Posted by Reilly Atkinson on January 24, 2000 at 13:53:57:

In Reply to: Re: Innovation and KM (why can't we accept fuzziness?) posted by Kees de Vos on January 24, 2000 at 04:14:29:

Kees -- First, the quote about giants is properly ascribed to Newton; something he wrote. And he said, in effect, by standing on their shoulders, he could see a little farther. That is, he certainly did not greatly rearrange "Lego pieces", but rather he amplified and explained the current world view due to Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo and the like, and the Church-- the Universe was the Sensorium of God. He polished the picture, and filled in many holes. His work was quickly accepted because of its immense practicality, navigation, ballistics, and all
that stuff. Like many scientists, Newton was out to explain things; light, motion, planetary orbits, not to build a new view of the Universe. And, that new view came largely from others, and took many years to formulate.

Einstein's work on light quanta,& special relativity was substantially rejected by many physicists -- and this work was motivated by quite specific problems. We are not talking Lego rearangements, rather holes to be filled. Same thing with Feynman; his seminal work on QED was initially soundly rejected. Here are cases where the best innovations were initially quite unwelcome, they were not obvious at all, as any physics student will tell you.

The wide scale acceptance of much original work often takes time, and, usually, requires kindly uncles. For example, the idea of "Space Time" is not due to Einstein, but to H. Minkowski, a mathematician.

If you will actually read Einstein on Einstein, or A. Pais, or M. Born on Einstein, or physics texts you will see that your notion of Einstein's work is, I'm afraid to say, quite simply incorect. No rearangements at all; he came up with new whole cloth, if you will. His originality is staggering. The truth of Einstein is in the physics, not the spin.

The whole issue of creativity and innovation is excessively complex, touching as it does on all facets of human life. It is in this context that I suggest that the Lego metaphor is greatly oversimplified, highly romanticised, and without much merit as a guide to working with innovation in most any circumstances. I say this with no disrespect. Creativity and innovation are clearly highly important, and deserve in theory and in practice our finest attention and effort. And, there has been an enormous body of work done on these issues, with some success here and there -- why even Freud touched upon the matter, sublimation and all that. So again I suggest, in order to see the richness and importance of past work, read one of the seminal books on the subject: The Psychchology of Mathematical Innvention, Jaques Hadamard( he discusses the "Eureka" moment in great detail from an empirical view); also you will find interesting takes on the minds of the folks who created computers, the InterNet&... in Darwin Among the Machines,George Dyson ( the son of Freeman Dyson), Creativity by M. Csikszentmihalyi ( the Flow guy), just for starters.

These books will suggest in some detail why the Lego metaphor does not cut it. Also, they will explain that many scientists, artists & writers as well, work in and with the fuzziness you describe - although that fuzziness is more likely to be due to ambiguity, or frustration, than to missing data. They will take you beyond the realm of discussion.

For a different take, talk to people on the creative side of PR and advertising; creativity is their entire game.

Regards,
Reilly

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Innovation and KM (why can't we accept fuzziness?) Christina 12:07:42 04/05/00 (0)
• Re: Innovation and KM (why can't we accept fuzziness?) Kees de Vos 03:12:44 01/25/00 (1)
  • Re: Innovation and KM (why can't we accept fuzziness?) Reilly Atkinson 21:15:26 01/25/00 (0)

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