Cleverlands: Equip Yourself for the Age of Creativity

by Laura Jordan Bambach, Daniele Fiandaca

Do you remember what it was like to be a child? A time when your imagination would run rife and it was easy to imagine yourself as a superhero? What was your superpower? Flying at the speed of light, X-ray vision, invisibility or the ability to turn your brussels sprouts into ice cream?

In Creative Superpowers, we have assembled some of the world’s creative leaders to bring to life the modern skillset for creative problem-solving. It will help you re-learn key traits often forgotten from childhood, such as adaptability, curiosity, empathy and fearlessness; the superpowers of Hacking, Making, Teaching and Thieving.

The book includes contributions from architects, CEOs, creative directors, culture hackers, educators, fashion designers, marketers, musicians, storytellers and many more. People who will show you how hacking helps you tackle problems in different ways, how making opens up new parts of your brain, how teaching yourself and others consolidates experience in a fast-paced world and how looking to what already exists is a brilliant tool for solving problems.

Expect to come away inspired to use your newly learned creative superpowers to thrive in the Age of Creativity. The cape is optional.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Creative

256 pages, Hardcover

Published January 5, 2020

Reviews

[Vladimir Slaykovsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for a set of actionable advices that resonate with the intuition about the nature of creativeness

[Michael Huang]

The book discusses a number of aspects of creativity that we may have misconceptions about.

- creativity isn’t about being original, but about adding value. Most of the creative solutions apply existing ideas in a different twist to solve problems.

- sometimes it’s important to let ideas go before the right one settles. (This is not easily actionable for yourself. You may need others’ help).

- sleep and distractions are helpful. Creativity is often about serendipity not self-conscious effort.

- studies have shown that people are more creative after boredom compared to control group.

- taking a walk and be attentive to things around you is a common technique adopted by many creative thinkers.

[Elle Whiteley · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you feel like you need a super booster injection of creativity - this is the book for you. Ever wondered how you can harness your inner Creative Superpowers...yep me too, well look no further, beautifully written and expertly curated, each chapter offers you a practical strategy to achieve all that you can with creativity we all possess, but sometimes just need help finding. To be honest this is a must read for anyone and everyone wanting to take themselves to the next level.

[Shannon Cattley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting one, a few really innovative stories here amongst some other basic entrepreneurial type hype. Overall an easy read and anyone would be able to skip through this and gain some insight or other.
I especially like the actionable exercises at the back, and the ideas about hacking, copying and blending from history.

[Zoidberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. The last essay on abstraction was the most professionally useful piece that I’ve read all year. This is one I’ll be returning to just for the exercises in the back. Maker hacker teacher thief.

[Rebecca Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the Thief chapter, especially the Yakobs’ essay at the end.

[Chico Hindarto · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book gives alternative creative avenues.

[Felipe CZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

By collaborating with others, you can be more creative, and even by being bored. If we look around, we can find something to spark creativity anytime.

[Madison Jasso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creative superpowers by Laura Jordan Bambach is about how to gain more creativity rather than knowledge. She states that knowledge is becoming useless and creativity is becoming more useful in the modern day. The big takeaway from this book is advice on how to become more creative. You can do this by taking a walk and becoming more aware of your surroundings, and having a semi messy desk space. I would recommend this book to anyone who has either writers block or an artists block of some sorts, because it not only gives advice on how to be more creative but also gives good examples of famous people and ideas from the past that gave this advice.

[Rich B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bunch of different perspectives on what it takes to be creative.

There are definitely some interesting case studies and points of view in here from many different backgrounds. But there's also some that are a bit more pretentious and lack substance. The one which claimed young people were wiser than old people for example seemed a bit generalised and didn't I think make the point it was trying to make.

As a series of articles around the theme of creativity, it was a decent read overall, but not sure anyone would walk away 'equipped for the age of creativity' either.

[Michelle G · Rating 4 out of 5]

i feel like this is a really good book,i learned alot that I didnt know .an example it said in the book about creativity is creativity is not abut originality ,creativity is about being able to take two things that already exist and make something diffrent having your sesnses open,it talks abot how your creativity works better if yo stop trying,on ramdomness,boredom and messes .