Creativity arises from a set of mental tools, and Picasso’s genes are not required.
“SCAMPER” is a mnemonic learning device that can prepare your brain for creative thinking for everything from your biology lab homework to your a senior thesis.
Like every tool, it has a specific use — to improve or repair something that already exists.
SCAMPER is simply a series of questions:
What can I …
Substitute?
Combine?
Adapt?
Magnify?
Put to other use?
Eliminate?
Rearrange?
The progression from wristwatch to cellphone makes a good example. The crystal that used keep time in old watches was substituted for a digital chip, and then the phone took it further. It keeps time automatically by a cell tower’s signal.
Then, the phone was combined with a camera, calendar, alarm clock and Scrabble and — need I go on? The cellphone is now capable of many more thingsmuch more than simply keeping time.
We started texting, and the nine number keypads were adapted to the QWERTY keypad.
Screens were magnified as we began to use phones to play games and watch movies.
Lit keys and screens cast a few inches of glow so we put our phones to other use as flashlights.
As screens grew, keys shrank and were eliminated on many phones, replaced by touchscreens.
Finally, the flip phone was rearranged into a slide-screen model., introducing an entirely new way to view the cell phone.
SCAMPER in process.
I’m writing this column for rawr right now, so I’ll use it to show SCAMPER in process.
First, I could substitute the lead I used, for one like this:
“I used SCAMPER to write this column.
You could cook lunch, do homework and plan an activity with SCAMPER. You could use it to get organized, and bust through writer’s block.”
Or, I could use a combination of the two leads:
“You don’t have to be Hemmingway to write a great article — use SCAMPER.”
I could adapt this column for a class project examining the evolution of the cell phone by SCAMPER. If I did, I would need to magnify each step beyond the brief treatment it received here. I would, at the same time, be putting this column to another use.
I could eliminate extra words to tighten the writing. And might my examples be rearranged?
SCAMPER pulls the brain from its habits and forces it to take a different look at an idea or object. Watch for chances to practice it — it may surprise you. It surprised me just now as I thought about how this column could be adapted.
The possibilities of “SCAMPER” don’t end with the R. Use “SCAMPER” on “SCAMPER” — what words can you substitute in? What letters can you add or change?
That is creativity.
Joanna Wilson can be reached at [email protected]