4 ms·

This isn't really a creativity test. I'd love to see their baseline and how they show this stacking up against other creativity tests. I've taken real creativ

This isn't really a creativity test. I'd love to see their baseline and how they show this stacking up against other creativity tests. I've taken real creativity tests before (the ones that movie studios give for entrance to their internship programs). They are hard to grade but I think far more accurate. They have questions like: - Name as many uses for a brick as possible in 10 minutes. - You've been told that a scene calls for a visual of water flowing uphill. How do you accomplish this?

c3534l 5y ago
I don't know if those are better. They sound like the same superstitous interviewing techniques that led Google to ask engineers to estimate the number of ping pong balls that would fill up a Boeing 747.
- jedberg 5y ago
  I think that's actually a pretty good question. It shows how someone tries to tackle a very nebulous problem with no clear answer. And keep in mind that these questions were for internships in making TV and film, where exactly this kind of creativity is necessary.
  - c3534l 5y ago
    Except that extensive internal tracking showed that the question was useless. The whole point of why I brought it up is because it sounds smart to the interviewer, but doesn't actually measure anything. Actual, validated psychometric tests are typically quite boring and seem intuitively insufficient, while the creative and fun questions never pass validation.
lom 5y ago
> uses for a brick unrelated, but how many can you come up with? I’m struggling after only 4 or so uses..
- jedberg 5y ago
  I got stuck too, which is probably why I never got the internship. :) Here's some odd ones though: - Keep a car going by putting it on the accelerator - Doorstop - Counterweight - Stairs for a mouse
- layer8 5y ago
  - in a wall - as a paperweight - to keep an elevator open - as a murder weapon - for weight training - as a miniature grave stone - for practicing long throws - as a reminder (place it somewhere where you want to be reminded of something, like a knot in a handkerchief) - as a step-stone to reach the upper shelf - to keep a button pushed down - to test how deep the chasm is (drop it in and hear it hit the bottom) - to prop up whatever - as a counterweight - as a fraudulent shipment for something sold on Ebay - as an anchor for a toy boat - to train your karate chops - for cracking nuts open - as a slingshot (with a rope) - as a pendulum (same) - as a hammer (for nails, tenderizing meat, making crushed ice from ice cubes in a bag, …) - as a digging or carving tool - practicing to balance it on my finger - raising the height of my monitor - for blocking a mousehole - for milling grains - for opening a capped bottle - as a bookend …I could go on. I now feel like bragging, but it seems like there’s almost no end to the possible uses.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    Excellent. I think you would have gotten the internship. :)
- prutschman 5y ago
  Crimping an IDC cable. (It works very poorly for this, and I speak from recent personal experience)
v0x 5y ago
- You're in a desert, walking along when you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not with out your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?

c3534l 5y ago

I don't know if those are better. They sound like the same superstitous interviewing techniques that led Google to ask engineers to estimate the number of ping pong balls that would fill up a Boeing 747.

jedberg 5y ago
I think that's actually a pretty good question. It shows how someone tries to tackle a very nebulous problem with no clear answer. And keep in mind that these questions were for internships in making TV and film, where exactly this kind of creativity is necessary.
- c3534l 5y ago
  Except that extensive internal tracking showed that the question was useless. The whole point of why I brought it up is because it sounds smart to the interviewer, but doesn't actually measure anything. Actual, validated psychometric tests are typically quite boring and seem intuitively insufficient, while the creative and fun questions never pass validation.

lom 5y ago

> uses for a brick unrelated, but how many can you come up with? I’m struggling after only 4 or so uses..

jedberg 5y ago
I got stuck too, which is probably why I never got the internship. :) Here's some odd ones though: - Keep a car going by putting it on the accelerator - Doorstop - Counterweight - Stairs for a mouse
layer8 5y ago
- in a wall - as a paperweight - to keep an elevator open - as a murder weapon - for weight training - as a miniature grave stone - for practicing long throws - as a reminder (place it somewhere where you want to be reminded of something, like a knot in a handkerchief) - as a step-stone to reach the upper shelf - to keep a button pushed down - to test how deep the chasm is (drop it in and hear it hit the bottom) - to prop up whatever - as a counterweight - as a fraudulent shipment for something sold on Ebay - as an anchor for a toy boat - to train your karate chops - for cracking nuts open - as a slingshot (with a rope) - as a pendulum (same) - as a hammer (for nails, tenderizing meat, making crushed ice from ice cubes in a bag, …) - as a digging or carving tool - practicing to balance it on my finger - raising the height of my monitor - for blocking a mousehole - for milling grains - for opening a capped bottle - as a bookend …I could go on. I now feel like bragging, but it seems like there’s almost no end to the possible uses.
- jedberg 5y ago
  Excellent. I think you would have gotten the internship. :)
prutschman 5y ago
Crimping an IDC cable. (It works very poorly for this, and I speak from recent personal experience)

v0x 5y ago

- You're in a desert, walking along when you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not with out your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?