Creativity: It’s Nothing New

In a recent article, Scott Berkun outlines some thoughts about innovation that have also been brought up often in recent team discussions. The bottom line of both the article and our discussions is that effective creativity (as opposed to self-expression) is not usually something 100% original, but an arrangement of existing parts or ideas in novel ways. What’s often required to solve a problem is not “original genius,” but curiosity, keen observation, and persistence.

Here are some key quotes from Scott’s excellent article :

• The biggest secret of innovation is that anyone can do it.
• The common trap about newness is the assumption that new means something the universe has never seen before. This turns out to be the third most ridiculous assumption in the history of mankind.
• As long as your idea, or your use of an existing idea, is new to the person you are creating it for, or applies an existing concept in a new way, you qualify as an innovator from their point of view, and that’s all that matters.
• The tool kit of every innovator typically includes three things: questions, experiments, and self-reliance.
• Progress depends on people thinking independently and following their curiosity as far as they can, including doing things others around them refuse to try.

posted by ted on Monday, Mar 17, 2008 · 0 comments

The Intersection of Inspiration and Innovation

(Re-posted by request.) One of the neat things about working for the Church is that every once in a while, you get to hear how the systems you help develop are used by the Church’s general authorities.

In March 2007, the New Era magazine published an entire issue dedicated to helping young men and women prepare spiritually and practically to serve a mission for the Church. One of the articles describes how a prospective missionary can fill out the required paperwork, using a web application developed and deployed in the past few years.

A sidebar in the same article describes how Elder Henry B. Eyring records new missionary assignments as given to him by the Spirit:

All my life, from the time I have been a young boy and as far back as I can remember, I have had experiences feeling of the Holy Ghost. … But I’ve never felt what I have felt as I have … participated in the assigning of missionaries. …

We go into a room, and … it will be a two-or three-hour session and sometimes longer. Because of technology, it is possible for us to have your picture and the information about you displayed. And then quickly, on that same screen, all the missions of the Church with all of their needs are displayed. Within minutes, and sometimes less than a minute, the impression comes so powerfully that it would be, if it were a single instance, something that you would never forget. Can you imagine sitting there for hours at a time, having that happen time after time without interruption? I testify to you that it is real. …

In a world so large, the Creator … somehow not only knows you but loves you enough to ensure that your call is where He needs you to go to teach the children of our Heavenly Father.

Working on cool technology is one thing. Working on cool technology that’s used to further the work of the Lord is something else.

And knowing that the software you work on is being used by an apostle under inspired circumstances like this is priceless.

posted by ted on Monday, Jul 30, 2007