We are not just firm believers in Ken Robinson’s school of thought, but we have experienced it ourselves - working with and supporting many organizations and their professionals and managers who struggle in this area. There is a huge gap in the skills for design thinking, creative problem solving, and critical thinking that could have been addressed if children got a firm foundation in creativity and innovation from as early as primary school.

These skills are required to transform every industry and sector of our society and CANNOT continue to be the exclusive preserve of lab rats and geeks or product developers holed up in creativity chambers in our various institutions. In fact, if schools kill creativity, then our workplaces bury creativity and throw away the keys to the grave. It is critical to transform all our people into arrow heads of creativity and innovation if we are to achieve the African renaissance of our dreams and we need to start really early if we are to make progress, considering how Ken Robinson and other researchers have demonstrated how creativity skills decline drastically as we get older.

Creativity and innovation are about people working together to clarify their challenges, problems and opportunities, then identifying as many options and solutions as possible to overcome them, and then refining these ideas into workable solutions that can be implemented to add value to themselves and society. It is not about the creative arts of writing, singing, art or entertainment or even about information technology and inventions alone. While these are products of creativity and innovation, we find that the best application of creativity and innovation is in everyday creative problem solving.

It is the skills and behaviours for creative problem solving made popular by IDEO - reputed to be the most creative company in the world that form the basis for the Spark Board Game that teaches children, young adults and people of every age the skills to CLARIFY, IDEATE, DEVELOP and IMPLEMENT that are at the heart of creativity and innovation. The game also explores foundational principles in creativity and innovation in a fun and engaging manner.

The Stories that Spark Creativity Book is a compilation of stories targeted at children from 7-12 years to teach them some of the behaviours and attitudes that drive creativity and innovation - embracing ambiguity, embracing failure, an ability to think differently and disruptively and like “there is no box” amongst others. In our usual style, the stories are set in African countries with a rich context and content to which our African audiences can relate.

Then we have the 110 Tips to Spark Creativity which is an illustrated coffee-table book with tips and ideas on how to think and act creatively that encompasses the creative problem-solving framework and some of the important principles of creativity and innovation.

These resources are available to individuals, families, schools and organizations and can serve multiple purposes. For example, they will make great gifts to children on their birthdays or as they celebrate other significant events in their lives; schools can purchase them for their libraries or partner with us to deploy them as part of a Co-Curricular or After School Program or as gifts at their year-end graduation activities; they can also be deployed by Corporate Organizations and Non-Government Organizations seeking to make Corporate Social Investments related to creativity and innovation (including the opportunity to co-brand the resources to reflect your corporate identity).

If you will like to place an order for any of these resources as an individual, you can CLICK HERE to make a purchase directly from the Be Better Books website. If you will like to explore any of the opportunities for deploying the resources in your school or as a Corporate Social Investment, or if you want to make further enquiries regarding these resources, please complete the form below. You may also call us on 0805 195 3276 to speak to one of our Life Skills Experts directly.