Edward De Bono's Creative Thinking Hats Throughout

Edward De Bono's Creative Thinking Hats Throughout the course of human history one unique aspect of the human brain has allowed our species to survive and thrive on an unprecedented scale: the creative faculty. The power of original invention, the artistic spirit and the astounding ability of man to claim supremacy over the natural world are all functions of the brain's propensity to create.

While decades of rigorous scientific study of the brain's chemical composition and neural pathways has resulted in a greater understanding of the cognitive, behavioral and learning processes, research regarding the origin of creativity and the creative process itself has lagged behind. One of the world's foremost authorities on the topic of creative thinking is Edward de Bono, a physician, inventor and author who coined the phrase "thinking hats" to describe his own theories describing the creative process.

This novel contribution to creativity research gave rise to the notion that individual humans are capable of thinking more efficiently by compartmentalizing their thoughts into distinctive perspectives (de Bono, 1986). These individualized creative perspectives were described by de Bono as "thinking hats," an image which is based on the ability of people to shift seamlessly within a range of creative faculties, from the mental processing of purely factual information to the "gut-feelings" of intuition and perception which form our natural instincts.

The six thinking hats conceived by de Bono are color coded and include the white, red, black, yellow, green and blue hats, with each hat describing a certain creative process. When wearing the white hat, for example, a person focuses their attention on verifiable facts and concrete evidence, while shifting to the red hat signals a willingness to explore one's emotional perception of an issue. The black and yellow hats predict and analyze the range of positive and negative effects which will potentially result from a given solution.

The green thinking hat is reserved for creative approaches to problem solving and relies predominantly on unconventional thinking. Finally, de Bono's blue hat is reserved for reviewing the creative process itself and is typically worn after a creative thinking exercise has been completed (Runco, 2007). According to de Bono's conception of people-centric or "soft" thinking aids, as encapsulated in his overall thinking hats theory, an individual's ability to assess challenges and devise creative solutions to overcome them is directly correlated to their choice of a particular thinking hat or creative strategy.

Proof of de Bono's theories is made evident throughout our modern society by the sheer scope of technological, artistic and creative innovation. As new products or services are devised and introduced to address existing social necessity, the solving of one problem inevitably results in an entirely new set of circumstances which must be addressed. An example of the problem/solution/problem cycle can be witnesses through the development of social networking tools and their proliferation around the globe.

While this advancement has produced an era of unrivaled communication and has had profound effects on an increasingly connected world, the rise of Facebook and Twitter to the realm of mass media entities has engendered a series of unforeseen and unintended consequences. The divisive issue of user privacy and third-part data collection, the growing danger of cyberbullying and the questionable effects that social media have on today's youth are all problems which would be most efficiently addressed by utilizing de Bono's six thinking hats.

By focusing on the green thinking hat to identify creative solutions and bypass traditional methods, I believe that the problems associated with social media can be solved through innovation and unbridled creativity. The most pressing challenge facing social media entities like Facebook and Twitter is the delicate balance they must reach between their own financial imperatives and protecting the privacy of their users. Most modern websites take advantage of an industry practice involving the collection of user data to power site improvements and stimulate new ideas.

While this data, including a visitor's prior website traffic, personal information, photographs and even their spending habits, is ostensibly used to assist the sites in providing maximized service, a darker side to data collection has emerged. Advertising companies and marketing firms consider this type of personal information to be veritable gold mine because it allows them to directly target individual consumers based on their preferences.

You might visit an outdoor website to purchase a pair of boots, only to sign into Facebook and find banner ads touting backpacks and hiking gear. This unnerving phenomenon is a result of Facebook's policy.