Animal Creativity and Innovation


Book Description

Animal Creativity and Innovation explores theories and research on animal innovation and creativity, comparing and contrasting it with theory and research on human creativity and innovation. In doing so, it encompasses findings from psychology, biology, neuroscience, engineering, business, ecology, and education. The book includes examples of animal innovation in parrots, dogs, marine mammals, insects, and primates, exploring parallels from creative play in children. The book defines creativity, differentiating it from play, and looks at evolutionary models and neurological constructs. The book further explores applied aspects of animal innovation and creativity including tool use and group dynamics, as well as barriers to creativity. The final chapters look into how creative behavior may be taught or trained. Each chapter is followed by a commentary for integration of thoughts and ideas between animal and human research, behavioral and cognitive research, and theory and observation in real life. - Compares theory and research on animal and human creativity - Defines and differentiates creativity from play - Reviews applied creativity in tool use and social dynamics - Includes examples of animal creativity in multiple species




Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation


Book Description

Examines the role of playfulness in animal and human development, highlighting its links to creativity and, in turn, to innovation.




Creativity


Book Description

What is the nature of human creativity? What are the brain processes behind its mystique? What are the evolutionary roots of creativity? How does culture help shape individual creativity? Creativity: The Human Brain in the Age of Innovation by Elkhonon Goldberg is arguably the first ever book to address these and other questions in a way that is both rigorous and engaging, demystifying human creativity for the general public. The synthesis of neuroscience and the humanities is a unique feature of the book, making it of interest to an unusually broad range of readership. Drawing on a number of cutting-edge discoveries from brain research as well as on his own insights as a neuroscientist and neuropsychologist, Goldberg integrates them with a wide-ranging discussion of history, culture, and evolution to arrive at an original, compelling, and at times provocative understanding of the nature of human creativity. To make his argument, Goldberg discusses the origins of language, the nature of several neurological disorders, animal cognition, virtual reality, and even artificial intelligence. In the process, he takes the reader to different times and places, from antiquity to the future, and from Western Europe to South-East Asia. He makes bold predictions about the future directions of creativity and innovation in society, their multiple biological and cultural roots and expressions, about how they will shape society for generations to come, and even how they will change the ways the human brain develops and ages.




Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry


Book Description

This book charts the effects of new communication technologies and the Internet on the creation of music in the early 21st century. It examines how the music industry will be altered by the Internet, music online services and MP3-technology. This is done through an integrated model based on an international history of the industry since the phonograph’s invention in 1877, and thus, the history of the music industry is described in full detail for the first time.




The Cambridge Handbook of Animal Cognition


Book Description

This handbook lays out the science behind how animals think, remember, create, calculate, and remember. It provides concise overviews on major areas of study such as animal communication and language, memory and recall, social cognition, social learning and teaching, numerical and quantitative abilities, as well as innovation and problem solving. The chapters also explore more nuanced topics in greater detail, showing how the research was conducted and how it can be used for further study. The authors range from academics working in renowned university departments to those from research institutions and practitioners in zoos. The volume encompasses a wide variety of species, ensuring the breadth of the field is explored.




Wild Rituals


Book Description

Wild Rituals explores how embracing the rituals of the animal kingdom can make us more connected to ourselves, nature, and others. Behavioral ecologist and world-renowned elephant scientist Caitlin O'Connell dives into the rituals of elephants, apes, zebras, rhinos, lions, whales, flamingos, and many more. This fascinating read helps us better understand how we are similar to wild animals, and encourages us to find healing, self-awareness, community, and self-reinvention. • Filled with fascinating stories on 10 different animal rituals • Features original full-color photos, from the Caribbean to the African savannah • Demonstrates the profound way we are similar to the wild creatures who captivate us Wild Rituals journeys into the desert, tundra, and rainforest to reveal the importance of rituals and how they can help us find a simpler, more meaningful way of living. In a culture of technology where we find ourselves living at a greater distance from nature and each other, this remarkable book taps into the unspoken languages of creatures around the world. • Caitlin O'Connell is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and an award-winning author who spent more than 30 years studying animals in the wild. • Makes a great gift for anyone curious about nature, animals, and how humans compare to and interact with both • Add it to the shelf with books like Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina; Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal; The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion—Surprising Observations of a Hidden World by Peter Wohlleben; and The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery.




Business Creativity and Innovation: Perspectives and Best Practices


Book Description

Business Creativity and Innovation: Perspectives and Best Practices provides a foundation in the principles of innovation and introduces some cutting-edge concepts. The core of the book demonstrates how to generate, evaluate, and design ideas to solve business problems. Over the course of eight chapters, the anthology delivers insightful articles carefully selected from leading authors such as Clayton Christensen, Robert Cooper, Ram Charan, and Vijay Govindarajan, as well as award-winning case studies on how prominent businesses, including Apple and Google, have leveraged innovation. Readers explore insightful articles about driving business growth through innovation, creating a culture of innovation, identifying customer needs, and using innovation to solve customer problems. Additional readings examine idea evaluation, how to design new products and services to meet customer's needs, and the implementation of innovation processes and practices. Business Creativity and Innovation is ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in business innovation, product development, strategic management, business leadership, entrepreneurship, design thinking, marketing strategy, and decision making. The book can also serve as an enlightening manual for businesses and corporations, as it provides a framework for managing the innovation process from which organizations of any size can benefit. A former business innovation executive for Fortune 100 companies like AT&T and Bank of America, Len Ferman earned his M.B.A. from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, M.A. in economics from Duke University, and B.S. in economics from Lehigh University. He is an adjunct professor of management at the University of North Florida, where he teaches courses he developed on business innovation, and is a faculty member of the American Management Association. He is the founder and managing director of Ferman Innovation and a frequent speaker on business innovation.




Animal Innovation


Book Description

Innovation is an important component of behavioural plasticity vital to the survival of individuals and potentially of critical importance to those endangered or threatened species forced to adjust to changed or impoverished environments. This text provides a comprehensive study of this subject.




The Runaway Species


Book Description

This enlightening examination of creativity looks “at art and science together to examine how innovations . . . build on what already exists and rely on three brain operations: bending, breaking and blending” (The Wall Street Journal) The Runaway Species is a deep dive into the creative mind, a celebration of the human spirit, and a vision of how we can improve our future by understanding and embracing our ability to innovate. David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt seek to answer the question: what lies at the heart of humanity’s ability—and drive—to create? Our ability to remake our world is unique among all living things. But where does our creativity come from, how does it work, and how can we harness it to improve our lives, schools, businesses, and institutions? Eagleman and Brandt examine hundreds of examples of human creativity through dramatic storytelling and stunning images in this beautiful, full–color volume. By drawing out what creative acts have in common and viewing them through the lens of cutting–edge neuroscience, they uncover the essential elements of this critical human ability, and encourage a more creative future for all of us. “The Runaway Species approach[es] creativity scientifically but sensitively, feeling its roots without pulling them out.” —The Economist




The Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship


Book Description

Creativity can be viewed as the first stage of the overall innovation process, an important dimension of the entrepreneurship and new venture creation processes, and as such, it is considered to be a cornerstone of organizational competitiveness in this global, knowledge-based economy. Research on creativity has increasingly become multilevel, with most work conducted at the individual or team level of analysis. At the same time, there is a large body of research being conducted at the organizational level of analysis on innovation, and there has been a significant amount of entrepreneurship research at the individual level, with an increasing focus on organizational entrepreneurship. However, these three research streams have developed independently, and there has been very little knowledge transfer between the three areas. Because entrepreneurship is often said to be a process that is required to convert innovation into business ventures that will deliver benefits to stakeholders, it is typically driven by an individual or small group of individuals. Creativity research, innovation research, and entrepreneurship research have the potential to inform each other, enriching our knowledge of each area, particularly with regard to the cognitive processes and behaviors that are most effective. This Handbook includes contributions from the leading scholars in these three research areas, who integrate contemporary research findings on organizational creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship and provide fruitful new research directions."