Creativity

From DMT elves, to God, to the figures in our dreams — why are humans so obsessed with the supernatural?

This scientist made an algorithm to predict which artists succeed — all without even looking at their art.

This network scientist is creating a map of the human genome, and it could revolutionize the future of healthcare.

Left–Right, Back–Forth, Up–Down. What’s the fourth dimension?

Your brain is bursting with ideas, and most of them are … weird. You only have to recall the wonderfully bonkers notions of your childhood. Like the time you wanted […]

Problem-solving skills are in demand. Every job posting lists them under must-have qualifications, and every job candidate claims to possess them, par excellence. Young entrepreneurs make solutions to social and […]

A five-year-old reading a picture book in her pillow fort. A college student and his friends at the midnight matinee. A ninety-year-old watching her soaps. What do they have in […]

Sometimes the value of soft skills feels almost secretive—like some scrap of knowledge handed down through an ancient society of corporate recruiters. Of course, that’s not the case or that’s […]

What makes something a hit or a flop? Sit and ponder that one, and you’ll find it’s a stumper. At first, the answer seems obvious: popularity. That’s not quite right […]

For many, 2020 will not be remembered as a “best of” much. We don’t need to repeat the reasons here; it’s sufficient to point out that a 100-year pandemic was […]

Quick! There’s a runaway train on the tracks. Some dastardly evildoer has knocked the driver out cold and tied five people to the tracks ahead. The train is barreling down […]

Writers, filmmakers, and mythologizing biographers tend to imagine innovation originates with a lone genius who has “the spark,” that light-bulb moment when the path from inspiration to world-altering invention reveals […]

Every organization needs the capacity to generate disruptive ideas. No one can afford to stand still and pretend that past habits will guarantee future success. If your organization isn’t ready […]

We love a good heist movie, but our favorite part is not the caper. It’s building the team.  The brilliant thief—just out of jail to do one more job, he […]

“You will always be looking over your shoulder waiting for somebody to call you out and say, ‘You’re a fraud, you’re an idiot.’ … I still start things and basically […]

Voltaire once wrote, “Perfect is the enemy of good.” This advice served him well over the course of his life — not being a slave to perfection enabled him to […]

During a 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs related an anecdote about an experience he had shortly after dropping out of college that conveys one of the qualities […]

Connecting with an audience, as any comic knows, means reading that audience. It’s energetic improv in real time—you need to notice who’s engaged, what’s engaging them, and build on that. […]

“Trust is so important to how we scale an idea. Without that trust, we don’t take risks. And without risk we don’t build that next big thing,” says Nilofer Merchant, […]

Social media wunderkind Baratunde Thurston says we’re living in an age of information overabundance, but that this needn’t be a problem. Just as supermarkets offer us many more choices of […]

Chairman of JetBlue Joel Peterson considers trust, “smart” trust, a key element in a successful organization. Where there’s trust, a company is free to become a whole greater than the […]

Stanley Tucci has played a lot of different roles on movie sets, both in front of and behind the camera. As a director, though, Tucci stands in the center of […]

It’s probably always been the case that each generation’s creations and preoccupations shape the next generation in unexpected ways, producing young adults who seem nearly incomprehensible to their elders, especially […]

 “Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.” In her Big Think+ video, “Empower Your People — Conversational Moves for Engaging Your Team in Creative […]

 Should you find yourself speaking to a group of people and not connecting, you’re stuck in a situation that seemingly benefits no one. For some people it seems to come […]

 “Doing any sort of creative work takes so much intellectual tussle that if there’s any way you can escape from it, you will.” So says Tina Brown, founder of the […]

 After his breakout performance as Breaking Bad’s Walter White — and after playing dad Hal in Malcolm in the Middle — it might seem that Bryan Cranston’s always been as […]

 The way in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Sherlock Holmes solves even the most challenging of mysteries is more than just dazzling fun. In fact, says Maria Konnikova, author […]

 “There is a kind of whispering campaign — more than a whispering campaign, sometimes a yelling campaign — against the value of objective truth.” So says biologist and author Richard […]

 Peer pressure is a powerful thing, even for adults. In his Big Think+ video, “Generate Better Conversations,” economist Tim Harford tells the story of an instructive study done in the […]