Americans for the Arts...

The American view on Creativity Matters- Arts and Aging can be found here

Mozart, MD – Music for the Mind and Body

Music not only soothes the savage beast; it heals the critically ill.

A study in Critical Care Medicine evaluated the mechanisms of music-induced relaxation in critically ill patients. The researchers measured blood pressure and heart rate, brain electrical activity, serum levels of stress hormones and cytokines, requirements for sedative drugs, and level of sedation before and after an hour of listening to piano sonatas through headphones.

Researchers found that patients who listened to the sonatas required less medication to achieve a comparable level of sedation, compared to those who didn’t.

One of the remarkable things about the study is that the researchers also found that serum levels of growth hormone went up after listening to music, while those of epinephrine and interleukin-6 went down. The levels of all three should decrease with lowered stress. The jury’s definitely still out on the mechanism by which this might occur, and bear in mind that this was an extremely small study: a total of just 10 patients in both intervention and control groups.

But not just any music will do. It has to be Mozart.

Another study compared the effect of listening to either Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or New Age music on relaxation states. Subjects were assigned to listen to either one for 28 minutes a day on three consecutive days. At the outset, all subjects scored similarly on the Smith Relaxation States Inventory.

On Day 2, Mozart listeners reported higher levels of a relaxation state called “At Ease/Peace” and lower levels of negative emotion. On Day 3, Mozart listeners reported substantially higher levels of the states of Mental Quiet, Awe and Wonder, Mystery, At Ease/Peace, and Rested/Refreshed than did those who listened to New Age music.

Researchers have demonstrated that listening to Mozart for ten minutes briefly improves performance on tests of spatial temporal reasoning and, most astoundingly, reduces epileptiform brain activity and clinical seizures. Mozart even works for mice. Those who were exposed to Mozart’s piano sonata K448 en utero and for 60 days after birth performed better at maze tests than mice who were exposed to silence, white noise, or music composed by Phillip Glass.

Computer analysis of the music of 58 composers revealed that Mozart was distinct in using long-term periodicity; that is, musical phrases lasting between 10 and 60 seconds with a definite beginning and end. Of all the music analyzed, only the Bach boys, J.S. and C.P.E., included similar periodicity.

Take two sonatas and call me in the morning.

References

Conrad, C., Niess, H., Jauch, K.W., Bruns, C.J., Hartl, W., Welker, L. (2007). Overture for growth hormone: requiem for interleukin-6?. Critical Care Medicine, 35(12), 2709-2713.

Hughes, J.R., Fino, J.J. (2000). The Mozart effect: distinctive aspects of the music–a clue to brain coding?. Clinical EEG, 31(2), 94-103.

Smith, J.C., Joyce, C.A. (2004). Mozart versus new age music: relaxation states, stress, and ABC relaxation theory. Journal of Music Therapy, 41(3), 215-224.

Source: Brain Blogger

Solving Problems with Pictures

Interview with Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin August 1, 2009. By Vern Burkhardt"We can use the simplicity and immediacy of pictures to discover and clarify our own ideas, and use those same pictures to clarify our ideas for other people, helping them discover something new for themselves along the way." Pictures can be used to discover, develop and share business ideas—and have some fun.

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CLF Chairman's Report

Communicating with many leaders, we are constantly hearing that after the ‘BIG CUT’ the focus is now on re-development, so where do you start?

Following decades in business, it always commences in the same way for ourselves and our clients…

Research – Research – Research!!!

After a couple years research and reaching over 30,000 executives and managers throughout Australia, we launched CLF research on ‘Is Australian Management Creative and Innovative?’ in 08. You can view the summary of results here

The main concern was: After confirming with questions in 5 different ways, over 80% of managers believe they are creative/innovative… Less than half believe their employers are creative/innovative.

This knowledge inspired development over the last 12 months of the Creative Leadership Index (CLI)

“What has been inspiring is that every case study we complete shows that the CLI is unique worldwide…

Because every business, organisation and government body we communicate with is systemically and uniquely creative, our research provides a discussion paper – a snapshot - customised for every client

That is where The Creative Leadership Forum generally commence before considering recommendation for any investment in education from our master educators.

The CLI does not replace the various engagement surveys available. We have researched many engagement surveys and have access to some of the best in order to create a unique review as required and unique and separate of engagement surveys…

Clients continue to inform us how the CLI provides insights on how they can innovate and be more creative, both internally and as an interface with clients/customers…

From there we have developed, in association with our CLF team of consultants, solutions that are customised for every client…

This issue we consider where to invest your time and money….

Some articles of particular interest include McKinsey’s recommendation to ‘Identify Skill Gaps in An Organisation’ review the article – here

We look forward to researching with you how our CLF team can improve management innovation through:

• Research providing a snapshot of your executive/management team
• Communication internally and at the interface with clients

Are the dynamics of innovation changing?

Ran across an intriguing article in Sunday’s New York Times. The author, Steve Lohr, raised the question of whether current trends may create a shift in advantage in innovation– from entrepreneurial companies to large ones. The argument is thatmany of today’s biggestproblems are in complex fields such as energy and the environment — and that solutions will need to be multidisciplinary rather than the work of entrepreneurial inventors. “The pendulum of thinking on innovation does seem to be swinging toward the big guys,” Lohr wrote. The article brought to mind for mean interview I conducted with Harvard Business School’s Clayton M. Christensen last fall. An edited version of the interview with Clay Christensen appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review – but one point that didn’t make it into the published version (due to space constraints) was a brief observation Christensen made aboutestablished companies and disruptive innovation.Christensen noted that he had become”a lotmore optmistic” in the last five years about leading companies’ ability to successfully innovate disruptively, if the management team understands the principles of disruptive innovation.

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