Creativity

I'm currently on a quest (for want of something better to do) to get a better understanding of the creative process. As always, I start by reading and learning from whatever I can get my hands on on the topic.

1. http://www.goalsys.com/books/documents/DESTRUCTION_AND_CREATION.pdf.This article is just mind blowing stuff. It's one of the few known articles by an ex-fighter pilot known as John Boyd. Boyd was an extremely interesting character. He was legendary as a fighter pilot known as 40-second Boyd. The reason for this moniker being that he could beat any fighter pilot in a dogfight in 40 seconds or less. Jockness aside, Boyd also developed the Energy-Manueverability (E-M) theory that revolutionized air combat and fighter aircraft design for the American military. Somewhere along the way, Boyd started thinking about the creative process.
2. "Borrowing Brilliance: David Kord Murray" Murray states that innovation and creativity is really the use of existing ideas, but combined in a unique way to solve a specific problem. The process starts by gaining a good understanding of the problem from many dimensions. Murray is also a good storyteller making this book an enjoyable read too.
3. Ken Robinson's talk at the 2006 TED conference, titled "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity"
4. "Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention", Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Mihaly is a psychologist who has studied the creative process for decades and came up with a theory called Flow to explain how individuals are able to unleash their creative side. A very interesting read.