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Roger Lee

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How can we use awkward pauses (which could be good) to generate creativity?

Stefon Harris's presentation, for me, was a revelation about the inhibitor of creativity, which is the fear of making a mistake. I think this is the dominant model where children loses their courage to be creative, especially in Asian culture where there is a mental disease of The One True Way of doing things.

In my presentations, I realize I have been interrupted by other people's cell phones a few times. Looking back on it, I react badly by calling attention to the person rather than being mentally flexible and use those unwanted and unplanned interruption as a way to re-engage the audience after the mental break off.

My idea is to ask TEDsters to contribute a list of professional interruptions or professional "mistakes" and how we can use those awkward pauses (which could be good) to generate creativity?

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Topics: creativity
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    Paul Blake

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    Dec 15 2011: My philosophy professor anecdotally pointed out that there is a growing fad amongst job interviewers to purposefully create awkward pauses during interviews. The objective is to have a measure, albeit a subjective one, of how confident the candidate is.

    I wonder if this could be expanded to see if there is a creative or unique way that the candidates would respond to such pauses?

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