Last updated 4/19/99
Link back to course Welcome

Creativity in the News

More recent stories will be at the top.

• The New York Times Magazine for Sunday, April 18 was a special edition on "The Best Ideas, Stories and Inventions of the Last Thousand Years." One of the articles, "Invention, the Mother of Necessity", focused on printing. We all know that printing was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455. Actually, there was a long history of both fixed and moveable type going back to the Minoans in 1700 B.C., China in the 800's, Korea in 1403 and Holland in 1430. Why does Gutenberg get the credit? First, moveable type was the really important innovation, and it works much better for languages with alphabets rather than pictograms. So printing never became important in China and Korea. And Gutenberg had an entire system (type, printing press, inks, metal type, etc.), while the earlier inventors had pieces of the system. I think this shows the influence that the domain and the field can have on creativity and innovation. The right idea at the wrong time is not a solution at all. So if it doesn't solve a problem, it will not be counted as creative.
• A second article in the same issue traced the development of vision and optics, and the growth of the idea that evidence or observation is a more secure basis for action than is pure thought. Euclid and Ptolemey reasoned that we see because light travels out from the eye to illuminate objects; Aristotle reasoned that light travelled from the object to the eye, but both opinions were prevalent. In 965, Ibn al-Hytham in the city of Basra (currently in Iraq) demonstrated that light travelled from the object to the eye. He did this quite convincingly, by having people stare at the sun; their eyes were burned (hopefully they stopped before becoming entirely blind!). This was a crucial step in the development of the scientific method; that evidence and observation are the ways to find out how things work. Also, in the middle east, optics was highly developed as a result of this work. Frances Bacon is generally given credit for the development of the scientific method, but this story demonstrates that he had predecessors. But after Bacon, the scientific method became much more widespread and powerful. Again, the domain and the field have a great deal of influence.
  
• The New York Times business section for Friday, April 16 had a story on "new-economy" stocks such as consumer services, health care, telecommunications and financial services Vs "old-economy" stocks such as basic materials (coal, iron, etc.), energy, industrials, utilities and transportation. Nicolas Negroponte, one of the digital whiz-kids, characterizes these as "bits" or information Vs "atoms" or matter. The point of the story was that the market capitalization (number of shares times the price per share) for new-economy was 70% and rising for the stock market value, Vs 30% and falling for old-economy. Market capitalization is supposed to reflect what investors feel the trends are. Well, here is the point. BellSouth was listed as an example of old-economy. Jim, wasn't it BellSouth that bought Ameritech? What gives?
  
• The New York Times sports section for Tuesday, April 13, carried an article on flow that Mihaly Csikszentmihayi writes about and "the zone" that atheletes talk about. First, these two terms do indeed refer to the same state of mind -- focussed, time slowing down, challenged but able to meet the challenge. Here are some other points from the article, related to creativity:
  • The "runner's high" is part of the motivation of many runners. The immediate reward of the flow experience is often a greater motivation than the distant rewards of being in good shape and better health. (I think this is parallel to my suggestion that there may be an "aha" high that drives creative people.) "You get hooked on the high," said Dr. Jay C. Kimiecik, an exercise psychology researcher at Miami University in Ohio.
  • The article said that those who have a high rate of flow experiences also are susceptible to hypnosis. (I sure would like to hear more about this!)
  • The article mentioned Csikszentmihalyi and even told how to pronounce his name (chik-SENT-me-hi). He has written a book on The Sports High with Dr. Sue A. Jackson, a sports psychology lecturer at Queensland University in Australia. Dr. Kmiecik in the paragraph above mentioned the feeling of being challenged but not overwhelmed as an important component of flow in sports. This is consistent with Csikszentmihalyi in Flow.
  • While the concept of flow is accepted, not all researchers agree that is an important motivation. Dr. Jack Raglin, a sports researcher at Indiana University, was quoted as saying that people quit exercises because of injuries or time constraints, not because of a lack of flow. Dr. Kimiecik is given the last word; "People are told to exercise because they'll lose weight, lower their risk of disease, and live longer. But people aren't motivated by distant outcomes. More important is what they're feeling at the moment."
    
• A story on National Public Radio (NPR, carried by FM 101.9, the WSU radio station) this morning (Tuesday, April 13) dealt with a world-class whistler, John Roth of Washington, D.C. Mr. Roth whistles classical music, mostly, and what he could do was really startling -- complex rhythms, multiple melodic lines, etc. He described how, when he hears a new piece of music that he likes, he keeps on trying to figure out how to whistle it, until he gets it right. He also spoke about competition at the international level. He is usually judged as one of the top five whistlers world-wide in competitions, but never number one. He said that at that level, everybody is very good, but small differences become important. Mr. Roth said that his tone was judged to be too "pure" and flute-like. But he is going on whistling the way he wants. (I had no idea whistling could be this intense. Mr. Roth was very analytical.)
  
• The New York Times business section for Sunday, March 21, carried an article about Bloomberg L.P. This company was created in "the early 1980's" by its current President, Michael Bloomberg, and has grown into a Wall Street giant by providing complex financial data to stockbrokers an in easy-to-use form. The data goes far beyond the traditional "high, low, open, close" prices of a company's stock to include past data of the stock and of related stocks, and to complex financial calculations that stockbrokers used to have to carry out themselves. It has vastly increased the productivity of stock traders, and allowed them to give their clients much more up-to-date information (the databases are updated more than 300 million times each day) and analysis. In addition, the company is the world's third-largest news organization, after UP and Reuters. (My son-in-law is a computer programmer in the news section.) With respect to its employees, Bloomberg has been demanding and critical, but financially very generous. In the article, there are two relevant points for this course:
  • Very often the company founder must be replaced once the company reaches a certain size and stability. With size, personal relationships must be replace by policies and processes. (Hewlett and Packard were very unusual in being able to lead the Hewlett Packard company for such a long time, without running it into the ground.) Bloomberg faces a new generation of competitors, is replacing its basic technology, must control the costs of some of its bonus programs, and must expand into Europe to remain competitive, according to the article. Is this the time at which the founder must be replaced? It is not a clear decision; it never is.
  • Bloomberg is quoted several times on the importance of innovation.
    • "The world is such that you have to constantly provide the public -- whether the public is an institutional public or a retail public -- with new things. Partly because they get bored. But alsoi because the competitors out there, whether it's better kinds of cereal or widgets or information or whatever it is, they're doing it better."
    • "I started Bloomberg in 1981. I've gone back and looked at the then-Fortune 500 companies. How many do you think are still in the Fortune 500? One hundred sixty, as of a few months ago." That's a low survival rate, folks! "There are very few companies that can survive through multiple market cycles and technological evolution." Will his survive? "Well, I can guarantee you that if we don't keep changing, innovating, giving our companies more for their money, we will not survive."
      
• On Tuesday, March 2, Hewlett Packard announced that it would split into two companies within twelve to eighteen months. One of the companies would have the test equipment business, including things like audio oscillators and medical test equipment, while the other would have the computer business, including the printers. In the stories on National Public Radio (locally, WDET), a company official was quoted to the effect that HP wanted to focus so that it could be more nimble. "Focus" and "nimble" are directly related to this course.
  • Focus is a prerequisite or requirement for alignment. In order to be aligned, a company must have a coherent focus that its customers and employees can understand and relate to. Alignment, in turn, is commonly understood to be a requirement for corporate creativity.
  • "Nimble" means able to follow the twists and turns of the market quickly. For example, with digital cameras becoming popular, and Kodak and Kinko's offering to digitize your photos if you don't have a digital camera, and more people buying color scanners, the ability of even inexpensive printers to reproduce pictures with photographic quality becomes essential in convincing consumers to buy your printers. This happens very quickly, and getting left behind is deadly. With this understanding, "nimble" is practically a synonym for "innovative" and "creative."

  News stories described HP as the cornerstone of Silicon Valley, and the first Silicon Valley business starting in a garage. Similarly, it was described as typifying the "California company" with informal dress, downplaying of titles, open access to management, and personal, friendly relationships within the company, rather than relationships based on job functions.

• Regarding innovation and entrepreneurship, an Op-Ed in The New York Times on Friday, 2/26/99 describes how easy and inexpensive it is to set up an online bookstore similar to the amazon.com that has been discussed so often in this course. The article describes how the three members of the Bowlin family in Cedar Falls, Iowa, are running an online bookstore out of their bedroom. Their expenses are low; for example, $30 per month to Americard to process online credit-card purchases, and the same amount to ACES to house their web site. Their total expenses are $150 per month plus the cost of any books they buy so they can sell them. BUT, they do not order the books from the publisher until someone has ordered from them, and for popular books they save up for five orders at a time, so they can get the same discount that Amazon does. The Bowlins can sell books for less than Amazon does and still make a profit. Their web site is www.positively-you.com. The Bowlins also offer to donate 10% of the purchase price for any books purchased by a nonprofit organization or its members, to the nonprofit organization. The Bowlins don't have to make a living off of this; they all have day jobs. But they like books and they saw that they could have some fun and make some money. The article closes with, "Or think about it like this: For about the cost of one share of Amazon.com, you can be Amazon.com." Of course, Amazon.com offers a much larger catalog, ships very popular books immediately, and uses its large customer base to offer other value such as reader-written reviews, sales rankings and books ordered by people with interests similar to yours. But online retailing should become a lot more popular as more people realize the potential here, in all kinds of retail areas.
• An article in The Living Arts section of The New York Times on Wednesday 2/17/99 describes the interaction between the artists Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. While always retaining their separate approaches, each influenced the other. Picasso is quoted as saying, "No one has ever looked at Matisse's painting more carefully that I, and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he." The occasion for the article was an exhibition,"Matisse and Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry", in Fort worth, Texas. Speakers characterized Matisse as painting pictures that were a harmonious, integrated whole, while Picasso painted a narrative, with conflict. A specific example is that Matisse's figures do not have ends on their fingers, if that would conflict with the whole, while Picasso was "too demonstrative to leave anything out" (Leo Steinberg). But for the purposes of this course, the speakers documented several examples where the two artists inspired and criticized each other, pushing each other to higher standards. This is what happens with public creativity; the interaction with others pushes all of those in the field to higher standards and better work. This is independent of the exact field, such as art, science or business. Competition raises the stakes, and pushes everyone to exceed.
• Howard Gardner, author of Creating Minds, was interviewed in The New York Times Arts and Entertainment section on  Sunday, 2/15/99. The interview started off with Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, which he describes in another book, Frames of Mind. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences holds that there are separate kinds of intelligence for different field of work; musical, linguistic, spatial and interpersonal intelligences. Gardner feels there are seven or eight separate intelligences in all. Gardner has recently added two new forms of intelligence to his collection: (a) naturalist intelligence, for recognizing how things are different and similar at the same time, and (b) spiritual or existential intelligence, leading to ask basic questions about the purpose of life. The interviewer asked about children's creativity. Gardner replied,

"Let's get some terms straight. Some people use the word creativity for anybody who does anything well. Most people in most societies who work a long time at something can become experts. Most people who play the piano for 10 years become expert pianists in the sense that they can sit down and play a Mozart sonata without making a lot of mistakes. I went to China in the early 1980's and say kids doing art work that I didn't think was possible. This was because China had developed a remarkable system for training children to draw. But they weren't creative in the sense that they weren't affecting the practices in a domain or our conception of a domain.

"A domain is what I call any organized activity in a society where you can rank people in terms of expertise. You know that story about T.S. Eliot? Somebody was trying to ingratiate himself with Eliot and said to him that most editors are failed writers. Eliot said, 'Yes. So are most writers.' And so are most painters failed painters in the sense that the don't affect their domain.

"To affect a domain, number one, you've got to want to do it very much. Anybody who thinks that creativity just sort of happens is mistaken because when you do things that are different from other people, you usually get rejected. The second requirement is to master the history of the domain. You can't go on to do something new unless you know what's been done before.

"A third thing, which is very very hard for people to swallow, is that you need to know about the people of influence in that field. You need to know who they are and how they operate, and if you don't you need to have somebody else who does know. The work somehow has to come to their attention. People could say, well, if the stuff had come to the attention of these people, maybe it would have affected the domain on its own merits. And the answer is, we can only find that out by bringing it to their attention. It's like the sound of a tree falling in the forest.

The critical thing in terms of creative impulse seems to be that when something aberrant or unusual happens - either in your life or in your work - that you don't ignore it. The easiest thing is to ignore when something strange happens. If I'm a scientist and my experiment doesn't work out, the easiest thing is to assume that I made a mistake rather than to become interested in the anomaly. But the roots of innovation lie in taking seriously and developing something which nobody else has paid attention to and which you and the rest of the universe might be inclined to ignore. You need to have a lot of fortitude to do this because most other people aren't going to be giving you a lot of positive signals. It's therefore not surprising to discover that people who end up making creative breakthroughs also have support from somewhere. That's another requirement, whether it's support in the form of van Gogh's brother Theo or the proverbial Jewish mother."

The same section of The New York Times had an article on the rise of "digital art" in all forms - visual, literary and musical art generate by computers. The volume of this art is rising quickly, and there are now art shows devoted to its products. At least some traditional artists feel that this is not "real art", and it has always been controversial. My own view is that it means that art can now be created without the years of training in techniques that were formerly necessary. This should lead to many more people working as artists, and focus attention on content and away from technique.

• A story in the Money and Business section of The New York Times on Sunday, 2/7/99, mentions the Monty Python comedian John Cleese. Cleese became a noted industrial trainer after Monty Python broke up, and is currently enthusiastic about a new book that is supposedly very popular right now among CEOs; Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind (Ecco Press, 1999), by Guy Claxton, "an academic psychologist in Britain". Claxton contrast what he calls the "Hare Brain", which is "logical, fast [and] machine-like", with the "Tortoise Mind", which is "slower, less articulate, much more playful, almost dreamy." The point is, according to Claxton, that innovation is the product of the tortoise mind; on its own, the hare brain can keep an existing organization running, but cannot create the organization or discover how to change it when change is needed. "The tortoise mind needs the hare brain to analyze and sift through the ideas it serves up, of course, but Mr. Cleese said that pressures of all kinds - deadlines, peers - give license to the hare brain to bully the tortoise mind. So people need to make boundaries in time and space, like closing their door or going for a walk, to let their tortoise mind do its meandering work."
  
• It can't really be called news, but the following is news to me, and it says a lot about creativity. In The Nature of Creativity, an article by H.E. Gruber and S.N. Davis is assigned for ISP 5990. Part of the article compares two English biologists, Charles R. Darwin (1809 - 1882) and Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895). Darwin was the naturalist aboard the ship Beagle; Huxley was the naturalist aboard the ship Rattlesnake. Darwin, in setting out on his trip, "enjoyed an ample and unprofessional vagueness in his goals." "Huxley, on the other hand ... was crisp, professional and brilliant. Any awards committee would have chosen Huxley for the fellowship and put Darwin on the waiting list - and never would have known enough to regret the choice." Darwin created his revolutionary Theory of Evolution from his experiences, while Huxley is scarcely remembered today, and mostly for his advocacy for Darwin's theory. The objective, measurable traits were all on Huxley's side, and yet evidently Darwin's free-ranging thinking was more powerful. Will things always turn out this way? Obviously not, but the point is that the objective, measurable characteristics of people do not determine their level of creativity.