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News Release FACULTY NEWS RELEASE / Aug. 1, 2008 New Book Assesses Creative Strategies of Boise State Football Team, Local Organizations Why are some organizations more creative than others? What distinguishes innovative, high-performing organizations apart? Can creativity and innovation be learned and enhanced? The answer to the last question is a resounding yes, according to creativity experts Nancy Napier and Mikael Nilsson, who co-wrote “The Creative Discipline: Mastering the Art and Science of Innovation,” just released by Praeger Publishing. Napier is a professor of international business and executive director of the Centre for Creativity and Innovation at Boise State University. Nilsson is program manager at the Knowledge Foundation, which focuses on driving Swedish competitiveness through development of knowledge and competence. As part of Napier’s research for the book, she studied the creative tactics used by the Boise State football team, along with Boise-based Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Healthwise and ProClarity (now Microsoft), looking for common practices and strategies that led to success across very different organizations. In today’s economic climate, fostering creativity couldn’t be more important. Napier and Nilsson illustrate six key factors that power creative, high-achieving organizations, and they provide managers with guidelines for incorporating those factors into their own companies. “Napier and Nilsson’s book addresses new and changing systems in a world that needs to change,” said Healther Rae, recipient of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for dramatic film and producer of “Out of the Blue,” a film about life and football at Boise State University. “I love the analogies they use, like football and the circus. These are two forms you don’t imagine in the same room, yet Napier and Nilsson neatly fit them into the conceptual intrigue of their book.” Caleb Chung, inventor of the toy dinosaur Pleo and co-inventor of Furby, also endorsed the book. “Napier and Nilsson have carefully de-constructed the magic of innovation, then go on to lay out a disciplined and structured approach for re-creating it,” he said. More information about the book can be found at www.greenwood.com/catalog/C9884.aspx -30- Media Contact: Sherry Squires, University Communications, (208) 426-1563, ssquires@boisestate.edu Boise State University is emerging as a metropolitan research university of distinction. This transformation is being powered by the university’s first comprehensive campaign to support its people, places and programs. That’s why the campaign to raise $175 million in private support is called Destination Distinction.
Last reviewed on Wednesday, September 03, 2008
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