“Comedy loosens the brain. It generates creativity. There’s something physiologically that happens in our brains. We stop thinking linearly and start thinking non-linearly when we hear jokes, when we try to tell jokes.” Courtney Bickert
And now for something different….To solve today’s most intractable problems – from climate change to inequality to combating terrorism and corruption – as well as business challenges, we need the most creative ideas we can find, figure out how to do them, and then find ways to implement them.
So, when I met my guest today, I knew I needed to introduce you to her. Listen to my interview with Courtney Bickert, social innovator and comedienne, with her thoroughly different take on how to do social innovation.
You’ll hear:
- How you can use comedy to drive social innovation in a large organization.
- The connection between the Innovators’ DNA and comedy.
- Your brain on comedy.
- Why improvisational comedians came up with 20% more new ideas, and those rated 25% more creative, than professional product designers in a recent study.
“For me, what’s really important is to find, is what is it that you’re really good at…and then fitting that into where you can do good. That can be in a company… in a for-profit setting,… in a nonprofit setting…in your neighborhood…build on what you’re good at.” Courtney Bickert
You can read Joan’s blog about comedy and innovation in Forbes too.
You’ll also want to listen to:
- Deborah Rutter, President, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, on managing creative people.
- Ingrid Daubechies, “Genius” awardee, Duke University professor, whose work you probably use every day.
- Angela Duckworth, Author of “Grit: The power of passion and perseverance,” TED Talk superstar, and Univ. of Pennsylvania professor.
- Angela Dutton, “Genius” awardee, and sea-level rise “detective.”
- Hire the Outliers: What Else We Can Learn From Megan Rapinoe”: my Forbes blog on hiring for creativity and innovation.
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