By Phil Marks
Conferences –
especially milestone events – require a tremendous amount of planning,
coordination and execution occur before any conference attendees arrive. Fortunately for this year’s Creativity ExpertExchange as ICSC celebrates its 50th anniversary, Molly Holinger is
the conference manager.
Molly is pleasant
and enthusiastic, and her positive energy and generous laughter are
contagious. Like
many creativity experts, Molly’s path to the field of creativity was
serendipitous. While studying French at
the University of Illinois, Molly took a creativity class offered within the
UIUC engineering department. The
following year, Molly was the teaching assistant for the course, and the year
after that, the professor asked her to ‘TA’ the course again. This time, she helped the professor and other
teaching assistants write a book and develop coursework for the class. Soon after, Molly received her M.Sc. from
Buffalo State, and is now pursuing a Ph.D. at U.Conn. Her decision for U. Conn. reflects the
benefit of having multiple options. She
enjoys her work with James Kaufman, who is available and takes seriously his
advising responsibilities.
As an ‘Early Bird’
FourSight preference (clarifier/implementer), her preference for clarifying and
ideation frees Molly to “jump in”. It
also seems that Molly enjoys the process of discovery and resolution, and has
learned to trust her problem solving skills.
These skills have been evident even as an undergrad studying in Paris,
where for the first time in her life Molly rented an apartment and set up a
cell phone account and a bank account - in French, in Parisian culture! Always eager to learn and to grow, Molly
shares that her conference manager role is forcing her to exercise her
developer and implementer muscles. She
is also practicing Prioritizing: reflecting awareness of her personal goals and
limitations, and saying ‘no’ to things that are extraneous to those goals.
For an interesting
conversation, ask Molly about her research and writing on the benefits of
creativity and Positive Psychology for 20-somethings – particularly Millennials
like herself. Millennials are generally
considered to have lived a sheltered experience in their formative years, which
raises questions not only about Millennials’ resilience, but also about how
their creative approach and output might differ that of other generations. Would it be more exploratory and curious, but
less persistent? Molly also has
well-informed opinions about intergenerational judging, that is, the tendency
for older generations to judge Millennials as requiring more attention and
adaptation than previous generations…but worth the effort.
Molly explains her
CEE conference manager role as a connector: connecting a big group of diverse
people working on a variety of aspects of the conference. Her responsibility is to make sure, for
example, that the graphic arts, food and sponsorship teams all come together to
create a cohesive end product. She calls
it a “privilege to have so many great people working together on it.”
Molly loves that
CEE is not your typical conference. For
example, on Saturday afternoon, there will be an unconference where people can
pitch any topic they want. The
pre-conference workshops will be a great opportunity for practitioners to learn
new skills and tools. She is excited
about the great group of keynote speakers, including Dr. Ron Beghetto, Dr. Yael
Katz, & Dr. Mark Runco. The ICSC
faculty will be sharing their recent work, so attendees will have plenty of
opportunity to be current in the field of creativity, and there will also be
plenty of opportunities for networking.
Molly is most
excited about the people who will be there! “I'm really looking forward to
seeing the ICSC faculty, people from my Master's program cohort, and other
friends from the field who I don't get to see very often. It's going to be a
great group!”
When asked what
would make CEE a success for Molly, her answer reflected some great insight
about the impact of the maturing field of creativity: so many organizations and
people are doing so many great things, “how do we connect and create a
community that shares the great things happening in the field?” If conference attendees leave with a sense of
connection to the people and activities in the spectrum of creativity work,
this conference will be a success.
Phil Marks is the Global Director of Product
Engineering for Federal-Mogul’s Systems Protection business unit. He is recovering from 24 years of corporate indoctrination
by becoming a change agent within Federal-Mogul. Phil holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering
from WPI, Worcester, MA, and recently became a certified professional
coach. He is pursuing his M.Sc. in
Creativity Studies at ICSC/SUNY Buffalo State.
