The Fertile Unknown

Famous Last Words

Throughout history, natural resistance has shown up many ways...not the least of which is have been the "voices of reason" looking only at what currently exists to determine what can be. The change-makers were often the outcasts, fending for their creation, invention or vision with little support at best - and dyer, tortuous circumstances at worst. 

The following quotes, compiled by Mycoted, are examples of the push-back of status quo thinking felt by many a visionary and pioneer as they tried to introduce something new into the culture - whether in the world of business, science, academia, or technology:

• "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." --Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

• "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." --The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

• "But what ... is it good for?" --Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

• "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

• "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." --Western Union internal memo, 1876.

• "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

• "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." --A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

• "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

• "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind."

• "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." --Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

• "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." --Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

• "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." --Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

• "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." --Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

• "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" --Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

• "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." --1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

• "You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." --Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

• "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." --Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

• "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." --Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

• "Aeroplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." --Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

• "Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

• "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". --Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

• "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". --Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

• "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981

Fortunately, in our times of rapid change, where the challenges are great yet the innovative possibilities infinite, there is emerging, out of a sense of hopelessness for many, a new voice - the voice of post-reason. The voice of holistic creative integration. It is still a resisted voice, but it is gaining power in numbers and momentum energy. As an emergent collective voice, it embraces a decidedly non-conventional set of values and ways of being - those of exploration, discovery, creativity, innovation, and networked co-creation.

Creative Presentations

Ways to Enliven your Presentations 

1.  Increase you own energy to present from an energized state
2.  Break patterns - before and during the presentation
3.  Expand out of the norm (in inflection, movement, tone, etc.)
4.  Change your own uncertainty to discovery; interest into fascination
5.  Be willing to feel uncomfortable as you change you habit and hone your new skill
6.  Speak from your passion or something you are learning that is new to you
7.  Involve the audience – they are part of the journey

Integrate "right brain" multi-sensory methods with the more conventional "left brain" processes to support your points and bring your message to life

- Visual: pictures/graphics/colors/conceptual models/visual words
- Kinesthetic: movement/body use/feeling words
- Auditory: music/vocal changes/listening words
- Metaphors and Analogies
- Sensory descriptions: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell descriptors
- Both thinking and feeling words and images
- Storytelling/poetry/myth
- Games/improvisation
- Interactive experience with the audience

Empty Fullness

In Asian art, the empty space holds significance. Opposite of Western thinking in general, the empty space IS as equally the art as is the image itself.  The word "empty fullness" is a a good description of the emergence space. There is an inherent balance in emergence, a union of opposites in relationship. Fullness can only be fullness in relationship with emptiness, and both are needed for wholeness.  The known needs the unknown to be more fully known.

Internet: the Emergent Government?

Through the lens of creative emergence, the following speaks to structures that enable creativity, in all of its messiness, to flourish.  It is creativity begetting more creativity - and its ability to transform even our most monolithic current structures or create new ones aligned with the self-organizing creativity of natural systems...and reflect, engage, and create what is really important in the "global room." Posted by Ramla, in her post, Internet: true human government, and how!, on the blog NEXT:

The Internet is truly the government of the people, by the people, for the people. It does not exist to rule. It does not exist to create absurd laws. It is a collaborative space. It is inclusive, responsive, self-organizing, and evolving. It is a powerful source towards which the modern human is turning to share and to listen.

With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, everyone is invited. Those who manage or control collaborative spaces – say collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia – are people from all over the world themselves The Wikipeda administrators chosen by the people on a set of criteria of the people for the benefit of the people.

In fact, never before in the history of humankind has the democratic, the human-centric definition of government been seen in practice. Internet is not just any people’s government; Internet is the first truly human government.

Innovation Tours

I love what Innovation Trip is doing...part of the innovation immersion explosion that is emerging - along with the experience economy and creative consumers - and revolutionizing work culture. It is is a program arranged for global leaders - giving them in depth, diverse, real-world immersion experiences into innovative work cultures - to inspire and activate innovation and creativity in their organizations. Their tours include workshops and places to explore the US innovation and research industry inside out. From their website:

Innovation Trip is a new concept in corporate workshops and training programs for top and middle management. Innovation Trip adds excitement and effectiveness to the training by combining it with visit to places which will inspire executives to implement the topics that they learned. Innovation Trip facilitates this by provoking the power of imitation, seeing those things in action that have been formed by practical implementation of skills learned. Visit to man-made glories and innovative places awakens the belief in execution of challenging tasks and overcoming complex industry problems.

Mastering Brain States

If you are in the DC area on Wednesday, August 9, join us at the Capitol Creativity Network for:
 
Activate Your Creativity through Mastering Brain States 
Presented by Brian Morrissey, author of Ultimate Learning States and Brain States Mastery, and educator Linda Erdberg

The concepts behind Brain States Mastery were developed by Brian Morrissey after collecting and researching numerous samples of brain states via EEG (brain wave) technology. This data was assembled as individuals engaged in various activities, particularly in accelerated learning and memory. This knowledge will be presented in a practical process of self-discovery for enhancing creative performance.

http://capitolcreativitynetwork.com for details.

Creative Rules of Thumb

10 Creative Rules of Thumb
by Charles Chic Thompson

1. The best way to get great ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.
2. Create ideas that are 15 minutes ahead of their time...not light years ahead.
3. Always look for a second right answer.
4. If at first you don't succeed, take a break.
5. Write down your ideas before you forget them.
6. If everyone says you are wrong, you're one step ahead. If everyone laughs at you,
    you're two steps ahead.
7. The answer to your problem "pre-exists." You need to ask the right question to
    reveal the answer.
8. When you ask a dumb question, you get a smart answer.
9. Never solve a problem from its original perspective.
10. Visualize your problem as solved before solving it.

Creativity: The Constant Invitation

Creativity is not just the domain of those in the arts - it's there for everyone all the time. As much as we have been trained, educated and socialized out of our natural creativity in our work culture, it still knocks on our door every moment of every day, beckoning our engagement. We can heed its call or go back to life as usual, apologizing for any bit of creativity that might seep out in between the serious business of life and the serious life of business. But what if it is the lack of valuing - and nurturing - creativity that made the business of life so serious in the first place? 

Creativity makes the impossible possible by creating and window, the threshold, the pathway into what is possible and what is next. It transforms perceived limitations into surprising opportunities. It frees us from our current realities and insists on new choices and multiples options. Creativity doesn’t pick favorites. It doesn’t leave anyone out on the sidelines. It gives unconditional regard, and the constant invitation to play...to all. It doesn’t care about job title, educational level, socioeconomic status, religious belief or cultural background. It is there, in infinite availability, for all to indulge.

Creativity is the thread that connects the previously disconnected: the bond that unifies that which is divided. Creativity is what brings concepts to life. It makes the internal external, the imagined real, and the dreamed actualized. It bridges and transcends worlds. It solves problems, expands possibilities, heightens awareness, and animates life. Creativity is giving, nurturing, generative and expansive. It moves us towards more freedom. It is a diplomat, a healer, a communicator, and a sage.

There is so much life within us, yearning to bubble up in the surface. Creativity is the great animator. It infuses our current structures and systems and allows new forms to emerge. Creativity is always there, waiting, ready to be harnessed, utilized, cultivated and expressed to bring us to life. Along with love, creativity is at the core essence of being human.

Image:  My perception of a creative burst, painted 2003