Vibrant Data INC was acquired by Rakuten in 2016.
I am Co Founder and Chief Design Officer at Vibrant Data. I lead the design team, building Vibrant Data's cloud based application which visualizes and analyzes high dimensional data as interactive ecosystems. mappr is a realtime ecosystem monitoring platform. Powered by an algorithmic core, it rapidly detects dominant patterns and provides an ecosystem view of the data.
There is no one formula for creative success.
Some people are more creative if they take a walk in nature. Others explicitly avoid having a routine. But there are broad patterns visible in the habits leading to pioneering ideas and actions.
Hacking Creativity is a novel look into the creative process powered by Vibrant Data’s mappr platform. The survey defines over 20 “Dimensions” to “Creative Style” based on the data of 500 innovative people – a diverse group including artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, technologists, athletes, chefs, magicians, and a even a memory champion.
Hacking Creativity is not a traditional personality test. Creative styles are behavioral tendencies – not fixed personality traits – and there is no precedent for defining these ahead of time. These styles will evolve over time as more data is gathered.
With the help of creativity researcher Mark Runco and ethnographer Lizbet Simmons, Vibrant Data developed a novel way to assess the dimensions of creative style. Each dimension was defined by endpoints that represent relative polar opposites (e.g., “Collaboration” ranged from “Ssolo Creator” to “Collaborator”). Vibrant Data's mappr platform blends computational statistics, machine learning, and network science to link people if they are similar across all 20 dimensions, and it identifies clusters of people that define distinct creative styles - or groups of creative habits that tend to go together. The number of groups and their distinguishing characteristics emerge from the data.
I was selected to be a TEDGlobal Fellow in 2010 and have participated in TED events every year since as a speaker, a symposium leader and Fellow. The Fellowship has been amazing for me to connect with Politicians, Artists, Scientists, Human Rights Activists - a truly cross-disciplinary group of people who are working for a bright future. I met Vibrant Data's Co Founders, Ecologist Senior TED Fellow Eric Berlow and Technologist Senior TED Fellow Kaustuv DeBiswas (MIT Computation Group) through the TED Fellowship.
From TED.com: "Every year, the TED Fellows program nurtures the vision and passion of 40 thought leaders and trailblazers, giving momentum to their ideas. With a global network of over 300 Fellows strong, the TED Fellows program is a hub for cross-disciplinary collaboration, connection and innovation."