Category: creativity

When to Decide That a Goal is Not Meant to be Reached

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at” is a famous Bruce Lee quote.

We need to be able to let go when we don’t reach our goals but progress towards them has been sufficient.

  • Light House in Stormy NightSome people don’t have goals. They err aimlessly in the world and will never get anywhere.
  • Some other people have goals and will be relentless until they reach them. Sometimes these people are visionaries that suffer from never reaching their goals. Or, they suffer when they reach their goal and figure out they are not satisfied. They might be producing great things but remain frustrated.
  • Some other people have goals, and know when to decide that progress has been sufficient and that they now need to update their goals, without reaching their original aim. How can they decide this change without feeling regrets of changing path without having accomplished their quest? One simple criteria applies: when the new goal is more exciting and appears more fulfilling than the previous goal.

Don’t change goal every other day, but recognize that only excitement and passion will drive you to do new stuff. If you find a new goal that is more compelling to the point that the previous goal looks dull and unattractive, switch. And, above all, don’t feel regrets and let go of any that might remain.

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Creativity and Design by Subtraction

I bumped into a few references to the fact that creation and design is often powerfully achieved by subtraction.

creativity is subtraction
Creativity is subtraction, by Austin Kleon

In “Perfect Pitch“, a book about how to present advertising concepts and ideas, Jon Steel mentions his “belief that creativity is not, as many people believe, a process of invention from nothing. Instead, it is a painstaking exercise in reduction, of removing all the bits that don’t look like a great idea“. He uses the example of the unhewn rock that the sculptor will transform into a masterpiece.

Similarly, this quote of Jonathan Ive, the famous Apple designer: “A lot of what we seem to be doing in a product like [the iPhone] is actually getting design out of the way. And I think with that sort of reason — and they’re not just arbitrary shapes — it feels almost inevitable. It feels almost undesigned. It feels almost like, “Well, of course it’s that way. Why would it be any other way?”” (hat tip to Valeria Maltoni in this Conversation Agent post).

Maybe instead of constantly trying to add features to our lives and products we should take a deep breath and take out everything which is not indispensable – and thereby create great value. What do you think?

The picture is by Austin Kleon, an excellent writer on the topic of creativity, in books such as Newspaper Blackout or Steal Like An Artist.

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Re-imagining Work – Fourth Revolution applied (Video)

This excellent video from RSA Animate features Dave Coplin,  Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft, explaining the future of Work – how it shifts with the digital revolution.

This video gives another perspective on the fact that Work as we were envisioning it in the Industrial Age is going to be deeply transformed by the Fourth Revolution: “The ways we live our working life today has become outdated“. And, it mentions how the concept of productivity is obsolete – not only obsolete – “it is fast becoming the problem“. The video also presents some interesting considerations on office space!

Plus, you’ll really enjoy the great illustrations as usual with RSA talks!


If you can’t see the video, follow this link.

Hat tip to Valeria Maltoni for this nugget. In her post she adds more comments on how she sees the future of work – in particular, that “One thing is for sure, a culture of openness remains scary for most organizations, as well as the people who work in them.” Interesting thought!

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Should your work be your (only) passion?

I stumbled upon another great post by Amber Naslund, ‘Do What You Love. Right? Almost.‘

work and passion
Should your work be your passion?

In the post she explains how she has difficulty accepting the mantra ‘your work should be your passion’. She describes some experiences where she converted her passion in work and it did not work out! Too much strain and too much focus almost killed her passion. Her advice is then to be careful and not necessarily mix the two together. And while work should be interesting, she states that it is also important to have a passion outside work.

The contrary argument of course, is that if you want to become good at what you are doing, you should be a minimum passionate about it otherwise you won’t put in the effort required.

All in all, and that’s an advice that can be found in several places, it is probably safe to say that you should be passionate about your work, AND at the same time, have a great passion outside work for the balance.

What about you?

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Why 3D objects’ piracy debate just starts!

In the last months there has been an increased attention and writing about piracy for 3D objects, following the continuous success and spread of 3D scanners and printers. A good summary of the 3D piracy issue is available in this Quartz post. A good summary of the development of 3D printing and the associated issues is available on the Economist here (although it dates back Sept’ 2012 it is still a good paper).

A Do-it-yourself 3-D printer
A Do-it-yourself 3-D printer

Authorities start to get worried (see this link on the US Copyright enforcer’s concerns). Because the issue is about sharing the files that describe the 3D objects freely, it would be possible to enforce the same type of measures than the ones currently enforced by the music and video industries regarding copyrighted material. However it will certainly prove more challenging to decide whether the file is really an infringement. It is probably more difficult to figure out what the object really looks like compared to a music or video stream!

Anyway, once again we observe that the Fourth Revolution is challenging traditional, established industries and institutions in a new way. There will be a struggle, there will be a debate, and finally we’ll see emerge a new balance between the needs to the creator and the industry that supports it. Let’s watch how other institutions will change!

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When Imitated, it Means You’re on the Right Track! Persist!

Following on our blog post about competition, most people tend to get angry, frustrated and fearful when they realize what they are doing is being imitated. Wrong! That’s absolutely fantastic! It just means that what you are doing is so great that people believe it is worth imitating!

When imitated, that's great news.
When imitated, that’s great news. Don’t retaliate, innovate more!

As Pamela Slim says, “When you are great at what you do, people are bound to imitate you. Sometimes they will try to steal your  intellectual property, or students, or employees or business model, or artistic genre. It is natural to get upset when this happens. But instead of fighting with the imitator, move on to innovate the next stage of your work. If you are doing your job well, your work is constantly improving and growing. Imitate that.”

And she continues with this marvelous formula: “When imitated, don’t retaliate, innovate.”

We could argue on the contrary: when nobody cares to imitate you, maybe what you are doing is not at the right level?

More great thoughts from Pam Slim in her post 10 Ways to Develop a Mastery Mindset

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Why You Should Not Care So Much About Your Competition

There is an idea that comes back again and again in all leadership and management books: don’t care so much about your competitors. Instead, concentrate your focus, energy and creativity in creating an awesome product. Be pro-active instead of being re-active.

How often do you think about your competition?
How often do you think about your competition?

This comes as a realization that organizations and individuals often spend too much time spying out what the competition is doing. Whether they would create some product that could push them out of the market. Fear is created. Actions become reactions instead of initiatives.

Many of the most successful ventures never cared about competition or imitation. They went their own way.

Some other successful ventures start life by imitating the competition (often because they were created by some former employees) and then, only, progressively, create their own way.

The thing is: you can never be the same as your competition. There are always areas where you’ll be weaker, and areas where you’ll be stronger. Don’t try to level up your competitor by working on your weak areas. Work on your strengths instead. And by doing so, create something truly unique. And the best is, this works for organizations as well as for individuals!

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How to Exploit the Fact that Life is Richer at the Interfaces

It is a constant biological observation that life is always richer at the interface. Take intertidal zones (the zones that are covered and uncovered by tides), the interface between the sea and the air, between earth and the atmosphere etc… On the reverse, life is much poorer in the middle of all single environments. And those animals and plants living at the interface are also much more adaptable to all sorts of new circumstances.

Rich life in intertidal zones
Rich life in intertidal zones

It is the same in life and business. However we have been educated to live best in a single environment and we are often unconfortable to sit at the edge of our environment or at the interface between two disciplines.

This is a mistake because opportunities are much richer there. First, there is much less competition because it means that you are able to be comfortable in at least two different environments. Second, it gives great opportunities to connect people and resources of both environments to create something new of high value. Third, it is the source of fantastic creativity when it comes to transferring to an other environment the knowledge gained elsewhere.

Don’t develop your career in a single environment. Make sure you can be comfortable at the Interfaces, at the fringe. This will give you an edge and allow you to create unprecedented value.

Next time you think about where to develop yourself professionally or personally, think about interfaces and how rich they can be in opportunities!

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Launching the Innovation Renaissance, About the Law of Diminishing Innovation

Alex Tabarrok is economist and has written a short essay on ‘Launching the Innovation Renaissance‘. In this highly recommended book he analyses the current issues related to innovation – such as patents, education system and corporate rewards.

The Tabarrok curve of decreased innovation when patent protection exceeds a certain level
The Tabarrok curve of decreased innovation when patent protection exceeds a certain level

Alex Tabarrok is also known for the Tabarrok curve of decreasing innovation when patent protection increases beyond a certain level. Not dissimilar to the Laffer curve of diminishing tax returns when the tax burden increases!

His view on patents and how the increase in patent protection in the 1990’s in the US, in particular in the field of software patentability, is actually diminishing innovation instead of fostering it, is very interesting, and quite aligned with what we exposed in some early blog posts such as ‘How patent litigation cost half a trillion dollar inefficiency in the last 20 years!‘

It is quite a short book, very easy to read, and to the point. One small issue though is that it is very US-focused and would gain to be broadened more globally looking at the innovation issues world-wide. Issues are not the same everywhere, but at the end of the day innovation does benefit everybody.

Add it to your summer reading list!

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How 3D Printing Technology Shakes Consumer Protection Institutions

3-D printing is already shaking our institutions. The recent issue of a 3D printed gun – and the availability of the drawings for free on the web – has scared many. Governments are already considering how they should change the regulations around weapon acquisition and export; on the other side hackers defend the freedom of internet.

3D printed gunsCory Doctorow, an expert on the internet regulation (and generally, a proponent of a large freedom), fears that these events will lead to inappropriate regulations of internet content, due to the fact that judges and societies will be scared by the object.

For guns, regulations might change to address ammunition rather than guns (nobody has yet managed to 3-D print live ammunition and it will take a long time before anybody can do that), but in any case, drastic changes will necessarily happen.

Guns are a very polarizing issue. But what about more conventional liability for hurting someone with a 3D printed object, or damage to property? How liable would be the person who put the design on internet, in a 3D enthusiast forum and who lives at the other end of the planet? How would the entire sets of regulations developed to protect the consumer from defects in products need to change?

All these questions are in the air. Because the institution of manufacturing changes, so needs also the entire set of regulation, or regulatory authorities. It is just the start of a drastic revolution. Watch how it unfolds over the next few months!

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First hand evidence that our traditional schools are obsolete (Video)

For those of you interested by education or training, the following video is a MUST-WATCH. It explains from where our current education comes from, why “schools as we know them are obsolete, why we don’t need them anymore”. It shows how children can learn collectively from a computer in a brick wall in India, and how a school can be built in the cloud with grand mothers and passionate adults to collaboratively educate millions of children.

It also shows how we can collectively learn much better than by ourselves! “In 9 months a group of Indian children left alone with a computer will reach the level of an office secretary in the West“. Amazing? Scary? How fast do you guess will tamil-speaking children in a remote village in South India learn the techniques of DNA replication in English by themselves? Watch out!

The next time you want to teach a group something completely new, dig a hole in the wall, put a computer with the topic and let them play with it until they get it!

For further insights on the issue of education, TED is curating a page dealing with the educational revolution (Re-imagining School), grouping all the talks about the topic.

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How to Really Being Productive in the Collaborative Age

“Being productive isn’t about wringing every last minute out of every day doing something or checking stuff off a to-do list and building a relentlessly efficient system that allows nothing through the cracks.” – Amber Naslund

Productive Ape
Is that the way you are productive?

Now that’s quite an interesting thought, which is further developed in this blog post “Rethinking Productivity“.

Amber Naslund is an entrepreneur and she’s working in social networks business. She’s quite advanced in the Fourth Revolution. So, no wonder that when she looks at productivity, she looks at it from the point of view of the K.E.E.N. (Knowledge Exchanging Enhancing Networker): productivity of the K.E.E.N. is very much about creativity, not about repeating tasks efficiently!…

Let’s leave the last word to Amber:

“We need time to float along on the breeze. Have a casual, spontaneous conversation. Enjoy some silence. Write a bunch of random stuff that we never finish, and be okay with that. Productivity, at its essence, means being able to bring things about.”

The good thing, is that it just killed our guilt of doodling around (next time you’re asked, say that you are growing your next ideas)!

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