Creative connections

Art Fry had a little problem that vexed him: when he sang in his church choir, the bookmarks in his hymnal kept moving around or falling to the floor.  One Sunday in 1973 he recalled that a colleague at work, Spencer Silver, had developed an adhesive.  The glue wasn’t very marketable, but it did have some unique properties: it did not leave a residue, and was strong enough to stick to things but still weak enough to remove easily. Fry decided to apply some of the adhesive along the edge of a piece of paper.  His bookmark problem was solved.
 
You may have heard the story before. Fry and Spencer worked at the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, also known as 3M. From that simple idea the company developed the product that we all know as the colourful Post-it notes, now sold around the world.

This story illustrates a point about ingenuity.  As Apple founder Steve Jobs summarized: “Creativity is just connecting things.”

Jobs’ life is an example of how varied experiences can come together to inspire creativity. The idea of calling the company “Apple Computer” came to him from spending time at an apple orchard in Oregon where he attended a spiritual retreat.  Jobs also spent some time at an ashram in India and experimented with calligraphy in a class at Reed College. These were experiences that were quite different from daily life in the suburbs and stoked his creativity. These same memories later shaped his thoughts about simplicity and design, which he so famously applied to the computer business. When Apple built the Macintosh computer, the company hired musicians, artists and poets along with engineers.

Another important innovator, Leonardo da Vinci, also saw the value of those inter-disciplinary connections.  He wrote, “Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses - especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else."  

A contemporary expert in thinking, Edward de Bono, believes that “creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”  

That’s motivation for all of us to get out there and try different things...


A related stories:  
How to foster creativity, previously in this blog.
How great business innovators are made (not born), from Fortune magazine. The article refers to two recent books.

Note:
The Leonardo da Vinci and Edward de Bono quotations are collected in BrainyQuote, a very useful site.

Why do we merely play with our tools?

An invitation to a social event crossed my desk today that shows a reproduction of Leonardo Da Vinci's famous sketch of Vitruvian Man from 1492.

I got to thinking about how technology and science are changing our lives, and how Leonardo himself innovated in art, science and mechanics. He used the technology available to him to advance our knowledge of the universe. He studied nature. He used his brushes to represent human experience on canvas. He used available tools to design and build machines that were years ahead of his time.

But what is technology without thought?

In today's world, it seems to me that we often play with new devices because we succumb to the allure of slick marketing campaigns. We buy gadgets and learn how to use them; and too often end up doing only that -- learning how they function. Then we repeat some those functions over and over again. Think, for example, how many of us use a computer only for e-mail; how many of us sit on the couch and use the remote control to surf aimlessly up and down the dial. We fill our time with media consumption that is based on access to it; not necessarily to accomplish something.

What a difference it makes when we apply technology to some higher purpose.

I read on the back of the card that Leonardo drew Vitruvian Man after reflecting on the observations of an ancient Roman architect, Vitruvious. It was Vitruvious who saw the human body as the model of perfection. It was he who observed that the human body, when seen with arms and legs extended, fits into both of the so-called "perfect geometric forms": the circle and the square. He used these ideas of human proportion to design buildings.

So Leonardo was simply using his talents to draw a visual representation of Vitruvious's earlier thought. The same can be said of another genius who lived after Leonardo, Shakespeare, who based so much of his celebrated work on earlier stories from classic Greek and Roman literature.

Real credit goes to our predecessors, on whose thoughts we build our world. The works that endure are those that relate to deep, shared aspects of the human experience.

Technology is always just a tool.

"TED" - The idea factory

Few things are as inspiring as a great speaker who finds a way to hold your attention and then sparks your inner genius.

The world of ideas is full of potential, especially when those ideas are shared in a vast arena, where millions of people can evaluate them, modify them or apply them.

This is the mission of the organization known as TED. Have you heard of it?

TED is an acronym that stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It began as a conference in Monterey, California, about 20 years ago. The conference was organized to bring people together from those three areas of human activity, but became so successful that it branched out into a much wider sphere.

At the conference each year, some of the world's most original thinkers are invited to give their best talk in under 18 minutes.

Bill Clinton, Richard Branson, Bono, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, Bill Gates, and Burt Rutan are just some of the speakers who have showcased their talents at the TED conference.

What's amazing about TED is that it makes the best performances available to the public for free through its web site http://www.ted.com/.

You can literally sit for hours and listen to these innovative leaders in their respective fields.

TED is owned by a non-profit foundation, The Sapling Foundation, whose purpose is to foster the spread of ideas to challenge some of the most important global issues and to find ways to create a better future.

The site is organized by themes like "Tales of Invention", "What's Next in Tech?", "A Greener Future", "How the Mind Works" and "What Makes Us Happy?"

TED believes powerful ideas can change the world.

As the web site says...

"Consider:

* An idea can be created out of nothing except an inspired imagination.

* An idea weighs nothing.

* It can be transferred across the world at the speed of light for virtually zero cost.

* And yet an idea, when received by a prepared mind, can have extraordinary impact.

* It can reshape that mind's view of the world.

* It can dramatically alter the behavior of the mind's owner.

* It can cause the mind to pass on the idea to others. "

If you're looking for inspiration, TED is one of the best places to start.

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Photo credit: www.pdphoto.org