Are you creative? What makes you tick?

Creativity is a core competency at Microsoft, but who really understands what makes a person creative?  And can we really measure creativity's contribution in the workplace?  Amy Randel is going to try and find out in a one of the few research projects on creativity and drivers of creativity, and if you're a creative techie she wants to pick your brain.

Amy Randel, Ph.D.(San Diego State University), and Kim Jaussi, Ph.D. (SUNY Binghamton) are conducting a study on types of creativity and drivers of creativity, including motivation and personality.  Trent Gatte , PM for Project Server, encourages techies to participate and identify a co-worker to participate with you. You'll be asked to fill out a 20-30 minute online survey and your co-worker will fill out a 5 minute survey. Email workstylestudy@yahoo.com to get the survey link.

Most people accept that creativity is an essential ingredient in the global economy, particularly in the tech sector. Business Week devoted its entire Oct. 11 issue (its 75th anniversary issue) to the “Innovation Economy"  (a sampling of articles below).

Interesting articles in Business Week's Innovation Economy issue

Building an Idea Factory  -- Inspiration is fine, but above all, innovation is really a management process.

Microsoft is Scouring The Planet For Brainiacs: Worldwide innovation networks are the new keys to R&D vitality -- and competitiveness

Voices Of Innovation: Tim Berners-Lee, London-born inventor of the World Wide Web is now at MIT working to create the new "Semantic Web," a radical leap that would greatly improve how people and machines locate and use data on the Web.

Voices Of Innovation: Steve Jobs, Chairman and CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios

SciFi: Novel Inspiration  -- Otherworldly fantasies can evoke solutions to real problems. Science fiction has been honorably doing just that for decades

Exoskeletons. Technical plausibility wasn't a concern when Sony Pictures and Marvel created this version of Doc Ock, the scientist fused with a robot in Spider-Man 2.  The Pentagon hopes to merge computer science and mechanical engineering to augment human prowess. It has doled out research grants to develop muscular exoskeletons like this one (right), from the University of California at Berkeley, to jack up the carrying capacity of a soldier, fireman, or factory hand. Read SciFi: Novel Inspiration  for more SciFi inspired inventions.