“Sara Martin is an artist and writer based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Learn more ways to maximize your creative life at ModernSentiment.com/blog.”
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
modern sentiment
I read an interesting post on brainstorming on the blog, Modern Sentiment. I like the way Sara Martin writes and her ideas strike a chord. Sara writes, "This is a really contentious issue among creatives and artistic types. I know plenty of people who herald brainstorming as the acme of innovation (I just happen to think they are wrong). What about you?".
“Sara Martin is an artist and writer based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Learn more ways to maximize your creative life at ModernSentiment.com/blog.”
“Sara Martin is an artist and writer based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Learn more ways to maximize your creative life at ModernSentiment.com/blog.”
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She is most definitely wrong. Recently I read an amazing book entitled "Where Good Ideas Come From" by Stephen Johnson (author of "Everything Bad is Good For You"). In it he recounts idea after idea and invention after invention that would never have come to fruition if it were done in isolation.
ReplyDeleteWe like to think isolation leads to the breakthroughs or the big epiphany moments (Johnson dispells that idea too - most great ideas result from what he dubs "the slow hunch"), but they rarely do.
Just look at apple as an example. Steve Wozniak would have given the codes away if it were up to him early on. However, Steve Jobs was there to reign him in, knowing that they were sitting on a gold mine.
Even when it doesn't come to inventing the product, collaboration is absolutely vital. Take Thomas Edison. He had a list of a dozen uses for the newly invented phonograph. The first use, he figured, would be able to record the dying to preserve their last will and testament. Well, we can all see how well that turned out! His last reason, because he just never thought it would ever work, was to play music. Yet, it took others to market the device to actually make it useful. And playing music is what it became known for. Shows you what Edison knew, right?
In fact, Johnson found that most breakthroughs occur not in the lab but at the discussion table where scientists discuss what is actually hindering them in the experiments or research. Then typically a scientist from a different field will have a fresh perspective and say, "Have you tried doing this?" And the breakthrough will occur.
Johnson notes that this cooperation and collaboration is most evident in the most thriving spots on earth: rain forests and coral reefs. Each is teeming with all forms of life thriving off of each other. Nature knows that collaboration is the way things work rather than survival of the fittest.
And a final example, this one from one of my favorite thinkings, James Burke (he of "The Knowledge Web" and "Connections") on a podcast I was listening to just last night, he gave an example of how scientists working together and exploring the gray areas between their separate disciplines is where some of the greatest breakthroughs occurred. He states that between the use of gaslights and the study of chemistry we discovered what the gaslights produced (a gunk called coal tar). Those who investigated this discovered that it had beneficial uses and up arose the field of pharmaceutical industry.
This type of innovation and discovery is the total opposite of groupthink.
For more examples of this, check out Steven Johnson's phenomenal TED Talks:
Where Good Ideas Come From -
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html
The Ghost Map -
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_tours_the_ghost_map.html