"The Sweat That Eureka Demands"

(Extract of a recent, very up-to-the-minute post of mine in Idea Champions' "The Heart of Innovation"... a couple weeks back:)

Serious about doing something innovative? Be prepared to spend many long, focused hours working on it (and working and working and reworking...)

Thomas Edison  (Wikipedia)

"We want to believe that creativity and innovation come in flashes of pure brilliance," Janet Rae-Dupree writes in the New York Times. But, "Innovation is a slow process of accretion, building small insight upon interesting fact upon tried-and-true process. Just as an oyster wraps layer upon layer of nacre atop an offending piece of sand, ultimately yielding a pearl, innovation percolates within hard work over time."
...
(As one of the greatest inventors in memory, Thomas Edison, knew so well:)

In an interview in Harpers magazine, February 1890, (stay tuned here at Heart Of Innovation as we present the latest, greatest breakthroughs! ; ) Edison explained his method:

"I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. ... I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory."

(More of "The Sweat That Eureka Demands" here...)

Related, here in Rosswriting: 
inventors (tag)

Front Seat TV Found "Distracting"

A situation sorely in need of a firm grasp of the obvious:
I was astonished by a recent story in the NY Times on the problems being caused by television and other screens in cars' front seats. The caption of a photo of one such cockpit display read, "Safety experts say electronic devices can be distracting."

Well, DUUHH! Excuse me, but how could the people in positions of responsibility for launching products with such obvious critical flaws not see the problem here?

Even if you're fine with an utterly distracted state from a philosophical point of view, didn’t anyone bring up the issue of the potential liability? (Or if someone did, and you figure that's the likelihood, why didn't the decision makers get it?)

The best part of the article was a quick mention of how legislation came to be introduced in New York to ban all “display generating devices” in the driver’s view. To it's credit, the state already has a law against TV sets in the front seat.

State Senator Carl L. Marcellino, who sponsored the bill, "learned this firsthand while riding in a cab in Miami — the driver was watching a boxing match on a television mounted on the dashboard." I can testify that having lived in Miami for many years, I have no problem at all imagining this. (It can be quite a surreeaalistic place.)

"High-Tech Invitations Take Your Mind Off Road" By Bill Vlasic

Related, here:
(Tag:) Focus

(Image uploaded to Flickr by wiseacre photo)

Just Keep Swinging

In the process of backing up my machine here (since I'm taking it in for a repair before the service contract is up,) I came across one of those inspirational quotes that you save to get you through discouraging interludes.

This, from one of baseball's greatest hitters, is one that I found printed across the top of the local paper's sports page a few years back, right over the scores from the various high school teams. At the time, I really needed not just to hear this, but to keep it in the forefront of my thoughts. So I taped it at the top of my monitor, where it always fed me a little encouragement and direction every time I looked up.

"My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or just feeling badly, the only thing to do was keep swinging."

- Henry Aaron

Now, here's a guy who, I think we can say, probably had a lot more reason to feel downhearted at times than most. As I'm sure most people realize, when he was on his way to breaking Babe Ruth's career home run record, he was receiving death threats and hate mail on a regular basis.

After the last game of the 1973 season, having reached 713, one short of the record, Aaron stated that his only fear was that he might not live to see the next season. So when he said, I just keep swinging, that was quite a statement.

(I suppose it was stressful to be receiving threats of indictment while going after Aaron's record, but I don't think they quite compare.)

1974 baseball card uploaded to Flickr by brettbigb

On "Blog Coaching"

Just received this very kind letter today from Mitch Ditkoff, the President of Idea Champions, the "culture of innovation" trainers/consultancy, about my ongoing blog coaching services for them. He explains so well what we do in that space that I don't need to add a further word of explanation.
I figure he won't mind me excerpting the longer letter here:

"Thank you very much for all the fine work you’ve done to help Idea Champions create and launch it’s very successful Heart of Innovation blog...

"Your efforts, insights and support were the missing piece. You helped me sort through the choices, consider my options, and made some very insightful recommendations. I appreciate all your flexibility, responsiveness, and commitment to see this project through to the end.

"I see your blog consulting service as a kind of 'chiropractic adjustment.' You have a light touch, know what you’re doing, and are all about the 'health' of your clients.. . I needed the human touch – the Walk Me Through It school of education. So thanks again for hanging in there with me and helping manifest a 'good idea' into a bottom-line reality."

(For my part, I've just got to say that we should all be so lucky to have such enlightened and light-hearted clients.)

Can trends be predicted, much less created?

I came across a provocative, realistic thought in Lois Kelly's "Bloghound" today, in a discussion of whether it's possible to jump-start a trend by trying to influence the influencers. She quotes a "Columbia University network theory scientist" named Duncan Watts who argues otherwise, saying, "the complex network effects on society mean that trends occur randomly."

In an article in Fast Company, he says, "If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one — and if it isn't then almost no one can." In other words, Nothing Is As Powerful As An Idea Whose Time Has Come. Find one of those and then you've got something to work with.

That concept and this post produced a range of pings for me: I've been quoting a related idea for a long time, said to be one of the Laws Of Hollywood: "All Hits Are Flukes." (Just anecdotally, I remember this was reported as seen on the office wall of Trip Hawkins, back when he headed Electronic Arts.)

Yes, you've got to do your due diligence, put out as much intelligent, engaging signal to the right audiences as you can. But then there's always that point where you can only See What Happens. Farmers can plant the best seed at the right time and apply all their Best Practices; but then, it's largely up to the weather.

Companies are understandably nervous about investing money in marketing -- because the more time and money you've spent on marketing that came up empty, the more antsy you get -- so marketers can feel understandably pressured into issuing guarantees. But aren't those almost invariably fiction? What a marketer can do is stay on top of what's going on out there as much as possible, and give a company the best chance to succeed in getting their message out to fruitful effect.

~ ~ ~
Lois Kelly's angle on getting the message out is based on what she calls "conversational marketing." In the sample chapter of her book, "Beyond Buzz," she explains, "The big idea is simply this: marketing is about having conversations, engaging with people in interesting discussions, through new and traditional channels. Technology may be becoming the heart of marketing and communications, but conversations are the soul."

(I find it a parallel, complementary idea to the ongoing focus here on pursuing business by dealing with people face to face. I'll toss in here that while in-person contacts are still ideal, advances in videoconferencing are now making that medium the next best thing. Especially when it means you wouldn't have to undress at a trot in a cold airport.)

Photo of the Hollywood sign, chosen because it symbolizes
the empty facade that area is, posted to Flickr by Kiran Ambre.)

Related, here:
Interface or Face To Face?

Serious Fun Dept.: The Playpump

A fully-formed idea is a beauty to behold. Find the kind that works in full strength on a number of levels, simultaneously fulfilling a range of needs, and you've got an effort worthy of putting full energy into.

Such is the Playpump -- as Maura Welch explains (in the Boston Globe Business Filter, from a post in PSFK), "This genius invention delivers clean drinking water to African villages -- and it's powered by a merry-go-round."

PSFK writes, "While children are playing on a merry-go-round, up to 1,400 liters of clean water can be pumped into a tank that stands seven meters above the ground. The tank’s walls are used to place ad billboards while two sides are reserved for educational messages. The revenue from ad-sales is put into the maintenance of each pump."

Here's a device which supplies a vital necessity, and is powered by children doing what they're supposed to do, and do best: play. Talk about "Serious Fun"! As Welch writes, "Simple things are powerful."

National Geographic's "Wild Chronicles" feature on the PlayPump Water System:

"Clean water equals less disease. It's low-cost solution to a whole host of complicated, expensive problems."

Of course, now that the kids don't need to carry water from dirty streams every day, the adults are glad they can spend more time in school. From the children's point of view, this might seem like a mixed blessing. But hey, they get a merry-go-round!

The 5 C's for a Team, from Nate McMillan (and 1)

Yes, another one of those lists... (one of the many ways that enumerate how relentlessly numbers-oriented our society is. Seems like everywhere you look, lists are being published of the Five This and the Ten That -- excuse me, that's the Top Five and the Top Ten.)

Still, this concise list of "the Five C's," five qualities for players on a winning team to focus on, rang all the right bells for me. I noticed this particular story, though, because these conceptual-vitamin C's come from a basketball coach I'm familiar with, whose team is overachievingly hot. And that mostly matters because all through his 12 years as a point guard on the Seattle Sonics, Nate McMillan really played the game "the right way."

McMillan has now been coaching the regional rival Portland Trailblazers (22-13) for two years, and his motto was voiced in a Portland Tribune story last month about their upstart success.

"Coach Nate McMillan cited an adherence to the 'five C’s' – calmness, clarity, consistency, connectedness and communication – as an example of the team’s progress. 'We started communicating better, and the result was, we raised our level of play and had a nice comeback,' McMillan said."


Calmness,

_Clarity,

__Consistency,

___Connectedness,

____Communication.

Beautiful. Touches all the bases -- excuse me, that should be, "moves the ball around to find the open man."

It's interesting to note that the first three really begin with the effort of the individual. Once those basic qualities are put in action by each of the team members, that's the point from where connection can start to come into play.

To that list, I'd only suggest adding Caring.

How do I justify that? Folks, I only need point to the other conference and historic Boston, where Exbibit A now reigns: Mr. Kevin Garnett is unquestionably the driving force behind the Celtics' current 29-4 record, not only league-leading but putting them as a team in some pretty rarified historical company. And it doesn't look like anybody could care more than he does.

The guy is so passionately motivated, and equally on each end of the floor, that his teammates just can't help getting inspired and energized by it, and, to put a technical hoops term on it, just play their butts off out there.

Yes, there are a couple other All-Stars on there, Pierce and Allen, and [blah blah team talk], but it is Garnett's evident passion and drive that's the difference between a good team and the great one they're playing as right now.

~ ~ ~
Putting up a few more shots:

Nate McMillan was always one of those quiet "hustle guys" for the Sonics, the kind that the casual fan might not notice, but who would always seem to be coming up with key defensive plays, rebounds, loose balls -- the effort plays -- getting the ball to the stars for dramatic scores, while dropping in a few three pointers at crucial moments.

The consummate team player, he was a repeat on the all-NBA Defensive 2nd team (i.e., one of the top ten defenders -- dammit, there it is again!), and the Sonics' franchise leader in assists and steals when he retired in 1998, having spent his entire pro playing career in Seattle. By then he was known as Mr. Sonic, and the next year they retired his number, only the team's fourth up to then.
~ ~ ~

There's nothing like a winning streak to support whatever philosophies the winners work by: as of today the Blazers just won nine of their last ten games; and this with a young, "rebuilding" team that no one expected to hear from this season. Especially when they got the #1 pick in the draft last year, but then the poor guy went down with an injury -- for the year).
~ ~ ~

Let me ask an important question that's been on my mind with this:
why isn't there ever a Top Eight or Eleven or Seventeen of anything?
If it's always Ten, don't you suspect that they either add or drop one or two to make it fit? And then where do those missing elements wind up?
(Omigod, it might be that one left-behind Reason #11 that's been the missing link all this time!)
~ ~ ~

Sports Illustrated article: "In his own words: Blazers coach Nate McMillan"

Related, here:
Dance vs. Hoops
(...for which I 've taken a lot of heat from dancers who, like, didn't get it. It's satire, people!)

"View from a Creative Mind"

(Brief of a post of mine in The Heart Of Innovation, 1/3/08, starting with news of,)

"... a nearby exhibition, titled 'Illuminations,' of the work of Saul Steinberg, the artist most famously known for his frequent appearances over six decades in The New Yorker magazine. He was the clever fellow who gave us the much-imitated 1976 cover illustration of how New Yorkers see the world, 'The View from 9th Avenue,' where a couple of blocks of the city dominate, and the rest of the country occupies a small square of land in the distance.

"So much of his work displayed such a fresh, wonderfully creative mind that, for me, it 'illustrates' an essential attitude that successful innovators have. This is the habit of looking to see things newly, as opposed to how we usually see, which is through a haze of existing thought patterns; and, freely associating, to find useful connections between things that were hidden until then.

"In the words of the Saul Steinberg Foundation's page on his life and work, 'fingerprints become mug shots or landscapes; graph or ledger paper doubles as the facade of an office building; words, numbers, and punctuation marks come to life as messengers of doubt, fear, or exuberance.. ."

"Saul Steinberg: Illuminations" on view through February 24 '08 at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie NY. (845) 437-5632.

(First spotted in Chronogram magazine, by Beth Wilson, 12/07.)

(Image courtesy of the Saul Steinberg Foundation's Gallery)

"Christmas Time Is Here" - the sweetly sad blues version

'Tis the season…

Every year at this time I make sure to dig out my all-time favorite Christmas album (okay, I'll admit it, along with Bing's), and it's mostly because of this one irreplaceable song.

If there's such a thing as a plaintive, yearning Christmas blues, this would be it: one that, while fully acknowledging the joyful, sweet, soulful nature of the real Christmas, and not what it's become (you retailers will have to excuse the rest of us for wishing it could be another way), sadly asks, why isn't it that way all year?

It's the late pianist Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack for "A Charlie Brown Christmas," performed by him and his trio for the original animated special from 1965. Here are the lyrics; and even better, the entire album (including the equally poignant instrumental version of the song,) can be heard as free streams on Download.com Music, courtesy of the publisher, Concord Music Group.

"Christmas Time Is Here"
(Written by Vince Guaraldi and Lee Mendelson)

Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call, their favorite time of year

Snowflakes in the air, carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes, of love and dreams to share

Sleigh bells in the air, beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside, and joyful memories there

Christmas time is here, we'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see, such spirit through the year
Oh, that we could always see, such spirit through the year...

(The story behind "A Charlie Brown Christmas," on Wikipedia.)

~ ~ ~

As a musician friend recently pointed out, there was so much more to Vince Guaraldi than just his inspired Peanuts soundtracks. He had a touch for the almost painfully beautiful, as with his instrumental, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," the 1963 Grammy winner of Best Instrumental Jazz Composition. That was from the album "Jazz Impression of Black Orpheus," Guaraldi's version of Antonio Carlos Jobim's haunting soundtrack score.

~ ~ ~

On a lighter note, and speaking of Bing's classic (sort of), an old friend just sent this tune along...

Predators In The Televised Bushes (Tracing Back To Root Causes)

We tend to think of ourselves as "highly evolved," but while our mental world and all the technology we cook up with it has certainly evolved very speedily over the last, say, 100 to 150 years, our body and the back of our brain is still far behind. I think this fact goes a long way towards explaining how confused we are as a species, mostly clumsily crashing our way through life on this planet...

One day, watching some poor band of musicians trying in vain to compete with a couple of television screens just off to the side, I was once again troubled by the fact that I seemed unable to ignore the (stoopit) TVs. My gaze repeatedly switched to the screens, and away from the performance of the real, living, breathing bioforms that I was trying to watch.

Finally, it occurred to me that the reason we are virtually unable to ignore a flickering television, our eyes drawn to it unwillingly again and again, is due to the part of our brain, still very much active, that is always on the alert for any activity in our peripheral vision -- because it might be a wild animal in the brush, measuring us up for a snack.

So I was mightily interested when I came across the same thought applied to a different sense, in, ironically, a blog on a subject that almost could not be more contemporary or "highly evolved," that of digital musicmaking.

The post in Create Digital Music is titled, "Windows Sound Glitches Explained, Plus Glitches and the Fight-or-Flight Response" (11/2/07, by Peter Kirn).

"Your ears and mind are incredibly sensitive to tiny details of sound. Result: if your operating system can’t keep up with sound output for any reason, you’ll get a noticeable “glitch” in the sound — and that’s a big deal. "Microsoft has a great post on their Vista Team Blog today from Steve Ball --

'My colleague on the Windows Sound team, Larry Osterman, also pointed out to me recently that humans are actually “hard-wired” to be disturbed by audio glitches. In an exchange about this topic, Larry observed that audio glitches are more obvious than video glitches because the ear’s tuned to notice high frequency transients — his visceral example of this idea is an image of a stick snapping in the woods behind you as an audio event that wakes you up before a bear wanders into your path.'"

So, it's not that we are so dreadfully unfocused and ADD -- although we most certainly are -- it's more because the base of our brain is still executing a seldom-needed Primary Directive. Unless you live in a big, dirty city, in which case it's just doin' its equally contemporary job.

(Photo on Flickr by Edgar Thissen)

Where Do Great Ideas Come From?

(Extracts of a couple of my recent posts in The Heart of Innovation, the weblog I manage for Idea Champions, the "culture of innovation" training/consultancy.)

"In Your Dreams"

Well, there it is again.

I've discovered an amazing, arts-centered television channel, Ovation TV. They screen an impressive array of high quality programming on music, film, dance, painting, etc., the artists and their processes (quite a lot of it being BBC productions from the late 90's, interestingly enough).

It was specifically a trio of programs on music hosted by the legendary producer of the Beatles, George Martin, that gave me the jolt to write this. Together they're titled, "The Rhythm of Life," one lengthy show each on Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony. For those who love music, these programs are an unparalleled feast, with Martin listening to friends from Stevie Wonder to Michael Tilson Thomas playing and talking about the marvels and mystery of music.

In the one on melody, he talks with Paul McCartney about "Yesterday," Paul's greatest hit... Martin asked his old partner McCartney how he came up with that famous melody; and Paul simply said, "I dreamt it." He explained that he woke up from a dream, with that melody playing itself in his imagination.

One of the projects I've been working on here this year, and among the most inspiring and energizing, has been editing the updated version of the workbook for one of Idea Champions' most fundamental courses, the Creative Thinking Training, "Banking on Innovation" (in the process of rebirth as "Freeing The Genie").

One segment (adapted into this article, "AHA! Great Moments in Creativity,") dealt all of the breakthroughs in art, science and technology that came as unexpected gifts to the practitioner, who would later be credited with their discovery. It turns out that the ideas for many great inventions came to the "inventors" in their dreams.

[more]
===

"Where do Great Ideas come from?"

Ever notice how many times the biggest, most successful ideas come from closely imitating some principle at work in nature?

I've kept one particular book around for years both because it contained a statement that really rang my chimes, and it's full of beautiful, striking imagery. The book is, "Bridges, a history of the world's most famous and important spans," by Judith Dupre (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1997).


And its memorable, "Whoomp, (ta-ta, ta,) there it is," declaration:

"Bridges are based on one or more of three basic structures that are derived from forms found in nature: the beam, from a log fallen across a stream; the arch, from natural rock formations, and the suspension, from a hanging vine."

So there it is, again: a human "invention" that turns out to be fundamentally "derived from forms found in nature."

[more - with a later comment from the author of the book ]

"High Tech/High Touch"- Naisbitt Nailed IT Long Ago

The Boston Globe's Maura Welch mentions an unexpectedly earthy item by Nicholas Carr (a former editor of Harvard Business Review, who naturally has also been published all over the place), "about a new study that says Americans are having less sex and spending less time with friends in order to stay online longer. … He predicts a counter-movement is on the way and advises marketers to look for 'the digitivity dropouts,' who make disconnectivity the next big thing."

Commenters in his blog were all over Carr for this scandalous claim; a sample remark was, "I don't buy it. There's too much utility in the Net for people to drop off."

But for me it quickly brought to mind the prescient expression of the famed "futurist" John Naisbitt, who first floated the idea of "high tech/high touch" in his 1982 book, MegaTrends, and found that it gained enough traction over the years to turn into a full volume of its own in '99.

So I couldn't resist dropping a comment on the subject in Carr's far-ranging blog. In the cause of saving myself some keystrokes so I can get outside while it's still nice, I wrote that it reminded me of Naisbitt's phrase, which is proving to be one of those rare examples of a "futurist" who actually got it right.

It's an important reminder that the more wired and gadgetized our world becomes, the more effort we need to make to plant our feet in the physical "real world." (The real Real World, that is, not one of the pretend "reality show" worlds.)

Naisbitt wrote,

“In a High Tech world with an increasing search for balance, High Touch will be the key…"

(He refers to) "a mountain of evidence implicating technology in relentlessly accelerating our lives, and stirring profound yearnings for a more emotionally satisfying existence."

Now, do any of us really require "a mountain of evidence" anymore to prove that being wired 24/7 is simply a very unnerving experience? I think we've all got one of those nervous mountains in our own back yard -- those of us who are lucky enough to have a back yard of our own. (City dwellers, please substitute whichever room your computer and/or "media center" sits in.)

Related, here:
Interface or Face To Face?
Posts referencing the Globe's Business Filter

Two short bits of interesting thinking, one for each side

...of your brain.

First, one for the Listen For It side:

The other day I got back in contact with an old friend (and former employer, in fact), someone I knew as a near-total gearhead, but who these days is blogging quite amusingly at the eponymous Brent Noorda's Blog (with it's concise tagline of, "Anything sufficiently vague shall always ring true"). We were talking about favorite music in our exchange of mail, and he related this:

"We were in Africa (mostly Burkina Faso) last year, and ran across a guy who was a Yes fan and had lived quite a while in remote regions, where he played much of his music collection. He said that their 'Tales from Topographic Oceans' was the favorite music of the locals, who would say something like,"

"Play that one with the sounds that go all over the place for a long time."

Its famous cover art by Roger Dean

===
Then, one for the Make It Happen side:

A widely quoted statement attributed to Charles Roberts Buxton (1823-1871), an English brewer, philanthropist, writer and Member of Parliament.

"You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it."

(Like, for example, becoming a member of Parliament, creating classic albums with exquisite cover art and lengthy sounds that go all over, or putting together totally unrelated pairs of blog posts.)

Paying the price of iMpatience

On all these stories of the outrage of the first buyers of the iPhone over the recent price cuts -- oh, puh-lease!


In case you spent the last week in a wireless cold-spot, it was reported all over the Web that Apple cut the price of the $600 iPhone by $200 (with the Holidayshopping Season coming up), and early adopters went ballistic. So Apple offered existing users a $100 credit -- in any Apple Store.

This along with the news that they'd beat their sales forecasts for this next evolutionary step in Gadgetdom, with that phenomenal ultra-touch-sensitive interface. “One million iPhones in 74 days—it took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod,” said Steve Jobs, their CEO (Chief Embodiment & Oracle).

Oddly enough, I couldn't find any word on Apple's site about that coupon offer -- so I found Job's Sept. 6 letter "To all iPhone customers" through a Web-wide search. There he explains, "Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple's website next week."

But my point is this:

"Early adopters" should be observant enough to understand that they're paying for the privilege of being the first one on their block with the new toy. They don't call it "the bleeding edge" for nothing.

"Love Is A No-Brainer"

Here, certainly, is the most off-topic entry yet for this humble weblog -- it's an axiom that occurred to me almost a year ago, and its accuracy has just recently been brought home to me again, even though it needed no further proof. (Of course there's a story behind it... which you'll be glad to learn I'm not going to share. In the immortal words of Stan Lee in Marvel Comics, " 'Nuff said!")

I love this phrase, though, because it's a highly useful reminder to us all, and contains the required multi-level meaning. We all understand the popular term "no-brainer" to indicate an obvious choice; but this goes that extra step further to explain that where love is concerned, your brain is not involved.

Remember this point; it might come in handy some day. ; - )

What I'm learning about blogging

(Or perhaps it's more accurate to say, what opinions I'm finding I've developed about it:)

The following ideas started life as a prospective style note to my bloggy brothers at Idea Champions' "Heart of Innovation," on which I'm happily toiling these days, after Mitch Ditkoff, the company's President-for-Life and our Captain Kirk (unless he's prefer Picard), e-mailed the other writers this admonition about a particular topic:

"We can revisit this idea a number of times on the blog. Don't need to nail it all in one posting."

I happen to think this is a Mighty Principle where webloggery is concerned, and wanted to spill about it briefly. As I said, of course, it's just my own BFO (Big Fat Opinion).

At this point in time, 'blogs are more of a minimalist art form, like e-mail. People surfing the web and spilling onto your page momentarily want to be fed a tasty but bite-sized bit, and if they like it they'll hang out for awhile and sample your other menu items.

Not very hungry just now? Put another way, then, it's not the book or even a chapter, it's the dust jacket copy. The accumulation of passing comments eventually winds up as a complete statement, whether by ear, in print, or online. All of your points will be made, in time -- patience is still sometimes a virtue, even in these hyper-driven times.

It is excellent to have an Extended Entry capability (The Heart of Innovation is produced with Movable Type; Blogger, here, hasn't evolved to that point yet). Extended Entry, aka "MORE," means you can go into some real depth, while offering just a maybe five-six paragraph opening bit that expresses your complete thought.

If you have enough to say, it can become a series of posts on a given topic. The next stage of development is that any topic can evolve into an article. But in general, when blogging, Cut To The Chase -- everybody's real busy these days.

Team Blogging
It's really just out-and-out, major Fun to be working on a blog with a team of like-minded (and -spirited) writers, and on such an intrinsically exciting topic. "Innovation," after all is really based on open-mindedness, awareness, whatever you call that elusive quality of really being present and paying attention to Life, as it is happening.

And the synergy -- I'm really enjoying the different styles and levels employed by each of the writers. For me, every new entry is a different version of "Wow!" This can't help but get you up for your own next offering.

Mitch, for instance, is the jazz musician, the sax player blowing these wild and crazy licks that make you sit up in your seat and go, "Yeah!" (Very Kerouac, here in the 50th anniversary year of "On The Road.")

The rest of us, Val Vadeboncoeur, Tim Moore, Farrell Reynolds and I, so far seem to be more into various degrees of working through the lines of reasoning, carefully link-annotating a wide range of reference points, in pursuit of the Comprehensive Statement. So a big part of my role has been to keep exhorting the troops to stay in touch with that modern feeling that Less Is More.

(You'll notice, if you read this far, that my theory far exceeds my practice. But we soldier on, trying to follow our own advice. And ain't that the way it so often is? But damn, do I wish Blogger had that-there extended entry thang.)

Great Ideas Dept.: Build at RR Stations; Auerbach as manager

(My recent posts in The Heart of Innovation; I notice there happens to be one each from New York and Boston.)

"Building 'Living Space' around Railroad Stations" (August 21)

"Imagine that at each major stop along the Long Island Rail Road, communities of housing, dining and shopping were built above existing parking lots. Parking garages would be underneath the new buildings.

"Given the location, generally within walking distance of an existing shopping area, residents would have little need for a car. A railroad station would no longer be a stop along a route, but a destination in itself. Even better, each of these hubs would be connected along the main arteries of the line." John Patrick Winberry, in Newsday.


"How the great Celtics teams won: by Keeping It Simple" (August 10)

With the supercharged Celts in the news, we go back some for Bob Cousy's view of Red Auerbach's managerial style. "Red wasn't worried about X's and O's. He seldom is. His approach is to go to the heart of the problem and try to solve it."

Half of all media will be created by consumers?

The Boston Globe's "Business Filter" recently ran an item on the (perhaps slightly self-serving) prediction of an ambitious podcaster that soon, "50% of all media consumed will be created by other consumers."

Naaaaah! IMHO, I just don't believe that most people have enough of the time and skill necessary to create stuff that's good enough to interest anyone beyond their family and friends. It takes a Huge amount of the former and a pretty fair amount of the latter to produce something that might appeal to any meaningful chunk of the Public, doesn't it?

The Filter's Maura Welch printed another ratio a while back that sounded a lot more accurate, which, to roughly paraphrase -- meaning, if I remember correctly -- was that out of 100 websurfers, one creates content, nine comment or add to it somehow, and the other 90 watch. (Hunting around for this link, which was a good one...)

Just look at any message board, a mature technology that should be trusted to show long-term behavior, that shows the ratio of messengers to lurkers, or the number of replies to a topic vs. the number of views. This may be the bottom of the ladder content-wise, but the root is usually a good place to start looking at something. (Yes, ladders have roots, too, so there's nothing wrong with that metaphor.)

I got involved in a discussion somewhere recently that showed 5 entries to over 1000 views of that topic. And that's in a medium where it's possible to create and post a message real quick-like, not like the development time required for anything more evolved, like videos, blogs, etc.

(Of course, I'll admit I still have some trouble relating to the term "podcasting" -- to me, "pods" first reminds me of what the Body Snatchers invaded in. And this is no laughing matter: look what they did to poor Donald Sutherland!)

Gehry, Bricklin, Prototyping; & "Repurposing Content"

The idea of recycling material, if you think about it, is as old as the human habit of telling stories. So I'm hoping that's a good enough explanation for why I'm basically republishing this post I wrote recently for the Heart of Innovation. : - )

That's the new blog I've been managing and writing in for Idea Champions, and frankly my attention has been primarily there lately, which is how it should be. So I'll be cross-posting bits that seem appropriate here, after giving them a week or some decent interlude from their original publication.

Frank Gehry's Designing By Prototype

Columnist Dale Dauten wrote recently about some of the insights on creative thinking gained from observing the revolutionary architect in "The Sketches of Frank Gehry," Director Sydney Pollack's first documentary, new on DVD. "We get to learn how a genius works," he writes.

"Frank Gehry is the architect who did the curving, soaring metal walls of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, as well as Disney Hall in Los Angeles. He is the one who lets us walk into 'out of the box.'

"During his early Gehry spent his time hanging out with artists rather than fellow architects.

"He works by taking sheets of heavy paper and making models out of them. Not blocks, not wood or Styrofoam, but paper. When one of the models becomes an idea worth pursuing, it goes through an evolution, a series of models of increasing sophistication."

Dauten, taking the dare, as it were, starts creatively cross-referencing:

"If we wanted to apply his style to, say, working on a new sales presentation, we wouldn't use other sales presentations for ideas, we'd use novels or plays, movies, paintings . . . maybe even, I don't know, zoos, or airports. And not just one, but dozens. Some would become rough models, several going at once."

"Inside the brain of a genius lies lessons on generating & implementing ideas" by Dale Dauten, 5/6/07. (Gehry's "Dancing Building" in Prague. Uploaded on Flickr by astilly.)

Rapid Prototyping, Dan Bricklin, & "Serious Play"

This reminded me of another recent read on the power of creating with the method of "rapid prototyping," from Dan Bricklin's blog. Bricklin is of course the co-inventor of the electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc (the original Excel, and the first "killer app" on what were then "personal computers"), among other programming breakthroughs in simplification.

(Continued...)

Delivering A Bouncing Baby Blog

I've recently had the ideal, exciting opportunity to manage a blog into existence for a company that I've been working with for a number of years. Talk about learning experiences, and on the more engaging end of the spectrum…

Idea Champions trains and consults on innovation, teamwork, etc., for companies like, GE, AT&T, and numerous other impressively-acronymed firms, and they'd wanted to start blogging for some time. But when your plate is too full some good food's bound to fall off, and then you usually wait until that dish is served again at a future meal.

Knowing they needed a little extra energy focused on a blog to get it over the top, I suggested I could author some pieces, but more importantly, spend regular time travelling the related roads of the blogosphere and Web to leave that all-important trail of linked breadcrumbs. Instead, they hired me to drive its creation and launch, too, and last week "The Heart of Innovation" had its debut.

Man, have I ever learned a lot -- both adding to what I'd already learned about blogging, and naturally, scads more. Software, especially in the interconnected world of online software, is practically infinite in its possibilities. So, especially with a new submedium like this, you wind up feeling like you're starting from scratch every single day.

Then there's the Team Startup factor: when five authors, including the company President, and a Web design-and-hosting firm are involved, you know it's going to take some time to get everyone on the same, frequently updated page.

Meanwhile, in my own little post factory here, it's inevitable that I'll talk more on a couple topics, and much to my delight because they're old favorites. The only difference is that now I have a further Legitimate Business Reason to write about the harnessing the practical power of innovation/ creativity/ ideation, and to write about writing, and publishing, via the always new "pushdown stack" of web-logging.

Related, here:
Planting Seeds of Synergy