Creativity is just connecting things
Ivan | Sun, 2010-06-06 17:58
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.
The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
- Steve Jobs
Commenting on this Blog entry is closed.
HAhaHAhaHa heeeee!
Creativity is a corporate thing!
You put a committee of really smart people together, have them work on the problem, debate, compromise and vote! THAT is how you do creativity!
http://stevefakeballmer.wordpress.com
I am not Steve Ballmer pretending not to be me!
Few days ago I read on a blog I visit every day... I read your comment and some parts I loved from that article came out to my mind:
“a camel is a horse designed by committee.” A variation is “a Volvo is a Porsche designed by committee.” Some of the best product advice I’ve ever heard goes something like “damn what the users want, charge towards your dream.” All of these statements are, of course, saying the same thing. When there are too many cooks in the kitchen all you get is a mess. And when too many people have product input, you’ve got lots of features but no soul.
Product should be a dictatorship, not consensus-driven. There are casualties, hurt feelings, angry users. But all of those things are necessary if you’re going to create something unique. The iPhone is clearly a vision of a single core team, or maybe even one man. It happened to be a good dream, and that device now dominates mobile culture. But it’s extremely unlikely Apple would have ever built it if they conducted lots of focus groups and customer outreach first. No keyboard? Please.
All my best,
Alan.
well said steve.
Bravo!!!
I agree completely. In fact, I am always amazed (and disgusted) when someone looks at an abstract work of art and claim they can do it themselves because of its simplicity.
Really? Can you? The whole point is the artist had the vision and imagination to execute it, what did they contribute?
Exactly.
Love this. Thanks for posting, Ivan!
--------
"I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy as long as I can paint." ~ Frida Kahlo
www.onegirlcreative.com
Total gobbolly gook!
http://stevefakeballmer.wordpress.com
I am not Steve Ballmer pretending not to be me!
This seems to be a good analogy. I never really thought of it like this, but it makes good sense. This makes me feel good since I have all types of experiences to draw from.
www.dwaynecasey.com