Miamideas next steps: Finding creative and innovative answers to questions

By Carole Johnson, university news and communications

Themes, in the form of questions, give some structure to the next steps in the Miamideas project.

Hundreds of ideas generated in January and synthesized this winter generated one overarching theme and four supporting themes.

Overarching theme

“How might we empower a creative and innovative culture throughout the Miami community?”

The theme sets the tone for a yearlong celebration of innovation.

To help launch the year, the committee is working closely with the summer reading program committee to create activities and events incorporating this year’s book selection: The 46 Rules of Genius: An innovator’s guide to creativity, by Marty Neumeier. (See related story.)

A call for participation

According to Peg Faimon and Glenn Platt, co-chairs of Miamideas, discussions are underway on creating a blueprint and implementation plans for Miamideas.

“The whole committee will be crafting a ‘guidebook for participation’ in the next 2-3 weeks that will outline timing and processes for participation by the Miami community, “Platt said.

A number of issues, also in the form of questions, to be addressed include:

• How do we define and develop skills in creativity and innovation?
• How do we set the priority from the beginning?
• How can we be a visible leader in our creative pursuits?
• How do we best document our creative activities?
• How do we enhance disciplinary connections to creativity/innovation?
• How do we encourage cross-divisional collaboration?
• How do we connect our students to external creative/innovative activities and people?
• How do we develop “champions” for creativity/innovation?
• How do we bring in best practices and new ideas?
• How do we incubate and accelerate new ideas from the community?