Creativity, Collaboration, and Entrepreneurship at CBS

Since Ziyu and I have been here, we have both participated in focus groups or brainstorming activities for startups run by CBS students. These events are striking for several reasons and are reflective of the culture of collaboration at CBS. They are also interesting because I can't imagine Americans being so willing to help other people come up with ideas to improve their companies.

On Monday night, I attended a particularly interesting event like this. My friend Mads is interested in facilitating creative sessions as a careers. To get practice doing this, he and his friend Peter have started a group that meets once a month to help startups with challenges they are facing.

In addition to our hosts and the guy whose startup we were helping, there were 12 other people, including me. We all had some interest in creativity and the group included architects, designers, and students. We started out by hearing a presentation about the startup and the issues they are facing.

We then did a brainstorming exercise which we used as the basis for another activity to think divergently about the company’s problem. We took a break and had time to socialize and have some snacks while the facilitators and startup owner looked at what we had come up with so far and sorted our ideas for the next activity. I appreciated having this break and the chance to network and talk with the other participants. That was one of the ways that this meeting was win/win for everyone involved: I had fun doing the creative activities, but I also really liked the other people there and enjoyed having time to socialize with them.

After the break, we did another activity to come up with a concrete idea for how the company could expand their reach. We ended by doing short presentations and having the startup owner ask us questions about our plan.

In the end, everyone benefited. Mads and Peter got experience facilitating creative activities, the startup owner got new ideas, and the rest of us got a fun, creative challenge as well as the opportunity to meet similar people.

This sort of thing happens a lot around CBS and I appreciate the spirit of collaboration and cooperation. I think that Americans are less likely to do something like this because they would be suspicious of giving someone else ideas that might be monetized. I can understand that impulse, but I also appreciate the desire to help and see other people succeed while gaining personal experience in other ways.