|
Out of the Box Club
Magical Ideas, Creative Solutions and Recycling Household RubbishThis is the summary of the Out of the Box CLub weekle held in Nicosia, November 2006, during which the Magical Idea creativity technique was introduced: On a clearly defined challenge… imagine a great solution which is impossible to implement in practise (Magical Idea)… then transform it into a feasible action (Creative Solution). Partcipants worked on a challenge relevant to Cypriot society today: How might we recycle household rubbish in Cyprus?Magical Idea 1: Have stars like Claudia Schiffer or Cindy Crawford come and collect our recyclable garbage. Creative Solution: Change image of garbage collectors. Have a team, of young dynamic, and sexy people go from door to door and collect recyclable garbage on a regular basis. This team will be trained to give out the positive messages for recycling and build social consciousness. The people can be students, soldiers on special leave or other organised groups of young, inspiring people. Magical Idea 2: All Cypriots pray every day to God to help us recycle. Creative Solution: Involve the church in the campaign to encourage the older population which usually attends Sunday masses to recycle. Every Sunday the priest will preach the positive consequences of recycling and draw a relation between soul cleansing and environment cleansing. Magical Idea 3: Pay people to recycle. Creative Solution: Create a ‘loyalty card’ and every time you recycle a certain amount of garbage (for example certain amount of kilos of paper, or a number of bottles) you are credited with points which you can exchange with discounts on your electricity bills, a health plan for your family, a educational plan for your children or a travel package. In this way recycling can become a source of funds for investment for environmental or other needs. Magical Idea 4: Make garbage illegal. Creative Solution: Make garbage invisible and undetectable. Build a network of pipes (similar to a water or sewage system) in every house which works with blowing air and we put our paper or bottles or cans and send them directly to a recycling plan. No collecting, no collectors, no stacking outside our homes, no garbage. Magical Idea 5: Every person collects his garbage and shoots it into space. Creative Solution: Appeal to people’s imagination and multiply sources of inspiration. Change social consciousness toward recycling by inventing new proverbs, sayings, quotes, popular wisdom and ask politicians, teachers, managers, news broadcasters etc to use them extensively.
"At the end of our workshop with Performa, not only did we emerge with new creative problem-solving skills, we emerged as a better, more dynamic, more cohesive team"
Kate Thompson, "Creativity enables people to think the unthinkable, do the undoable."
John Hayes & Patricia Hough |