SB: Hi Caroline, thank you for taking time and talking to us about food! What sparked your interest in the topic of nutrition?

CB: I originally worked in the fashion industry and went to New York as a fashion stylist. My job was extremely exhausting and one day I had a major breakdown. My boss sent me to a very skilled nutritionist in Manhattan and after only 24 hours I felt like a whole different person. That really impressed me and made me so curious to learn more about the power of nutrition that I started studying first nutrition, then detox medicine and later also traditional alternative medicine. One personal advantage this had for me is that once I changed my eating habits, I was able to cure the neurodermitis I had suffered from since being a child that no medicine ever worked against.

SB: We’re here today to talk about experiMENTAL, a study in which we tried to analyze the effect on different foods on the creativity of participants. When most of us analyze the the quality of foods, we mainly think about calories and fats...

CB: What matters most in our nutrition are the vitamins! They are necessary for our survival. We can’t live without vitamins! Instead of wondering how much fat or how many calories a food contains, the question should be: Are there enough vitamins in my food?

SB: What’s a typical mistake people make when trying to eat more healthy?

CB: People tend to focus on one or two ingredients they heard is healthy, like Broccoli, and and then overeat on them. Nutrition is all about variation! I always advise my clients to eat more vegetables and less carbohydrates, especially wheat. In the end however, it can all be broken down to a very simple piece of advice: All foods which are not proceeded are good and the more natural and organic, the better. Just avoid anything that contains an “e-number”, has added sugar or artificial sweeteners.

SB: What foods do promote brain health?

CB: For the brain, fatty acids contained in nuts and seeds are very good.

SB: Steve jobs reportedly advised students to ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish.’ Are we more ambitious when we’re hungry?

CB: As it is often case, the truth here too lies in moderation. It's always better to stay a little bit hungry because if you overeat you have less energy left to power the brain. So generally, it’s more healthy to eat a little less than too much. However, if you eat little but all the wrong things, that’s bad for you, too.

SB: What causes the lethargic feeling many of us experience after lunch? The type or the amount of food you consume?

CB: The food coma feeling is caused by eating very heavy meals that the metabolism can't nearly digest. What happens then is that a lot of energy and blood is floating from the brain to the digestive system. Due to the resulting lack of it in your brain, you can’t concentrate properly and feel like you can only sleep.

SB: What’s your top lunch pick to prevent that from happening?

CB: It might sound obvious, but my advice simply is to have veggies! In whatever form; as a soup, steamed, with spices. You can never eat too many veggies! But food is a very personal issue. What’s best for you really depends on your age, your gender, your height and what your day looks like.

SB: Many people are aware that they probably shouldn’t be having Burger and fries again for lunch. But then they still order it again! What is it that drives our appetite for such a heavy meal and how can learn to better control it?

CB: It's because of our habits. If the body is used to having burgers, then it will ask for them. Changing food habits isn’t the easiest thing to do, but it always has to start with making a confident decision in your mind. You can get the best advice but never follow through with it if you don’t really want to change. What helps is to organize and schedule your meals better. Doing so is what I teach in my nutrition classes. But if it was all that easy, my job would not exist…

SB: How important is ‘when’ we eat?

CB: Very important. The human metabolism is working in three shifts. From 4 am -12 am, our body is in a detox phase, where it is cleaning itself. That’s is also the reason why we have morning breath. Our body is expelling all the toxins from inside. I recommend having a light breakfast.
Then, from 12 am - 8 pm is the intake phase. Have lunch between 12am and 2pm, that’s when it is easiest to digest for the body. If you really crave a burger, that’s also the best (and only) time of the day for your digestion system to handle it.
Try to have your dinner before 8pm because afterwards, from 8pm to 4am is the metabolism phase. Avoid eating during this time because it stops the metabolizam. In addition, it’ll raise the acid level in your body and negatively impact your sleep.

SB: If these times interfere with the structures we have at work, can we change these times to fit better to our lifestyle?

Our metabolism is an organ system which is 25.000 years old. And it also still works like it used to 25.000 years ago. Our modern lifestyle on the other hand is only 100 years old. That’s a huge discrepancy! And it’s a huge mistake to believe that we can manipulate our metabolism with modern medicine or special diets. In our young years our bodies have a lot of resources but as we get older, our bodies reach their limits much faster. There are so many diseases these days that were unheard of 100 years ago, like people at the age of 35 already suffering from high cholesterol and nutrition-related cancer.

SB: Why should companies care about the nutrition of their employees?

CB: Because heavy lunches that are lacking in vitamins lead to less energy available for powering the brain after lunch which decreases the efficiency of employees and will lead to them making more mistakes. In addition, improving your nutrition has a proven positive effect on the quality of your sleep and helps with stress management.

SB: How so?

CB: To cope with high stress levels, our body, in particular the nerve system, needs 3-10 times more vitamins and minerals than normally. But people tend not to eat more vitamins when stressed, quite the opposite actually. The consequence is a strong deficit in vitamins. People that work in stressful environments should eat more vitamins!
Now, if you are exposed to a lot of stress and don’t eat properly during the day, it gets difficult to calm down in the evenings. Many respond to that by overeating and drinking alcohol at night to calm down. As I explained, that’s a really bad idea because it’s very demanding for your body to digest and makes it harder to fall asleep. Sleep on the other hand is vital for the regeneration of your body so ensure it’s fit to function again properly the next day.
A lot of stress can be made up for by a good night sleep which you will only get if you eat lightly for dinner and not too late in the evening. One or two glasses of wine are okay. I believe the most healthy diet is the Italian one. Not only because it is rich in good foods, but also because eating there is done in a joyful way. It’s a social happening and they take their time to do it properly. Food should be enjoyed!

SB: You’ve worked in different countries and different cultures. What strikes as you as the most interesting difference when comparing how Germans, Americans and Emirati people?

CB: I think the Germans are very serious. If they decide to change something, they become more expert than the experts. When talking about the Americans, you need to clearly distinguish between two kinds: People in New York and Los Angeles are treating nutrition like a religion and are into a super-healthy lifestyle. In almost all other parts of the country, there is very little consciousness about health. The Emirati people are similar to the the Americans in that regard. Plus, most aren’t big fans of sports. In combination with their sweet tooth, that makes for one of the highest rates of diabetes and obesity worldwide.

SB: Speaking of sweet tooth: What’s your guilty food-pleasure?

CB: I am passionate about gummy bears, especially the sour ones. If I eat just one, I need to eat the whole package.

SB: You’re teaching in the Creativity & Innovation program at NYU Shanghai. Creativity is difficult to grasp and even more difficult to measure. How do you teach it?

EG: Admittedly all too little is known about creativity; but why shouldn’t students be exposed to the amount that is known? We are still somewhat in the dark about colds and cancer, yet these diseases are not excluded from medical education.
Known facts and tentative theories about creative imagination provide plenty of teachable substance. The principles are fairly clear. Some techniques, although unprecise, are workable. But even greater than such pedagogical material is the limitless subjective substance. For if and when a student is “introduced” to his own creative power, he will find his own mind an ever-widening source of self-revelation.

SB: With ExperiMENTAL, Spacebase attempts to give advice that will support people to reach their creative potential at the workplace. How can creativity be learned?

EG: In summary of the findings of the most profound study of creativity ever undertaken, Dr. J. P. Guilford concluded: “Like most behavior, creativity probably represents to some extent many learned skills. There may be limitations set on these skills by heredity, but I am convinced that, through learning, one can extend the skills within those limitations. The least we can do is to remove the blocks that are often in the way.”

SB: What are these blocks?

EG: One of those blocks is student unawareness of the fact that everyone is filled with creative potential. Other blocks include lack of understanding of how creativity works, and failure to realize that all of us can keep ourselves from becoming less creative, and can do much to make ourselves more creative.

SB: In a recent article for Techcrunch, you stated that “creativity is overrated”. What causes the perceived longing for creativity in today’s business world?

EG: Creativity is a difficult thing to understand. It’s illusive. What is creativity? Where does creativity come from? Why does creativity matter? Perhaps the longing for creativity in today’s business world has something to do with wanting what we do not have or know.

SB: What advice would you give leaders that try to implement creativity in their organizations?

EG: The challenge that confronts us as leaders is to develop ingenuity, initiative, and resourcefulness in our organizations. This challenge becomes all the more important when we are brought to the realization that the economic supremacy of a country will rest upon the creative ability of its citizens rather than upon the rich natural resources it once possessed.

SB: In addition to being a university professor, you’re also a critically acclaimed musician. Which principles from inventing music can be applied to the business world?

EG: The world of artists and entrepreneurs are not all that dissimilar. Successful artists and entrepreneur are highly sensitive people, attuned to pleasures and pains of the world they live in. Cultivating sensitivity to the pleasure and pains of existence is relevant to both.

SB: Let’s broaden the focus beyond the individual organization: What would happen to our society happen if we all started to appreciate creativity more?

EG: Let us suppose that creative power is possessed by everybody; and that there are ways of stimulating and of training it which are capable of increasing it far beyond its latent condition. Education would be revolutionized. Its major energies would be directed toward the arousing and training of the inventive powers. A society alive with inventive power would, on the whole, be the most powerfully progressive society.

SB: What personal motivations are there to try and tap into one’s personal creative potential more?

EG: Although we cannot count on education to prepare our minds for every demand of later years, a higher order of resourcefulness would enable us to live better with ourselves and with others. Nothing can brighten our lives as much as a well-directed imagination. Then, too, education in creativity could help compensate for our loss of those environmental influences which formerly forced us to develop our imaginations. Thus it could help preserve our planet. Our very destiny may involve a race between education and our ability to keep ahead creatively.

SB: What does it take to develop an innovative product or service?

EG: My understanding of innovation is perpetually evolving. The current definition I’m working with is something new that adds value. Accordingly, innovative products and services are highly subjective to the user.

SB: Is creativity “too inexact” to teach?

EG: Surely this subject can qualify under the broad definition of scientia as “organized knowledge”—as opposed to the narrower definition of science as “numerically organized” knowledge. As an art, creativity is of the same empirical character as music, painting, writing, speaking, philosophy, ethics, religion and other such subjects which are offered by many colleges and universities, and rightly so.

SB: In the introduction of your thought piece, “Dialectics of Creativity” you mention creativity, when regarded as capacity or process, can be seen as “value-free.” Can you explain how this would be consistent amongst various demographics, i.e., students, working professionals, or international societies?

DJK: By “value-free,” I mean that creativity is not inherently good or bad. Many psychological capacities share this characteristic. Rationality, for example, can be used for good or bad purposes. Likewise, we can use creativity for good or bad ends. Of course, most of us think of our good intentions first, and tend to think of creativity as a positive psychological capacity. That is only natural.
My view is that creativity can play an important role in everyone’s life. Creativity is not limited to experts, artists, or other types of high achievers. What such exceptional achievers have is often called “Big C,” but the rest of us can use and enjoy “Little C,” the kind of everyday creativity that brings variation and inspiration to everyday life. All demographics can partake of Little C.

SB: According to your view of creativity, it emerges from the interplay between opposing forces that are in a perpetual state of push and pull, and if one were to overthrow the other creativity would collapse. What are these opposing forces and how do they mutually encourage creative output?

DJK: There are at least half a dozen of such tensions between opposing forces. I call these ‘dialectics,’ which is a fancy way of saying that there is no free lunch. Let me give you one example. It is a cliché to say that you need to ‘think outside of the box’ in order to be creative. It is a cliché but it is also true. But what does it mean? It is easy to overlook the fact that to think outside of the box you first need to have a box. This means that you need to be familiar with the conventions, routines, and skills of ‘business-as-usual’ in order to transcend them. Salvador Dalí, for example, was an exceptionally creative artist. But he did not just throw paint at the canvas. He was an expert draftsman and master of the techniques of his day. He employed conventional skills in innovative ways. He had done the hard work to understand and master the ‘box’ of his trade, to then go beyond it.

SB: Creativity in many instances pops-up without any traceable origin. These spontaneous thoughts have lead to the many ideas that creativity can be evoked by stimuli based on your immediate surroundings (environment, sound, visual, people, situations etc.). Conversely, creativity is thought to be a cumulation of ideas and experience gathered and stored subconsciously over our lifetime, and appear as spontaneous in the moment of discovery. In your opinion what is the most effective driver of creativity when considering these two positions?

DJK: The first position you are describing is what intuition and subjective experience suggest to us, that is, we sometimes feel that creative ideas come out of nowhere. They seem to present themselves spontaneously in consciousness. The second position you are describing is more in line with psychological science. Most of our mental work is not available to our awareness. Some call this work ‘incubation.’ Ideas, such as bits of images or verbal associations, can be connected and rearranged until they cohere in a Gestalt that makes sense or provides an answer to a question we have had. At that point, the result pops into awareness and we say Aha!, not being privy to the magic that has occurred underground. The dialectic here is that although the process appears to be spontaneous, the ground needs to be prepared so that we may enjoy creative insights. The dialectic here is between effortful study on the one hand, and relaxation and temporary withdrawal from the task on the other.

SB: When we refer to thinking out-of-the-box, this usually refers to moving beyond social confines. When exploring out-of-the-box brainstorming can we expect creative output to be hindered by various social situations including peer-pressure, or static working environments?

DJK: Absolutely. It is interesting to note society tends emphasize creative production, while at the same time inhibiting it. Organizations, for example, pride themselves of innovation and they demand that their workforce contribute to it. At the same time, creativity is perceived as a threat. Creativity, by definition, breaks new ground; it may even change the game. Societies, social groups, and organizations tend to be conservative. They have an interest in perpetuation hierarchies and power structures. From this point of view, creativity and innovation poses a potential threat. Ideally, an organization would say to its members ‘Be creative, but please don’t overdo it.’

SB: As stated previously, you describe creativity as being value-free with regards to principles or learned perspectives. With that being said, do you think that this process should have a monetary value when companies look to invest in the productive outcome from their employees?

DJK: As creativity is a pre-condition of innovation, and as innovation is a pre-condition for success, creativity is among the antecedents or precursors of profit. Companies vary greatly in how and how much they encourage and invest into employee’s creative pursuit. Overall, I think that such efforts should be stepped up in our time, and I think that it is critical that the originators of creative production, by it individuals or groups, receive due credit. All too often, credit is syphoned off by individuals higher up in the organizational hierarchy.

SB: In your personal opinion do you think there is validity to pursuing research pertaining to the idea that creative productivity correlates with environmental surroundings/stimuli in the workplace?

DJK: Your question, I think, is whether work environments can be designed to foster creativity. The short answer is yes. A variety of physical factors (e.g., office design), social factors (type and frequency of meetings), and personal factors (habits of thought) can be leveraged to enhance creative output. Again, the main obstacles are habit, tradition, fear of status-ranking upsets etc.

SB: What led you to become an expert in innovation and creativity?

SD: At Imperial College I was invited to conduct a research project for the UK Department of Education and Employment to study how engineering could become more creative; less ‘engine’, more ‘ingenious’. As I was always interested in engineering creativity, I took up the study as a PhD research topic, and started my company CREAX in 2000. There we were studying the best approaches to creative thinking for innovation. Soon we came up with our own structure combining the best/new insights to our Innovation Logic.

SB: How did you create your creativity test?

SD: Darrell Mann, then part of CREAX, did the research. He took existing research in the field, and combined it all into the test of today. When BBC World and the New York Times covered it in 2003, it became a very popular test.

SB: It can be hard to inspire creativity in technology, as it can be very methodical. What are some tips or questions to ask when searching for creativity in tech?

SD: I believe it is a process like maths. Some people are better at it than others, but everyone can improve by using a structured approach. It is easy to classify knowledge for inspiration. Once theses structured approaches or systems are used as checklist for innovators, the step by step approach is a very fruitful process to generate new ideas.

SB: What are the major hurdles to overcome when trying to inspire innovative mindsets or creativity?

SD: One of them is that we tend to look in our own domain. We are not always aware that we blind ourselves to anything else…the fish doesn’t know he’s wet. To open up to other domains, and be willing to explore existing solutions across industries is the first hurdle to overcome. That can then help us to use global knowledge as inspiration to our own challenges. The hurdle of ‘not invented here’ should change to ‘proudly found elsewhere’. For example, the patent database is an excellent tool to find where those other “domains” are, which could actually be an expert tool used to assist with the challenges we face today.

SB: Your company hosts a variety of innovation workshops. What do you hope your participant will take away from these sessions?

SD: The workshops are about giving the people a structured approach to idea generation for innovating any product or process, on one side, and on the other side, to have an easy access to the global knowledge through Patent Inspiration, so you can challenge the brains of the best inventors in the world.

SB: What are some behaviors or beliefs that you’ve seen that majorly hinder innovation/creativity?

SD: When people say they are realist, it often means they are pessimist. The glass can be half empty or half full, or too big. I believe worrying and creative thinking are the same but opposite, they are basically about what can go wrong or right.
There is a lot of work on creative hinders, spaces, constraints, expressions to avoid, postponement of judgment, and I believe known researchers have dealt with this. I haven’t really focused on them.

SB: What are some behaviors or beliefs you’ve seen that boost, or nurture innovation and creativity?

SD: Good and different meeting spaces, along with design thinking. If we place a set of new products in an innovation gallery (a design thinking structure), we can copy existing concepts to inspire new ideas. If you create an abstract of your product or business in subtasks by using major brands as a marker (IKEA, Virgin, Skype, etc), their success, as well as their humble beginnings can inspire and remove blocks to help you move through your own limitations. In any case, a canvas, structure, plan will boost creativity immensely, since it then changes from ‘what could we do’ to ‘this is how other people made successful innovations’. At the end of the day, innovation is predictable, because we as customers always want more of the good, less of the bad, easier and cheaper, and we want function, whatever the solution (maybe, we want to communicate, but not always by phone, or maybe we want transport, but not always by car, etc). How these solutions evolve can be extrapolated, we just have to fill in the gaps.