and use them are what to surmount to being deemed “genius”.
“...we all have the capacity to be creative. We just need to search a little deeper to bring it out. Indeed, we have been searching for the source of creativity for some time”. (p. 9)
Told in first person format, Nussbaum leads a discussion riveted with examples of how creativity comes about; it is not one thing but a composite of experiences, interactions, and exposures. Building a knowledge base of these singular incidents can lead to implementing solutions that are recognized as creative.
“The Five Competencies of Creative Intelligence” that Nussbaum classifies on his own accord are: knowledge mining, framing, playing, making, and pivoting. I will be looking at the author’s ideas not through the lens of capitalism, as the author intends, but as a school librarian and teacher who wants to find a path to lead students on so they can journey through life and learning mining for their own creativity.
