EdBlog: Advocating for Imagination by Scott Noppe-Brandon

EdBlog: Advocating for Imagination by Scott Noppe-Brandon


 The point is that when you, as an advocate, speak about the benefits of the skill to imagine, communicate on your audience’s terms—that is, talk policy with government agents, discuss curricula with educators, zero in on efficiency and profit maximization with businesspeople, and so forth. You will not galvanize others about imagination until you demonstrate vividly to them how it impacts their particular domains. A terrific example of this (although I may be biased) is Lincoln Center Institute’s Imagination Conversation project, an ongoing series of public panel discussions.

Take, for instance, a Conversation hosted by Colorado Creative Industries this past October at the beautiful Denver Botanic Gardens. The panelists— Dr. Arthur Jones, Professor of Culture and Psychology at The Women’s College of Denver University; Lara Merriken, Founder and Creative Director for Humm Foods, maker of the LÄRABAR; novelist David Milofsky; and Dr. David Slayden, Executive Director of Boulder Digital Works at the University of Colorado at Boulder—all spoke in colorful detail about how imagination fuels their working lives. A diverse audience (which must have contained some skeptics) learned firsthand that imagination plays a central role in the realms of technology, literature, entrepreneurship, and contemporary culture. Several elements of the Conversation make it a paradigmatic success story: the public forum; the unabashed focus on imagination; the primary human evidence of imagination’s power.

Stay informed by keeping up with Lincoln Center Institute’s Imagination Now blog and other related Web sites. Introduce your book club to Imagination First or Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit (2006).