----- Original Message ----- From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 11:35 PM Subject: Re: Religion, the good side
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 11:01:09PM -0600, Dan Minette wrote: > > > Good lord, an innovative technique, including coming up with a > > radically new design, building and testing hardware, all within a > > year? > > If they spent 6 hours per day working and it took two years, then yes, > it is likely it could be done in one year if they spent 12 hours. Isn't that like saying if you can run a marathon in 2 hours and 15 minutes, you should be able to run 200 miles in 16 hours? I can't keep peak efficiency for creativity for more than an hour at most. I've lead a team under intense time pressure, implementing a design after the creative work was done. Yet, we couldn't work steady 12 hour days without causing more harm than good. > > > But, the creative stuff requires me to do things like clean the > > kitchen, play golf, etc. in order to solve the problem. When I stop > > looking at the problem, the solution appears. > > And the solution probably would have appeared faster if you weren't > doing those other things. There are lots of things you can do to change > your viewpoint on a problem, talk to others about it, read books, make a > list of all possible solutions that have worked in the past for related > problems, check your journal of ideas that you keep, or any of another > million ways that you can look up in various problem solving books. Very few creative people I know are list creators. Very few creative people I know go to problem solving books. That's good for solutions to mundane problems, not real creativity. The real trick for creativity is to not work consciously. Its to let the back of your mind do the work. So, part of the problem is to distract the front of your mind to keep it from interfering. >It isn't the golf that helps you solve the problem, it is the process >of looking at the problem from a different angle. And there are more >efficient ways to do that than golf. OK, out of curiosity, what's your track record for creative solutions that are copied by the rest of the industry? You are saying something that contradicts the general understanding of the most creative productive folks I know. I'm not trying to be insulting, but I would be more likely to give your ideas the same weight as those who have if you've accomplished what they have. Indeed, we may just have to agree to disagree on this point. But, I'd be interested in your experience with industry leading creativity. If there is more than one way to skin the cat, then there are more things that I can try when stumped. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
