One year ago this month I started this column on creativity, so it seems appropriate to end on an article devoted to workshops, websites, and other sources to help you carry on in your exploration into the creative world, both professionally and personally. I would like to thank Sabrina Pacifici for allowing me the space to indulge in one of my favorite subjects. LLRX has been a wealth of information to me, so I am happy to have been able to pay a little back to the community.

Websites

• CreatingMinds Some articles and links, but this website is mostly about creativity tools. Lots of useful exercises and methodologies for tapping the creative vein.
• Creativity at Work: The interplay of business, art and science A Vancouver company that consults, coaches, and trains organizations to use innovative methods to enhance performance. The company’s “focus is on leadership development, creativity, collaboration, and cultivating environments that foster innovation.” Their site has plenty of articles and a free, monthly newsletter that you can receive by email.
• InnovationTools This website is a directory of “business innovation, creativity and brainstorming” tools. Here you can find links to articles, white papers, discussion forums, books, software, and many more resources for utilizing creativity in business.

Books

• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron As people who know me will tell you, this is my most highly recommended book on creativity. It takes you through a 12-week course to recover your creative self. Chock full of great exercises and insight, The Artist’s Way can really put to rest those fears of not being good enough or not being worthy enough of being a creative being.
• The Big Book of Creativity Games: Quick, Fun Activities for Jumpstarting Innovation by Robert Epstein “For work groups and individuals who do creative work, here is a light-hearted book of games that are based on rigorous creativity research, not just hype. Written by Robert Epstein, Editor-in-Chief of Psychology Today magazine and a Harvard-trained psychologist, all the exercises in this collection are based on Dr. Epstein’s groundbreaking scientific research on the nature of the creative process. The Big Book of Creativity Games includes dozens of fast, simple games that foster and encourage creativity in the workplace and at home.”

Workshops

• Creativity Workshop “Since 1993, the Creativity Workshop has been teaching people ways to develop their creativity and use it in life, work, and creative expression.” Based in New York City, this organization stages 4-day workshops in Manhattan in April and May and 10-day workshops throughout Europe in the summer.
• Leadership Rice Leadership Rice is a program at Rice University in Houston, TX that is designed to “to help students discover and develop their leadership capacities by understanding how heart and mind, theory and practice, ideas and action come together to create change.” One of the program courses is the Creativity Seminar, “a collective exploration into what stimulates personal creative capacity, what tools, techniques, strategies and awareness can help foster creating at the individual level, and what environments are most likely to foster creating.” If you live in the Houston area, check to see if this course is being offered.