Fredrik Härén's Blog, page 22
May 5, 2022
Start New Chapters. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 119)
Last week, I moved from Singapore to Sweden after having lived in Asia since 2005.
We moved for many reasons:
– To be closer to my old mother.
– To give the kids a dose of Swedish culture and language.
– To spend more time on our island, etc.
But having lived here in Stockholm for a few days I realised that there was one more reason we did the move:
– To start a new chapter in our lives.
As an author, I know the power of chapters.
They keep the story moving forward while at the same time introducing some new aspects to it.
In just a few days in Sweden, I already feel that the amount of new inspiration, ideas, and reflections have been something like ten or twenty times higher than had I lived the same days in Singapore.
I do not mean that in any way negatively about Singapore (Singapore is an amazing place and we plan to move back there again).
I mean it from the perspective of realising that living for a few more days in the same place I had lived for years would not have ignited my creativity in the same way this move did.
We should start more new chapters in our lives.
It makes the story of our lives a more interesting one.
What new chapter are you going to write in your life?
Whatever it will be I am sure it will trigger a lot of new ideas. It sure did for me.
Keep exploring. Keep developing your creativity.
Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer, now exploring the world of creativity with Sweden as my base for a while.
The post Start New Chapters. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 119) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
Start New Chapters (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 119)
Last week, I moved from Singapore to Sweden after having lived in Asia since 2005.
We moved for many reasons:
– To be closer to my old mother.
– To give the kids a dose of Swedish culture and language.
– To spend more time on our island, etc.
But having lived here in Stockholm for a few days I realised that there was one more reason we did the move:
– To start a new chapter in our lives.
As an author, I know the power of chapters.
They keep the story moving forward while at the same time introducing some new aspects to it.
In just a few days in Sweden, I already feel that the amount of new inspiration, ideas, and reflections have been something like ten or twenty times higher than had I lived the same days in Singapore.
I do not mean that in any way negatively about Singapore (Singapore is an amazing place and we plan to move back there again).
I mean it from the perspective of realising that living for a few more days in the same place I had lived for years would not have ignited my creativity in the same way this move did.
We should start more new chapters in our lives.
It makes the story of our lives a more interesting one.
What new chapter are you going to write in your life?
Whatever it will be I am sure it will trigger a lot of new ideas. It sure did for me.
Keep exploring. Keep developing your creativity.
Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer, now exploring the world of creativity with Sweden as my base for a while.
The post Start New Chapters (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 119) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
April 13, 2022
The Woman Building a Real-Life SimCity. (The Creativity Explorer Ep. 118)
One of the most common techniques for coming up with ideas is the “What if-question”.
I want to introduce you to a more powerful version of it: The “What if-then-question”.
I learned about the power of the “What-if-then-question” from Isabell Koh.
Isabell is a user experience expert at Singapore ETH Center and she works on the Cooling Singapore project. Cooling Singapore is a research project dedicated to developing solutions to address the urban heat challenge in Singapore. They do so by building advanced computer models that can simulate changes in the urban climate (temperature, wind, humidity, thermal comfort, etc.) based on imagined changes in Singapore.
When I asked her: “So you are basically building SimCity?” she replied, “Yes, but a more practical one than the computer game.”
Isabell is part of the team creating the “Digital Urban Climate Twin” which combines many of the simulation models that exist (climate models, building energy models, traffic models, etc). The project is still in development but the goal is to soon be able to run simulations to test different ideas on how to reduce the temperature in Singapore.
They will then be able to test a wide range of questions and hypotheses such as:
“What would happen if we removed all gasoline cars on the roads of Singapore and exchanged them with electric cars?”
“What if we painted all houses in Singapore with a heat-reflective paint?”
“What if all highways in Singapore were covered by a tunnel covered by trees?”
In the near future, questions like this could be fed into the model, and out would come a projection of what the result would be.
Not just WHAT IF we did X – but also an answer: THEN Y would most likely happen.
When developing a city there are so many different things to consider: economy, environment, bio-diversity, livability, etc. Making changes can be very expensive, complicated and time-consuming.
So to be able to test ideas via a model first is crucial.
Isabell explained that one way their system will be used is to test extreme scenarios to help broaden the thinking around what could be done to make Singapore a better city to live in. Changes that could never be tested in real life.
“What if we moved all the cars underground?”
“What if we removed all the trees in Singapore?”
“What if we removed all tall buildings in Singapore?”
Again, the model will spit out the answer and that can help trigger new insights around how to build a city.
With the dramatic developments in data processing capabilities that we have seen recently, it has suddenly become possible to build models where we can test all kinds of things. Models where we do not only have to say: “What if…?” to trigger our imagination, but we can also ask “What if…?” and THEN put that question into a model to find out what would most likely happen.
From a creativity and imagination point of view, that is like night and day versus just being able to ask the “What if-question”.
What kind of questions could you have answered if you had a model built?
What kind of ideas could you develop if you just did not ask the what-if-question, but also had the possibility to have a model to answer that question?
Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer
P.S. You can read more about “Cooling Singapore” at: https://sec.ethz.ch/research/cs.html
The post The Woman Building a Real-Life SimCity. (The Creativity Explorer Ep. 118) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
The Woman Building a Real-Life SimCity (The Creativity Explorer Ep. 118)
One of the most common techniques for coming up with ideas is the “What if-question”.
I want to introduce you to a more powerful version of it: The “What if-then-question”.
I learned about the power of the “What-if-then-question” from Isabell Koh.
Isabell is a user experience expert at Singapore ETH Center and she works on the Cooling Singapore project. Cooling Singapore is a research project dedicated to developing solutions to address the urban heat challenge in Singapore. They do so by building advanced computer models that can simulate changes in the urban climate (temperature, wind, humidity, thermal comfort, etc.) based on imagined changes in Singapore.
When I asked her: “So you are basically building SimCity?” she replied, “Yes, but a more practical one than the computer game.”
Isabell is part of the team creating the “Digital Urban Climate Twin” which combines many of the simulation models that exist (climate models, building energy models, traffic models, etc). The project is still in development but the goal is to soon be able to run simulations to test different ideas on how to reduce the temperature in Singapore.
They will then be able to test a wide range of questions and hypotheses such as:
“What would happen if we removed all gasoline cars on the roads of Singapore and exchanged them with electric cars?”
“What if we painted all houses in Singapore with a heat-reflective paint?”
“What if all highways in Singapore were covered by a tunnel covered by trees?”
In the near future, questions like this could be fed into the model, and out would come a projection of what the result would be.
Not just WHAT IF we did X – but also an answer: THEN Y would most likely happen.
When developing a city there are so many different things to consider: economy, environment, bio-diversity, livability, etc. Making changes can be very expensive, complicated and time-consuming.
So to be able to test ideas via a model first is crucial.
Isabell explained that one way their system will be used is to test extreme scenarios to help broaden the thinking around what could be done to make Singapore a better city to live in. Changes that could never be tested in real life.
“What if we moved all the cars underground?”
“What if we removed all the trees in Singapore?”
“What if we removed all tall buildings in Singapore?”
Again, the model will spit out the answer and that can help trigger new insights around how to build a city.
With the dramatic developments in data processing capabilities that we have seen recently, it has suddenly become possible to build models where we can test all kinds of things. Models where we do not only have to say: “What if…?” to trigger our imagination, but we can also ask “What if…?” and THEN put that question into a model to find out what would most likely happen.
From a creativity and imagination point of view, that is like night and day versus just being able to ask the “What if-question”.
What kind of questions could you have answered if you had a model built?
What kind of ideas could you develop if you just did not ask the what-if-question, but also had the possibility to have a model to answer that question?
Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer
P.S. You can read more about “Cooling Singapore” at: https://sec.ethz.ch/research/cs.html
The post The Woman Building a Real-Life SimCity (The Creativity Explorer Ep. 118) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
April 7, 2022
Creating Visionary Trends. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 117)
Yesterday, I played my first ever game of Padel. I played it with Johan Staël von Holstein, one of the people behind Bliss Padel Club that just opened up a padel center in Singapore and soon will open another big one in Dubai.
I learned something interesting about the Padel trend from Johan.
Spain has tens of thousands of padel courts. Sweden had virtually no courts ten years ago, but now has thousands. Singapore has three.
The padel courts in Thailand and Manila are all built by Swedes. And since Johan is from Sweden, that means the courts built in Singapore are also built by a Swede.
I am sharing this because the padel explosion in Sweden –and the trend of Swedes now taking the sport to the world– is a great example of how some people see a trend before others see it.
Johan estimates that the rest of the world will see the same dramatic growth of padel players like Spain and that, recently, Sweden has seen.
The ability to see the future by noticing trends –and understanding where they will go next and reacting to them– is a skill that is very valuable for creative people.
How are you making sure that you are paying attention to the trends happening in your industry?
And how are you improving your ability to understand how these trends might develop?
One of the main reasons I enjoy traveling the world so much is that you become better at noticing different trends popping up in different parts of the world.
Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer
The post Creating Visionary Trends. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 117) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
April 3, 2022
Exploring the creativity of Europe
Europe is the continent of explorers, the land of enlightenment, and the location where some of the biggest discoveries by mankind were made.
A diverse and culturally rich continent –and a continent that for the next 18 months will be my home.
Whom should I meet?
Whom should I Interview?
Where should I go?
I am reaching out to you to help me to connect with some of the most creative people in Europe, with the most innovative companies in Europe, with the most fun conferences in Europe.
I am already booked to speak in many European countries, from small countries like Montenegro and Lithuania to big ones like Germany, and the UK in the next couple of months, but I want to go to many more places. Especially to places I have not been to yet.
Europe is what I will explore next.
What will you explore?
And what innovation project are you pursuing?
And –as always– how are you inspiring your people to be creative? Perhaps we can work together to make them even more creative.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
The post Exploring the creativity of Europe first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
March 30, 2022
The Outsider’s Insights Effect. The story of the Kebab Pizza in Sweden. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 116)
I want to share a story about pizza.
Peter Lo is a Chinese man born in India who moved to Sweden and opened a restaurant.
Learning how Swedes loved pizza and kebab he invented the “curry kebab pizza”. It became a huge success and even got featured in the press as the perfect Swedish pizza! I learned about this story from Peter Lo’s son, Andy Lo, whom I met at a conference I spoke at a few days ago.
It is a simple and positive story, and I love it for two reasons:
1) It shows that sometimes it helps to look at something from the outside.
An outsider has insights that the insiders just cannot see.
Sometimes it can help to see new opportunities because you are not so close to the situation.
Where could you and your creativity be the outsider who sees what no one else sees?
2) It shows the value of changing cultures. Leaving one culture to stay in a new one is like a turbo booster button for creativity.
A story about a Chinese man from India moving to Sweden and learning about Italian and Turkish food and thinking that he could combine it makes me all giggly and happy.
As a Swede who has been living in Asia for 17 years, I am really looking forward to now moving back to Europe. I hope I have been gone long enough to look at Sweden —and Europe— with the eyes of an outsider and the heart of an insider.
Which new culture are you going to use to inspire your mind to think in new ways?
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In 30 days I —and my family— are relocating to Sweden to spend at least 18 months there. We will live on my island outside Stockholm.
I will of course still fly back to Asia for speaking opportunities and I am really looking forward to speaking about —and learning about— creativity in Europe!
If you have any conferences happening in Europe where it would make sense to have The Creativity Explorer I invite you to reach out to me so we can explore the possibilities of how we could work together.
If you know of someone whom I should meet to interview about creativity, please connect us! I am always open to talking creativity with creative people 
Stay curious and keep exploring the wonderful world of creativity!
The post The Outsider’s Insights Effect. The story of the Kebab Pizza in Sweden. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 116) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
March 23, 2022
Create ideas. Not war. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 115)
Today in Episode 115, we will talk about using creativity to try to stop a war.
1) Create Ideas. Not war.Putin’s war on a peaceful, democratic and independent Ukraine has really affected me personally. Maybe because I have been invited to speak in Ukraine several times and every time I have gone there I have felt inspired by the creative energy in the people I have met.
While war is absolutely terrible and terrifying, I have found some inspiration in how people around the world have used their creativity to try to stop the war. Even ideas that are of more symbolic value still inspire a sense of positive energy.
– Like Lithuania, who changed the name of the street where the Russian embassy is to “Ukrainian Heroes’ Street”.
– Or the Slovakian creatives, who started the project “Special Love Operation” to send messages to Russians through dating apps (as social media apps were closed down by Putin).
– Or how people booked rooms on Airbnb or hired freelancers on Upwork in Ukraine as a way to send money to strangers in Ukraine that needed help.
My inner theme is “Humanity to the Power of Ideas.”
I believe that human creativity is an almost infinite positive force if we just learn how to harness its potential and use it for the greater good.
May we soon have peace in Ukraine and in all other war and conflict zones around the world so that we can go back to using our creativity for more productive things.
What is the most creative way you have seen to inspire peace?
In 2022, all the money raised from Ideas Island guests will go to support active humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
This year, the weeks for Ideas Island will go to the people who are willing to pledge 1000 USD to help to Ukraine in its defense in the ongoing war
Only a FEW weeks are still available!
If you want to go this summer, apply by emailing Maria@FredrikHaren.com, giving a short info about the idea you want to work on at Ideas Island!
Imagine sitting on an island for a week to just focus on a creative project! In the crazy world we are living in right now, that might just be the blissfulness and calm that you need.
Learn more at www.IdeasIsland.com
The post Create ideas. Not war. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 115) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
November 28, 2021
The policeman, a boy and creativity. A lesson that inspired me. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 114)
This month’s story is a bit different.
I just want to share a beautiful story I heard. It’s extra beautiful because it’s true.
It’s a story about how a police officer, while on assignment one day in Sweden, in the 1970s, saw a boy crying outside a school. The police officer, his name was Björn, stopped his car and got out. He asked the boy why he was crying. The boy, who was black, replied: “They are teasing me because I look different.”
The policeman walked into the school and ordered the teachers to gather all the children in the school to an assembly. Then Björn held the black boys hand in his and told the other children: “If you ever tease my friend again you will have to deal with me.”
Fifteen years later the policeman was stopped in the street by a young man who said: “I was that boy whom you stood up to and called your friend. After that I was never bullied again and I became popular with the other kids and got lots of friends. It worked out great for me. Thank you.”
That policeman was Morgan Freedude’s father. (The picture in this post is the actual picture from the event. The local newspaper just happened to be following Björn that day so the moment was caught on camera. The picture is now hanging framed in Morgan’s living room.)
Morgan inherited his father’s view of life and what it’s for. Morgan, too, is about living life by helping others. His current project, called #Föreningslivet is about building a platform to help people find the right club/association to join, based on the idea that if more people found their tribe who share the same interest/hobby more people would be happier with their lives.
Morgon calls his way of living life: “refining lives”.
It reminds me of a quote by Japanese entrepreneur Kazuo Inamori who once said: “The goal of life is to refine the soul.” Perhaps we can refine Mr Inamori’s quote to read: “The goal of life is to refine the soul, and a great way to refine it is to help others.”
The Swedish word för “refining” is “Förädla” – “För” is an intensifier and “Ädla” come from “Ädel”, meaning “nobel” and “honourable”.
Meeting with Morgan and hearing about his project, and also about his father’s story, made me reflect on the need for us to use our creativity for the good of others. It’s the nobel and honourable thing to do.
Is your organisation inspiring its people to user their creativity for good?
Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer.
ps. 2022 is quickly coming. How are your plans for organising events (virtual and in-person) where a creativity session would benefit the audience? I would love to be part of the conversation on how we could take their creativity to the next level.
The post The policeman, a boy and creativity. A lesson that inspired me. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 114) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
Island Reflections. (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 113)
For the last six months this island has been my home.
(Sitting on a private island in the archipelago of Stockholm in summer is, arguably, the best way to rid out the end of a pandemic.)
My strongest insights was:Isolating ourselves in paradise for a full six months gave me plenty of time and space to reflect.
You do not need a lot, if you make sure that what you have is what you need.
The island has solar cells generating just enough power to distill our drinking water, charge our computers/phones, light our lamps and run a dishwasher.
Our boat is a small rowing boat – large enough to bring us the 250 meters to shore for when we we need to get food.
Most of our days have been spent watching the wildlife (there are 100 nesting birds on the tiny island), swimming in the sea and having friends over for “fika”.
Sometimes it seems that we use our creative powers to invent elaborate, technologically advanced, innovation.
Nothing wrong with advanced technology, of course.
But could it be that we at times forget to look for the simple solutions for making our lives better?
My message today is: Do not forget to use your creative skills to optimise the simple joys of your life.
Optimising the simple joys in your life, might just be the most effective way to rapidly improve your quality of life.
That is my reflection as I prepare to leave the island for this season.
What simple joy do you need to optimise right now?
Stay creative and keep exploring.
Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer.
ps. This island is also the inspiration for Ideas Island (www.ideasisland.com) my other island that I lend out to creative people from around the world – the batch of guests for 2022 summer season will be selected in January 2022. If you are interested in spending a week on Ideas Island, for free, do apply.
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