Innovator / Creator

Photo of me while I was interning in the R&D lab doing research in nanomaterial application for touch screen sensor and display

I have always loved the process of turning ideas into tangible reality. At the same time, working on a prototyping project, and seeing it turn into fruition is, to me, a very meaningful process. Deviating a little from this passage, I remember when I was little, one day as I was playing with my yo-yo, it smashed onto the floor and cracked after the string broke off. Other than sadness, my immediate response was to build another one. With my naïve imagination, I assembled cardboard, scissors, glue, and new strings. Of course, I failed. Growing up, I loved the idea of leveraging technology to build solutions for the problems around me.

Fast forward to university, my decision to pursue Mechanical Engineering in NUS was really based upon my love for Physics and Mathematics, and to understand the underpinning of the mechanical systems, where I get to learn mechanical designs from small individual parts to big systems.

University, to me, has always been a place for learning, a place to experiment with new ideas, pursue opportunities, and to put new concepts into practice. It was a bigger playground for innovation and for the conception of ideas, refining them, building them, implementing them, and in the process, learning from, and enhancing my prototyping skills. Yet, one of the most important thing that drives new and novel innovation is this idea of creativity, a subject matter that was hardly touched upon during my years of education. Is creativity nature or natured? Is creativity structured or unstructured? Is there a framework that we could use to foster creativity? Is the framework applicable everywhere? How do we adapt existing framework to changing circumstance such that it remain relevant?

One of the USP modules I took was Creative Thinking (UPI2206), where we learnt the underlying framework to explain what constitutes creative ideas. One of the lecture material that was covered talks about idea conceptual spaces surrounding jewellery:

Lecture notes from Creative Thinking (UPI2206), where we explored the conceptual space of a jewellery. There are various dimensions—durability, material value, and form—within the conceptual space of a jewellery.

The concept was that for every object, which in this case is the example of a jewellery, there is a conceptual space around the object. Coined by Magaret Boden, research professor of cognitive science at the University of Sussex, the conceptual space can be understood as the ways any disciplined way of thinking that is familiar and valued by a social group that interacts with the object. Within the conceptual space, there is definition dimension. In the case of the jewellery, the defining dimensions are high durability, higher material value, and typically in a recognisable and usual form.

From the Creative Thinking class, Professor Daniela Plewe mentioned that creativity typically involves the process of moving through the conceptual spaces by transforming one or more dimensions of the space. In class, we discussed how jewellery can have novelty simply by negating the dimensions—removing the durability and material value—within its conceptual spaces. More importantly, different conceptual spaces can be combined to work out new solutions that are much more novel.

Innovator / Creator: Does the framework works?

Two of the video that demonstrated how the dimensions within the conceptual space of the spinning top has been modified to create novelty.

Through the lens of the creative framework, I came to understand how we can understand or appreciate creative ideas as one that negate socio-culturally accepted dimensions within the conceptual spaces. In the first video, the spinning top defied the commonly accepted understanding (dimensions) that it would come to a stop shortly after spinning. By adding a mechanical motor to the spinning top, the spinning time was extended to around 40 hours. Besides winning the Guinness World Record for the longest spin time, it also aroused in the consumer the avid interests to get one because of its novelty.

In the second in the Kickstarter campaign, the spinning top used different types of precious metal instead of a simple material, increasing the material value (dimension) from the commonly accepted low material value of the spinning top. In addition, the new iteration used Humaniun metal, a metal made from guns, that aims to help reduce gun violence. In doing so, it adds a lot of meaning and cause to a typical spinning top.

I was surprised because who would have imagined spinning top, a simple toy that all of us played with, could command that kind of revenue for a business? By negating the dimensions of the conceptual spaces surrounding the spinning top, the novelty manages to arouse interest in the minds of the consumer. Certainly, to create a product that sells is the dream for every innovator, creator, and entrepreneur. For a period of time, I felt that the framework was a good way for which we can call upon to deliver amazing ideas that sell. However, at the back of my mind then, I felt that the framework was a little incomplete.