An Alternative Creative Scale

By the time I arrived sweaty, frenzied, and late on this final day of production, MD was already at the tail end of asking everyone where they found themselves on Adam Grant’s Creative Process scale. If you’re not already familiar, the six stages of the creative process according to Adam Grant are:

1. This is awesome.
2. This is tricky/hard.
3. This is shit.
4. I’m shit.
5. This might be ok!
6. This is awesome!

⬆Makes sense.

Re: prototype, I found myself at 2. Re: general start of the day, more like 4.

4 because well..you know….

2 because…while I’ve believed in our concept since the moment Haydar Tastan prefaced it with “It’s political,” our narrative and plans for execution have changed every single day this week and sometimes multiple times in one day.

Wiser, more experienced voices tell me this is all perfectly normal but my entire body aches from whiplash. I’m hanging on by the grace and silver needles of a Chinese auntie acupuncturist at Barbarossaplatz and everything I’ve ever learned about “anicca, anicca, anicca.”

Based on the ebb and flow of this hackathon-like journey to build an AR prototype, I have made some(what) scientific observations about Team Pandora and modestly propose an alternative four-stage creative process complete with demos below. It can be approached from any stage or direction, collaged, remixed, and used in tandem with however many other models you’d like.

Pandora’s Box in Box Creative Process in 4 Stages

• Hall-Pacing as Creative Process ⬇

Haydar Tastan by me

• Chair-Dancing as Creative Process ⬇

Me by Haydar Tastan

• Demurely-Mindfully-Beard-Stroking as Creative Process ⬇

Thanussayan Karunakaran selfie

• And our classroom classic…Body-Storming as Creative Process ⬇

Where do you find your body in journey?

Ultimately, for me, the creative process is a whole-body reminder of aliveness. Like every encounter I’ve ever had with a damn good work of art, intentional creation makes me buzz head to toe, hands to heart, with the doing and feeling of the world.

Does any of this resonate with you?

I always want to hear how others creatively process the stormy days.

We are a damn near perfect storm and no one can convince me otherwise.

Final call on final production day.

Dojiang here, providing one perspective on the process for Team Pandora (Haydar, Thanu + me)