Testimonials
Carissa Carter
"Carissa is outstanding at leading teams and working with customers. Her Creative Explosion sessions with customers were always engaging entertaining, and valuable. Her enthusiasm and energy is contagious.”-Tom Granzow, Associate Director of R&D, Advanced Concepts at Stryker Medical
"Carissa has been enormously helpful in the early stages of our company. Carissa was referred to me through a mutual friend, and she came in very very early to interview customers and develop insights for design elements needed to win our target customers. I can honestly say that Carissa has provided insights not only in understanding various patterns/behaviors of our customer, but also recommending specific/actionable design innovations we wouldn't have thought of otherwise."
-Rich Menendez, CEO Workshop Cafe
Is it ever too late to be creative?
Posted by Carissa
I gave a presentation / workshop today to the parents of K-8 students at a school in San Francisco. We moved through several design exercises interspersed with talking, reflection, and application to their own lives and the learning experiences of their kids. At one point, the mother of a first and fourth grader said, “my first grader is easily generative and creative, but my fourth grader seems to have lost some of that spark – is it too late for her to be creative? What about me?”
**Cue vigorous shaking**
No!! It’s never too late for anyone to adopt creative practices and apply them successfully to many aspects of their lives. Creativity comes naturally to youngsters who are encouraged to wonder, question, explore, and experiment. Facets of our culture and educational system subdue these pursuits in a large majority of us, leading many adults to believe that creativity is cut and dry, either / or, have or have not. I disagree.
Creativity is a learned, rigorous process. It’s not easy, and it needs to be practiced. Many of us took calculus in high school. We took tests in calculus and passed (usually). How many of us could pass that calculus test today? With no practice? Not me.
You see my point. We all have creative ability baked in us, but we need to nurture, activate, and use it to bring it out and use it successful in our lives and work.