Defining Creativity

"The creative mind is stimulated in the gray."

In this episode, I talk with Michael Sammis, Chair of Indiana University's Music Business program and former Executive Vice President of Operations and Chief Financial Officer Worldwide for Universal Music Publishing. 

Drawing on nearly four decades in the music industry, Michael shares why creativity isn't reserved for artists, performers, or inventors. From financial forecasting and operational problem-solving to leadership, education, and innovation, he argues that creativity plays a critical role in virtually every aspect of professional and personal life.

We discuss collaboration, networking, artificial intelligence, and the value of working beyond rigid categories. Michael's perspective reminds us that creativity is not only about generating ideas but also about creating the conditions that allow ideas to succeed.

debbiponella.com/e23-michael-sammis

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

The Creative Power of Connection

What do harp performance, software engineering, language learning, mathematics, harp repair, and urban design have in common?

For Diego Costa, they are all expressions of the same creative impulse. In this episode, Diego reflects on life lived across disciplines, cultures, and ways of thinking. Growing up in Brazil and building a life in the United States has given him a unique perspective on how creativity emerges through adaptation, observation, and openness to different ways of seeing the world.

In this episode, we explore the surprising similarities between debugging computer code and tracking down a mysterious harp buzz, the role of constraints in artistic and intellectual work, the relationship between music and mathematics, and the ways diverse experiences expand our creative toolbox. Along the way, Diego shares stories of learning languages, creating "Harp Jeopardy," discovering a passion for urban design, and ultimately finding a path that combines both music and technology.

For Diego, creativity isn't a mysterious flash of inspiration. It's the ability to notice what others might overlook, make connections across experiences, and act on what those observations reveal.

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

Can creativity really be defined? 

In the first episode of Season 2, creativity scholar Dr. Fredricka "Freddie" Reisman joins host, Debbi Ponella, for a conversation that explores creativity as a process of becoming aware of our strengths, nurturing human potential, and cultivating meaningful connections with others.

Drawing from decades of research, teaching, and advocacy, Freddie discusses creativity in education, collaboration, motivation, and everyday life. From stories about her mentor E. Paul Torrance to reflections on the role of caring in creative growth, this episode offers a thoughtful and inspiring perspective on what creativity is and what it can become.

Learn more about the Freddie Reisman Center for Translational Research in Creativity and Motivation (FRC) and the  Reisman Diagnostic Creativity Assessment (RDCA) at: frcenter.net

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

To conclude the first season of Defining Creativity, host Debbi Ponella sits down with colleague, mentor, and friend Mary McMullen, Professor Emerita at Indiana University and an internationally respected advocate for play in learning and development. What begins as a reflection on themes from Season 1 evolves into a rich conversation about creativity, relationships, confidence, vulnerability, problem-solving, and the lifelong importance of play. Drawing on decades of work with children, teachers, and researchers, Mary offers a perspective that is both practical and profound: creativity and play are not separate experiences, but deeply intertwined processes that help us make meaning, solve problems, embrace possibility, and delight in discovery.

Episode page: www.debbiponella.com/s1-e20-mary-mcmullen

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

Harold Popp has spent more than five decades teaching, performing, composing, conducting, and helping students discover their own creative potential. Drawing on experiences that range from childhood adventures and time working on Midwestern farms to performing internationally and teaching students from around the world, Harold reflects on the power of creativity to foster curiosity, build community, encourage empathy, and help individuals find their unique voice. Throughout the episode, he argues that creativity is far more than artistic expression. It is an inherent human capacity that allows us to make connections, bring new ideas to life, and become more fully ourselves. At the heart of the conversation is Harold's enduring belief that creativity belongs to everyone and that nurturing it is essential to living a meaningful and connected life.

Harold Popp is the author of Discovering the Creative Impulse.

Recorded November 2022.

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

Esther Kataate Namakula is a science educator from Uganda and a Ph.D. student in science education at Indiana University who is passionate about making physics more accessible, engaging, and inclusive. 

In this episode of the Defining Creativity Podcast, Esther discusses the vital role creativity plays in science learning, the importance of understanding students' sociocultural contexts, and her commitment to inspiring more girls to pursue physics. As she explains, "Creativity is part of the nature of science."

Follow Esther on LinkedIn

Recorded November 2022.

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

Jonathan Phillips combines his expertise as a scientist and as classically trained violist in creativity that permeates all aspects of his life. He  explains, "I'm motivated by natural curiosity, my love of creative people and ideas, and my spiritual foundation."

In this episode of the Defining Creativity Podcast, Jonathan shares insight about his journey from Kodak to Google and ultimately to his current position as VP of Imaging Science at Imatest and how his profession has progressed.

“Even before we called [them] digital cameras and digital photography, it was electronic still imaging I believe was the term that was used, so even the terminologies and how we describe technology changes over time. So, moving from the very chemical based imaging to the fully digital based imaging has been the pathway that I’ve been on which naturally leads to learning and creativity and innovation.”

Jonathan is an author of "Camera Image Quality Benchmarking”

Follow Jonathan on LinkedIn

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

Terry LaBolt is featured in this week's episode during which he discusses creativity in his life from childhood to Broadway and Carol Channing to Indiana University (IU).  Influences for the development of Terry's creativity came from diverse experiences, a significant one being exposure to Schoenberg's String Quartets performed by the LaSalle Quartet while at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM):

“In my tenure at the Cincinnati Conservatory, there was a string quartet called the LaSalle Quartet and at the time I was in school, they were recording the complete Schoenberg String Quartets for Deutsche Grammophon… every semester there was a recital where they would try out a Schoenberg Quartet. So three times a year I would go and hear the LaSalle Quartet play Schoenberg… and the Schoenberg was tough for a year or a year and a half, and my ear started to expand and, instead of just hearing...  what you might think of as like Tertian harmony or traditional harmony, I started opening up to just listening for events and not listening for a chord to resolve or an 'amen' cadence and to just enjoy wherever it was headed."

Another source of learning at CCM was Terry's peers:

“A lot of my creative thinking came from sitting around with my classmates talking about how we play and how we think and how we interpret, how we remember, how we forget… you know, just analyzing, analyzing, analyzing to a ridiculous degree, but it did change me. All of that information changed me.”

While living in New York City in his early 20s, Terry took advantage of museums such as the Guggenheim, expanding his appreciation of abstract art and thinking. His work on Broadway and beyond included a significant amount with Carol Channing:

“My primary employer was Carol Channing, and [she] would say… ‘I love it because you’re the first person who conducts it the same every time’ and really I was the first person who did it differently every time, because I knew exactly what she needed all the time. I knew from the way that she walked on stage and how many times that she blinked her eyes in a minute; I knew how fast she needed to go. And, these are minor adjustments I would make. It wasn’t something that would throw the whole show off, but… I would just conform the show to her.”

Terry generously shares his expertise and experiences with students, most recently at the IU Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance. His creativity goes beyond music, informing relationships and interactions through flexibility, listening skills, and openness allowing him to engage students and colleagues as well:

“I always have to know with who I’m dealing with—whether it’s a student or a colleague or people in a show—I have to kind of know where they are. If I don’t have students’ attention in class, my first thought is I’m not engaging them; they’re not being bad. It’s always like, ‘What am I doing that’s making them check out?’ And, I would say the same with my colleagues. So I’m kind of hyper-aware of where other people are all the time and I’m making adjustments.”
 
“There’s success and there’s achievement and that gets very confused for a lot of people… With my students, I really try hard to get them to understand the difference because most of them are people who have wanted to get the best grade on the test and who have wanted to know what the teacher wants and do all those things and I’m included in that. We equate achievement with happiness and really we shouldn’t do that. We can equate success with happiness, but success is not like a job or a salary, it’s a personal thing. It’s ‘Did I do my best?’ and so forth, not ‘Did I get this? Am I #1?’ all those things. That helps students be creative when they realize, ‘How can I do my best?’ instead of “What do they want?’ That’s a huge thing. That’s a goal that I have for each of them.” 

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

Malcolm Webb embraces creativity in a variety of ways. Acknowledging that creativity in his profession of investment advisor can be problematic, Malcolm channels his creativity into understanding and communicating with his clients. Similarly, being a pilot and much of his Civil Air Patrol duties do not lend themselves to creative manipulation, but he finds a creative outlet in the instruction of cadets.

Malcolm discusses the impact of his interior designer mother and musician father in his cultivation of creativity:

“I became fascinated with the process [interior decorating] and [my mom’s] ability to see something in her mind that we didn’t see, and I tried to develop that...”

Another impactful personality with whom he interacted growing up was Leonard Bernstein. One remembrance Malcolm shares is the following:​

“Charlie [Malcolm’s brother] was listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire, and he said to Mr. Bernstein, ‘It’s just rock music’ and I’ll never forget, Leonard Bernstein looked at him and said, ‘Yes, but is it good rock music?’ Now, that question expanded my thinking in a way that had not been done before, because I was young and I had not thought of rock music in terms of quality and now I did. With that one question, I did. Charlie’s answer, incidentally, was, ‘Well, it’s Earth Wind, and Fire,’ and he said, ‘That is good rock music.’”
An tribute to the relationship of Malcolm's family with Leonard Bernstein can be found in the movement VII of Bernstein's "Arias and Barcarolles" entitled "Mr. and Mrs. Webb Say Goodnight" in which Malcolm and his brother, Kent, are part of the dialogue as the soprano sings: "Boys! Stop that noise! Malcolm, Kent, cut the noise!"

Listen to a recording by the San Francisco Symphony here.

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.

Carlene Quinn is the BSW Program Coordinator for the Indiana University School of Social Work in addition to her roles as social worker and teacher of social workers. She makes a strong case for how creativity is immersed in every aspect of social work. Additionally, she taps into creativity as an educator and both sees and appreciates it as well in others as well.

​“A social worker can’t be a very binary thinker, right? We work heavily in the gray—the 90%. We’ve got 5% on one end of extremely wrong and 5% on the other extremely right. So being able to work in that gray space where a lot of folks aren’t comfortable, makes it easier for a person to feel seen heard and valued.”

“In education, creative expression—any form of it—can be channeled well and I think educators if, you know, you’ve got a kid that’s creative and their brain’s just always doing creative things like reading or doing art or making noises, making songs or… to channel that is better than to squelch it, because squelching it is just gonna teach them they have lousy ideas and that’s super unproductive for everybody and so hurtful.”

Defining Creativity explores how people from diverse backgrounds understand, experience, and practice creativity in their lives and work. Subscribe for new conversations with people whose stories expand our understanding of creativity.