Creator Studio Tutorial

Creator Studio Creative Thinking and Innovation Software

Use Creator Studio™ software to provoke new thinking and new ideas, and to apply them to creative problem solving, to create new solutions, inventions and innovations.

Creator Studio may be used by individuals or teams, small businesses, large corporations and organizations to achieve the most challenging goals.

Creator Studio can also serve as a foundation and catalyst for building and growing a creative thinking and innovation culture throughout a company or organization.

Getting a Fast Start with Creator Studio

This Tutorial is for Creator Studio PC App, Windows Desktop and Notebook version. Please bookmark this web page now for future reference. After you have Creator Studio installed, visit this web page and refer to the information below while your becoming familiar with Creator Studio.

The fast way to get started with Creator Studio is to take a few minutes to become familiar with its features and how to use them.

Creativity Studios of Creator Studio

Creator Studio offers a variety of Creativity Studios. Each Studio is specialized for achieving a specific type of creative thinking task and composed of a select group of Creativity Tools that are specially designed to stimulate thinking and provoke ideas. Creator Studio Includes the following Studios:

Achievement Studio
The Achievement Studio is used when there is a specific goal to be reached.

Block Buster Studio
The Block Buster Studio may be used to get creative thinking started when it seems to be blocked or impossible.

Blue Sky Studio
The Blue Sky Studio may be used to get creative thinking started. Or it may be used when there is not a specific goal to work toward.

Design Studio
The Design Studio may be used for a design that requires a creative approach.

Improvement Studio
The Improvement Studio may be used to improve something such as a product, process, service or system.

Invention Studio
The Invention Studio may be used to invent something new such as a product, process, service or system.

Opportunity Studio
The Opportunity Studio may be used to take advantage of a new opportunity or proposal that has been made available to you.

Problem Studio
The Problem Studio may be used to solve a problem that requires a creative solution.

Project Studio
The Project Studio may be used to employ creative thinking to find a better method for completing a project.

Task Studio
The Task Studio may be used to complete a task that requires a creative method.

Focus Writing for Creator Studio

The Focus is the subject of the creative effort. The Focus states the purpose or goal of the thinking. The Focus may be broad, narrow or somewhere in between. Stating the Focus clearly is very important because it can influence the direction of the thinking in the session. Before starting a Creator Studio session, it may be useful to describe the Focus in several alternate ways in order to develop one description that most accurately states the desired Focus. Below are some examples of how to write the Focus for a Creator Studio session. Please modify and expand on these examples as needed for use in your Creator Studio sessions:

Achievement Studio

How can we achieve our _ _ _ _ _ fund raising goal?

What can be done to achieve major market share with our _ _ _ _ _ product?

Block Buster Studio

Where do we begin with the challenge of _ _ _ _ _?

How can people be motivated to participate in the _ _ _ _ _ program?

Blue Sky Studio

What are some great ideas for new _ _ _ _ _ products?

Think of ideas for a new clothing line for _ _ _ _ _.

Design Studio

How can the _ _ _ _ _ be designed to make optimum use of the space available?

How can we redesign our _ _ _ _ _ to utilize renewable energy resources and remain cost effective with competing alternatives?

Improvement Studio

What can be done to improve our _ _ _ _ _ ?

How can the _ _ _ _ _ be improved?

Invention Studio

Invent a new way to _ _ _ _ _ .

Invent a new way to solve the problem of _ _ _ _ _ .

Opportunity Studio

How can we take advantage of the new _ _ _ _ _ opportunity offered to us today?

How can we help our customers benefit from the recently approved _ _ _ _ _ regulations?

Problem Studio

What can be done to solve the _ _ _ _ _ problem?

How can the _ _ _ _ _ problem be corrected?

How can we eliminate our _ _ _ _ _ bottle neck?

Project Studio

How can we complete the _ _ _ _ _ project ahead of schedule?

What can be done to stay within budget on the _ _ _ _ _ project?

Task Studio

How can I finish the _ _ _ _ _ task this week?

Think of new ideas for promoting the _ _ _ _ _ campaign this year.

Using Creator Studio

A Positive Open Mind
To make the best use of Creator Studio and its Provocative thinking methods a person needs a positive open minded attitude toward creative thinking. An attitude that applies the following convictions.

When doing creative thinking I will:
· Postpone evaluating and passing judgment on my ideas until a later time.
· Create ideas and record them, whatever they may be.
· Recognize my ideas as possible solutions or stepping stones to possible solutions.
· Recognize that any solution I think of may be just one among many possible solutions.
· Shift my perspective repeatedly to create new ideas and explore alternative possible solutions.

This positive open minded attitude frees the mind to create ideas and explore ideas without the burden of being practical at the same time. The time for evaluating and judging ideas, and for being practical is after the creative thinking has been done.

Individual Use
Creator Studio will guide you through your creative thinking and innovation session step by step, as you interact with the Creativity Tools, creating new ideas, solving problems and innovating to achieve your desired goal.

To begin a Creator Studio session, start Creator Studio, the Creator Studio main window will be displayed. Click the Studios menu, from the list of specialized Creativity Studios select the studio that best fits the type of creativity task you want to work on. The studio you selected will activate and the Focus tool will be displayed.

Using the Focus Tool
Type the Focus for your new Creativity Session into the Focus window. Click the Next button. The first creativity tool of the studio will appear.

Using a Creativity Tool
Click the Load Prompt/Save Idea button. The Focus statement that you entered earlier will be displayed and a Creativity Prompt will be displayed.

Responding To Creativity Prompts
When responding to the Creativity Prompts give each one your best effort. This is where the creative thinking is taking place and the results produced will be worth the extra effort.

Creative Thinking Exercises
The Creativity prompt will display a creative thinking exercise. With a positive open minded attitude toward creative thinking, read the Focus and the Creativity prompt. Now begin the creative thinking exercise suggested by the Creativity prompt: pause and think, contemplate and reflect, allowing your thoughts to flow while they repeatedly shift your perspective, provoking new thinking and potential solutions.

After giving the creative thinking exercise your best effort, type your ideas into the Idea window.

Click the Load Prompt/Save Idea button. The ideas you typed in will be displayed in the Idea List window for your review. The next creativity prompt will be displayed in the Creativity prompt window.

Repeat the steps above until the Creativity prompt window displays the message There are no more creativity prompts in this tool. Please click Next.

Click the Next button. The next tool in the studio will appear.

Sorting Tool
The Sorting Tool is used in making a preliminary evaluation of the ideas created during the creativity session and to provide some order to them. The ideas are sorted to facilitate reviewing and working with the ideas after the session. The ideas are reviewed one at a time and sorted into predefined categories.

An idea may be placed in one of the following categories:
· The Action Idea category is for ideas that are complete and ready to be placed into action.
· The Needs Work category is for ideas that are not satisfactory in their current state and need more work before they are ready to be placed into action.
· The New Focus category is for ideas that may be used in the future as the Focus for a new creativity session.
· The Unusable category is for ideas that do not currently appear to be usable in any way.

Using the Sorting Tool
Click the Load Idea button. The Focus for the current session will be displayed in the Focus window and an idea from the current session will be displayed in the Idea to sort window.

Click one of the buttons in the Idea Categories frame. The idea currently displayed in the Idea to sort window will be saved to the category indicated on the button you clicked.

Repeat the steps above until the Idea to sort window displays the message All of the Ideas of this session have been displayed. Please click Finish.

Click the Finish button. This concludes the current session. The Session Ideas List window will appear and display the results of the session.

Session Ideas List
At the end of a creativity session the Session Ideas List displays the ideas that were entered during the session for your review and editing. As you review the Session Ideas List more new ideas may come to mind. Type your new ideas into the Session Ideas List window under the appropriate category. You may also use your favorite word processor application for further processing of the Session Ideas List. You can save your work on your computer's hard drive or server, share a printed copy in meetings and use your favorite email application or enterprise social networking web app such as Basecamp or Yammer to share your ideas with your team locally and or worldwide.

If you would like to create more ideas you may:
· Start a new session using the previous Studio with the previous Focus stated in an alternate way.
· Start a new session using one of the other Studios with the previous Focus.
· If one or more New Focuses were created in the previous session, you may start a new session using a Focus from the New Focus category of the Session Ideas List and the previous Studio or one of the other Studios.

Team Use
A team can use Creator Studio to combine and enhance their efforts to create new ideas, solve problems, invent, and innovate for the projects they work on using the following methods:

Teams of any size may collaborate sharing ideas from their Creator Studio sessions and manage their creative thinking and innovation projects, using an enterprise social networking web app such as Basecamp or Yammer. Very small teams may only require email to collaborate effectively.

The company CEO or other authorized executive may select an Innovation Team Leader from the executive team or other upper level management personnel (preferably the Innovation Officer). The Innovation Team Leader should manage Innovation Projects, coordinate the efforts of the Innovation Team and report the Innovation Teams ideas back to the executive team for evaluation and implementation.

An executive level meeting should be held (local, teleconference or virtual conference) and attended by the CEO, all other executive team members and the Innovation Team Leader, to identify the challenging situation the Innovation Team will Focus their Creator Studio sessions on. In this meeting the executive team should write a First Draft description of the Focus. Then they should describe the Focus in several alternate ways in order to develop one Final description that most accurately states the Focus. The Innovation Team will work on this Focus.

The Innovation Team Leader should select candidates for an Innovation Team and invite them to join. The Innovation Team may include any required personnel, locally, nationally or globally, such as company executives, managers, supervisors and other key personnel. The Innovation Team Leader should contact each of the Innovation Team members (using Basecamp, Yammer, email or similar) and provide the team with the Focus, background information on the Focus, the due date for this task and any other instructions.

Each Innovation Team member should work independently, using Creator Studio Creative Thinking and Innovation software to provoke new thinking and new ideas, and to apply them to creative problem solving, to create ideas for potential solutions to the Focus. Each individual Innovation Team member should compile a separate Creator Studio Session Report which contains a list of their ideas for potential solutions to the Focus. Then forward the Creator Studio Session Report (using Basecamp, Yammer, email or similar) to the Innovation Team Leader.

The Innovation Team Leader should compile each of the Creator Studio Session Reports, in their raw (unmodified) format, into a Master Creator Studio Session Report which should be presented to the executive team.

The CEO along with the rest of the executive team should meet to review the Master Creator Studio Session Report. They should discuss and evaluate each of the ideas and their potential solution to the Focus. Then decide which ideas are ready to put into action in their current form, which ideas need further development, how to develop the ideas further and how to put the best idea(s) into practice.

As the meeting progresses a plan should be developed to put the selected best idea(s) into practice, with tasks and goals assigned to executive team members to carry out this action.

Obtaining The Best Results with Creator Studio
For obtaining the best results with Creator Studio, we recommend a thorough review of the help files before starting your first creativity session. This will allow you to become familiar with the creative thinking methods employed by Creator Studio and how the creativity tools and other components operate. You can access the help files by clicking Help on the menu bar, then click Help Topics, then select Menus, Studios or Components. You can also access the help files at any time during a creativity session by pressing the F1 key on your keyboard.

Creator Studio business innovation software may be used by individuals and teams, small and medium size businesses, large corporations and organizations, and it may be applied to any goals.

Just one New Innovation could easily be worth many times more than your investment to provide Creator Studio to your entire team. Creator Studio is Free to try.

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