“Every imagination is distinct,” says Dan Hunter. “It is a conglomeration of what you’ve experienced, what you want to achieve, and what you remember.” Can imagination be measured, and what does it have to do with creativity and invention? How do teachers develop imagination in their students, and how is it elicited in the workplace? Host Richard Miles talks to Dan Hunter, the inventor of the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire, known as H-IQ, the first assessment of individual imagination and ideation. Dan is also an accomplished playwright, author, songwriter, teacher, and comedian.

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:00
Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We'll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We'll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Richard Miles: 0:00
Imagination. What does it really mean? Can it be measured? And what does it have to do with creativity and invention? I'm your host, Richard Miles, and my guest today via the miracle of Zoom is Dan Hunter, the inventor of the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire known as H-IQ, the first assessment of individual imagination and ideation. He's also accomplished playwright, songwriter, and teacher. Welcome to the show, Dan.

Dan Hunter: 0:00
Thank you, Richard

Richard Miles: 1:04
So, Dan. This show is produced in Florida. I live in DC, You live in Massachusetts and we're conducting the interview via a technology created in San Jose, California. Imagine that.

Dan Hunter: 1:04
Yes, exactly.

Richard Miles: 1:17
So I neglected to mention in introducing you that you are probably the world's foremost authority on what makes Iowa funny.

Dan Hunter: 1:25
I'll claim that honor. Yeah, I am a native of Iowa and lived there until about 20 years ago.

Richard Miles: 1:32
And you've written a couple of books on it as well. Sort of specifically humor and Iowa, right?

Dan Hunter: 1:36
Yeah, Three books. "Let's Keep Des Moines a Private Joke," "The Search for Iowa" and "We Don't Grow Potatoes," and, the last one is, "Iowa. It's a State of Mind."

Richard Miles: 1:47
Is this taken well by native Iowans that they like the ribbing? Or do you get some push back?

Dan Hunter: 1:52
No. I made my living for about 17 years, performing throughout the Midwest and primarily Iowa. I think Midwesterners, they appreciate humor about themselves, and they recognize that they have a calm humility about them, for the most part. Occasionally you get a crackpot, I mean one person once sent me back one of my books stapled 100 times.

Richard Miles: 2:14
Like I said, that's an interesting side hustle. But I guess it wasn't a side hustle a while.

Dan Hunter: 2:20
No, it was my main work at the time.

Richard Miles: 2:22
So, this is not a show dedicated to Iowa humor, as much as we, we could talk about that, but to showcase the stories of inventors and entrepreneurs, and at the root of most of those narratives are seeds of imagination and creativity. But the problem is imagination, so