In his Career he published several books on creative thinking. He published a book in 1942 named How to Think Up and this is where he came up with the idea of brainstorming. In 1954 he created the Creative Education Foundation, which were sustained by the royalties which were earned from his books. Along with Sidney Parnes, he developed the "Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process". He co-founded the Creative Education Foundation's Creative Problem Solving Institute, the world's longest-running international creativity conference.

Sidney Parnes/Alex Obsorn

Creative Thinking

Sidney Parnes was born on the 5^th of January 1922 and died August 22^nd 2013. He was renowned as an expert on creativity and the founder of the creative studies program at the SUNY Buffalo state.

Sid Parnes had partnered with his advertising executive Alex Osborn in the 1950s which then they went to create the Osborn-Parnes creative problem solving process which were based on Osborn’s brainstorming techniques and began to organise a method for teaching it. Parnes, an Army Veteran from World War 2, he had earned his master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1953 and then completed his Doctorate in the following year. He first met Osborn at the Creative Problem solving institute conference and he then used that as a creative retailing conference at the University of Pittsburgh where Osborn then recruited him to help develop his ideas.

In 1956, Parnes joined the faculty at the University of Buffalo, which offered a course in creativity, as a professor of retailing. In 1967, he went to Buffalo State to start a pilot program in creativity and became the founding director of the International Centre for Studies in Creativity. He became president of the Creative Education Foundation in 1967 after the death of Osborn and served until 1984, then was chairman of its board of trustees. He continued to serve as a lifetime trustee. He also became director of the Creative Problem Solving Institute, which was held annually at Buffalo State from 1966 to 1984. He published more than a dozen books on creativity, notably the influential “Creative Behaviour Guidebook” in 1967, and hundreds of articles. He spoke at conferences, workshops and seminars around the world and received numerous awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Innovation Network.

Alex Osborn

Osborn was born on May 24^th 1888 and died May 5^th in 1966. He was an advertising executive and the author of the creativity technique known to us all as Brainstorming. He was born in Bronx and spent his childhood in New York; He was a graduate of Hamilton College, where he had worked for the school newspaper.