

The Myth Of Creativity - nearfar
http://hanson.gmu.edu/press/BusinessWeek-7-3-06.htm

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Dnewz
While I see value in the overall message, I think the author sets up a false
dichotomy that somehow suggests there's a gulf between creative invention and
pragramtic diligence. This is often something I run into - this notion that
creativity equals flights of fancy, non-realist, ungrounded. On the contrary,
creating, is in my mind, the wisdom to use the opportunities and resources
close by, whether internal or external, to be productive in ways that exceed
beyond what would be easy. Creativity and results can not be separated.

~~~
_delirium
Yeah, I think there's this odd view that creativity is _ex nihilo_ , an
unexplainable intercession from the cosmos that disrupts the usual ways of
thinking. Since an area I care about is creativity in AI systems, we very much
hope that isn't true, because simulating intercessions from the cosmos on
computers is hard. ;-)

Although it's got all sorts of things I disagree with, a decent overview of,
"can we nail down creativity more specifically than just 'flash of
inspiration'?", and in particular how it ties in with "normal" problem
solving, is Margaret Boden's book: [http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Mind-Myths-
Mechanisms/dp/0415...](http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Mind-Myths-
Mechanisms/dp/0415314534)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _simulating intercessions from the cosmos on computers is hard._

Cosmic ray radiation affects computers all the time.

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moserware
The author, Robin Hanson, has done some really great work in prediction
markets. One of his papers directly led to the founding of Inkling Markets
(YC06).

I sort of get the feeling that this article was indirectly referring to his
involvement in the very creative, but highly politicized "Policy Analysis
Market" which was a DARPA sponsored prediction market that might have included
trading on topics such "a missile attack by North Korea" or "the overthrow of
the king of Jordan."

Given how that went down, this article makes much more sense.

Details at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market>

~~~
kes
I knew that I recognized his name. He writes <http://overcomingbias.com/>
which, along with <http://lesswrong.com/> keeps me making sense.

(Both are worth reading regularly.)

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jorleif
I agree with him that mostly the bottleneck is not in idea generation, but in
what you do with the ideas that you and others have. Unfortunately, he does
not really address the "doing" part, except by saying diligence is good. Sure,
but you also need audacity to push good ideas against resistance. You need an
open mind to use the best ideas of others. To me diligence implies doing what
you're told, but I don't think that will result in too much innovation,
because that presumes that your boss understands the value of the new thing as
well as you do, which is very rarely the case.

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T_S_
Words always get mangled in meaning when the enter the business vocabulary.
"Leadership" is a good example. We don't really need that many Winston
Churchills, and probably couldn't survive having them. Nevertheless we admire
the quality of leadership want to emulate it. From what I have distilled over
years in the corporate world, its practical meaning there has become "Having
the guts to suck it up and get with the program."

So it goes with the word creative. No longer will we judge an artist to be
creative by considering only the impression their work makes on the mind,
without reference to the price of their work. Instead it will refer to the
ability to generate unexpected profits with a limited set of resources by
"delighting" the customer.

Exit leadership, enter creativity.

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RyanMcGreal
>Instead, the innovations that matter most are the millions of small changes
we constantly make to our billions of daily procedures and arrangements.

This is true, but it's important to understand that whole categories of
employment actually discourage and even forbid employees from adapting their
own workflows to be more productive. Instead their workflows are imposed,
often haphazardly or arbitrarily, from above - and often from people who have
never actually performed the work they're managing. Workers who are denied any
ownership of their own work are all but guaranteed to be cynical and
unproductive.

------
defdac
Successful innovators usally knows that genius is 1% inspiration or creativity
and 99% transpiration - hard work to implement the idea or several ideas until
the successful idea and it's implementation is found.

~~~
chegra84
"successful innovators" lol. I have this idea that it takes more than one
person to be successful. I think you rarely find the guy with the
revolutionary idea and the guy that is the determine hard worker to be the
same person. The ideas person is normally a dreamer and likes to change ideas
quickly while the determine hard worker is diligent and hates change.

According to Meredith Belbin - "NOBODY'S PERFECT - BUT A TEAM CAN BE"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Belbin>

Although on the surface one person gets all the glory, it takes alot of
persons to be successful.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
>I think you rarely find the guy with the revolutionary idea and the guy that
is the determine hard worker to be the same person.

I disagree. The only way to arrive at a workable revolutionary idea is to
iterate aggressively until you hit on a model that works.

~~~
chegra84
Absolutes... words like only...Successfully Entrepreneurs. Be reasonable and
say for some workable revolutionary idea. You'll are creating a dogma about
entrepreneurship.

It only takes one counter example to brake your false notion of
entrepreneurship.

Facebook - when it came out was a hit.

Google Search - they were good from the start, the interface rarely changed

eBay - Unexcepted hit. [The majority of their iteration was done after they
were successful] -There is something called luck. For people that arent
superstars maybe you are right. All am asking is to be reasonable and say
some, not all.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
You can't warn credibly against absolutes right after writing a generalization
like this:

> I think you rarely find the guy with the revolutionary idea and the guy that
> is the determine hard worker to be the same person. The ideas person is
> normally a dreamer and likes to change ideas quickly while the determine
> hard worker is diligent and hates change.

These are caricatures that reinforce the false dichotomy between creativity
and hard work.

~~~
chegra84
Rarely is not an absolute.Rarely leaves room for outliers, And before rarely,
i added i think, making it clear i have no evidence to back this up.

Only - is an absolute. You made no effort to indicate it was an opinion but
you present it as an absolute truth.

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bitwize
The only time I was ever told to "think outside the box" it was because, in my
arrogance and hubris, I stubbornly refused to believe or accept something that
was completely untenable.

~~~
goodmitton
I frequently see "think outside the box" on many job postings on craigslist as
if you can either have it or you don't type of attitude.

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StevenObua
This author sounds boring.

